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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Tumbleweed on April 05, 2021, 10:21:19 AM

Title: A3000D Boot Issues
Post by: Tumbleweed on April 05, 2021, 10:21:19 AM
Hi all,

After many years in hibernation I fired up my A3000D the other day. I last booted it a couple of years ago and been sat in my office ever since. First problem I encountered the machine wouldnt boot from the onboard scsi drive. This used to happen but I could resolve it by warm resetting after the drive had spun up. Not this time though. Several warm resets and still no luck.

Got it booting off of floppy though and HDToolbox reported the internal SCSI HD and external SCSI CD Rom. Thought problem was due to bad termination. SCSI chain checked out though. There are no resistor packs on the motherboard. Resistors are present on the HD and the CD Rom is terminated. After much fiddling machine booted in to Workbench off the HD. Hey presto all ok. Set up and configured the Picasso II gfx card. All ok. Installed Z3 fastlane; all ok.

Installed Cyberstorm MK11 68060. And then it went pearshaped. Installed CS libs - new 68040 and 68060 libs in Libs. Started getting cheksum errors when installing OS3.9. Was running 3.1 upto that point.

Stopped booting off SCSI HD. Could still boot into WB off floppy. HDToolbox still reporting scsi devices - HD and CDRom but neither of them being seen when booting from Os3.9 emergency disk.

After alot of googling I removed the RTC clock chip. Removed cyberstorm. Removed Picasso and Z3. Machine booted off floppy but cause OS3.9 install failed wouldnt auto boot off HD. Used HDToolbox and prepped HD again. Seemed ok.

Installed Cyberstorm; Z3 and Picasso. Started to install OS3.9 and gain checksum error. Install failed.

Warm reset. Emergency floppy in drive. Booted then couldnt see HD or CD Rom again.

Removed Cyberstorm; Z3; Picasso; Switched on. Floppy light came on and then Kickstart screen. Insert floppy - WB3.1 install disk. Now wont see the disk. Switch off. Left disk in floppy drive. Switch on - boots to WB but wont detect disk changes or recognise when there is no disk in floppy drive - DF0. Also floppy no longer clocks which makes me think the system is not polling the floppy drive - problem with Denise?

Machine had barrel battery replaced by previous owner. I removed the replacement battery. Area around battery looks okish. Couple resistors look not too good. R469 looks to have corrosion. See pics. Agnes also gets warm - makes me think Ive damaged something when I removed the RTC chip.

Anyone got any ideas as to what the prob could be?





Title: Re: A3000D Boot Issues
Post by: Pat the Cat on April 05, 2021, 04:55:36 PM
Floppy CHNG signal is read by one of the CIA chips, not Denise.

It could be the drive is no longer sending the signal. Ideally, try with a different drive. Also check the cable (pin 2 is the signal for CHNG).

Your problems seemed to start when adding all your cards, has the power supply ever been replaced or even recapped? Because a failing 12V could have lead to your read/write errors on the system drive.

Title: Re: A3000D Boot Issues
Post by: Tumbleweed on April 07, 2021, 07:14:23 PM
"Your problems seemed to start when adding all your cards".

Got it sorted! Plugged an old external floppy drive in. Booted off it. DF0:??? showing on workbench. Check the cables plugged into internal drive. There was the problem. I had dislodged the ribbon cable out of the floppy when I had removed the cards.

Now to see if I can get the SCSI working.

Thanks for your help much appreciated.

Weed
Title: Re: A3000D Boot Issues
Post by: Matt_H on April 08, 2021, 04:04:34 AM
When dealing with wonky clock/SCSI issues on a 3000, a good first step is SetBatt (http://aminet.net/package/util/wb/SetBatt-1.2). Use the amnesia option to clear/reset the settings.
Title: Re: A3000D Boot Issues
Post by: Pat the Cat on April 08, 2021, 09:38:24 AM
Perhaps it might be best to just install processor card and  then install operating system. Leave the other cards off until after you've got a successful WB3.9 install.

That seems to be the step failing which has conspicuously not been happening. Why doesn't the hard drive like it?

I don't know how you are fixed for capacity but you can have multiple bootable partitions.

Also might be an issue with how you are partitioning the drive maybe. That's what throws the install? 3.1 it's OK but not 3.9.
Title: Re: A3000D Boot Issues
Post by: Tumbleweed on April 08, 2021, 06:03:39 PM
Cheers Matt.

Ive had a look at that utility. Problem I have is how do I get it onto a 3.5 inch floppy the A300o will read? I can download and unpack using WinUAE and then write to CD on my PC but I cant get the SCSI CD Rom to work to then write it to the 3.5 inch floppy.

I can write it to a USB stick and then use my Deneb card to read it but I cant get the Deneb working till I get the A3000 SCSI drive working to then install Poseidon.

I don't have a PC with a 3.5 inch floppy drive to be able to use cross dos.

Its a bit of a tricky one.

Best.
Weed



Title: Re: A3000D Boot Issues
Post by: Pat the Cat on April 09, 2021, 04:46:49 AM
Hmmm... OK, if you can get setbatt onto a CD - the issue becomes reading it on the Amiga side.

Is it possible for you to setup a WB 3.1 floppy with z3scsi.device on it, to let you try and mount the scsi CD drive using the Z3 Fastlane controller, to let you access the program on CD and run it to sort out the onboard controller?

I don't know if mounting the hard drive that way is really what you want, what you want is the hard drive being recognized by the onboard scsi controller. But it could be a workaround just to get that program run, and hopefully sort out the onboard controller.

Does this A3000 have real 3.1 ROMs, or is it softbooting Kickstart from original 1.4 ROMs and files stored on the hard drive?

Probably not important. And the Z3scsi.device driver is in the ROM of the card, so you really just need a suitable mountlist entry for CD0 in the devs/dosdrivers drawer of your boot floppy. And a compatible CD filesystem in your L diredctory of the boot floppy. That might just save the day.

A pain in the rear to connect the CD drive that way, but it should work.
Title: Re: A3000D Boot Issues
Post by: Tumbleweed on April 10, 2021, 07:38:07 PM
Hi all thanks for the ideas. I have tried connecting the CDRom to the Z3 but no joy. Reckon thats cause I dont have the z3 SCSI device. I could create a boot disk using Workbench and adding the Z3 Scsi devise to that but I still need to get "3Scsi device on the floppy. I dont think Ive got the install disk for the Z3. So back to square one.

What I have stumbled across is the Gotek drive. Ive ordered on and will connect it as a second floppy in the A3000 drive bay and then I can use a USB stick to get .adfs from the PC to the Amiga. Gotek was reasonably priced but it'll take about a week to arrive.

Fingers crossed that will work.  :D

Best.

Weed
Title: Re: A3000D Boot Issues
Post by: Tumbleweed on April 10, 2021, 08:18:36 PM
Just tried to use the Z3 to access the CDRom Drive. A3000 wont boot with drive plugged into Z3. I get a black screen. A3000 boots with Z3 in place but without CDRom drive plugged into it.

Couple of questions:

1. The Z3 has the terminating resistor packs in place - should these be removed? The onboard SCSI has the packs removed with them located on the SCSI drive.

2. When using HDToolbox it reports two SCSI devices. SCSI.Device and 2nd.SCSI.Device. It does not report Z3SCSI.device - should it?

Weed
Title: Re: A3000D Boot Issues
Post by: Pat the Cat on April 10, 2021, 08:47:16 PM
Just tried to use the Z3 to access the CDRom Drive. A3000 wont boot with drive plugged into Z3. I get a black screen. A3000 boots with Z3 in place but without CDRom drive plugged into it.

Couple of questions:

1. The Z3 has the terminating resistor packs in place - should these be removed? The onboard SCSI has the packs removed with them located on the SCSI drive.

2. When using HDToolbox it reports two SCSI devices. SCSI.Device and 2nd.SCSI.Device. It does not report Z3SCSI.device - should it?

Weed

1.Usually not. The convention is that the first device (controller) and last device on a scsi cable have the terminators.

2. HDToolbox has a tooltype in the icon to set which scsi.device it is working with (and so each controller). It defaults to scsi.device. On an A3000, that is the onboard scsi controller. Different kickstart version to A1200 or A4000, which obviously have IDE controllers onboard.

I suspect the Amigsa is having an issue with booting from the onboard scsi, which again is a default behaviour.

I did ask if the A3000 had real 3.1 ROMs or whether it loads up Kickstart from hard drive (original ROMs). These latter systems need care when changing the hard drive, as they need scsi boot partitions set up, They don't have the usual early startup menu (hold down both mouse buttons on booting), they give a choice of detected operating systems to boot from, and will load superkickstart disks from floppy if they can't find a suitable hard drive using the onboard scsi controller.

Bottom line is - your hard drive is almost dead if not totally dead already. Needs replacing. Might be causing an issue just by being plugged in to the onboard controller.

You can download Diskmasher images of the Z3 controller install floppies (various versions from earliest to most recent);-

http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/fastlane

Even a manual  if you can be bothered to translate it. The text can be copied and pasted so this isn't so difficult.
Title: Re: A3000D Boot Issues
Post by: Tumbleweed on April 10, 2021, 09:12:39 PM
Cheers Pat. Machine has 3.1 Roms on the board. I found the german version of the manual for the Z3 - translated to english using google translate. Terminators as you say should ordinarily be in place on the Z3.

Hopefully when I can make more progress when the Gotek arrives.

Best

Weed

Title: Re: A3000D Boot Issues
Post by: Pat the Cat on April 10, 2021, 11:27:14 PM


Hopefully when I can make more progress when the Gotek arrives.


Very handy devices. Take a bit of getting used to though, they do change the game a lot.

If you are doing emulation in a desktop, you might consider putting a scsi card in that. That way you could setup a new drive on an emulator. On the other hand, drives setup that way aren't guaranteed to work on genuine hardware.

I was a bit mystified why you were using onboard scsi when you have a faster Z3. The trick there is to fit just an external terminator to the onboard scsi, so it can quickly check no drives are connected. EDT: Might not work on the Z3 though. In theory you can swap over a scsi hard drive partition with a Rigid Disk Block and access it on any Amiga wiith any HD controller, assuming it's compliant in size with whatever driver is used on the target Amiga. In theory anything done on the onboard scsi shoud be go to go on the Z3, but no guarantees that anything setup on the Z3 will boot on the onboard scsi.

The thing with termination is - "last device on the cable" changes when you have external drives. If it's occasional use, it makes more sense to terminate the internal drive and the external drive. Because sometimes, the internal drive is the last device on the cable, and sometimes it isn't.

Real Kickstart on an A3000 makes drive replacement a lot easier.
Title: Re: A3000D Boot Issues
Post by: Tumbleweed on April 21, 2021, 06:45:09 PM
Hi pat  the Gotek finally arrived. A really great piece of kit. Came with a ready to go USB and DVD with tons of software - all my old fav games from the 90's.

After a bit of fiddling around I managed to get SetBatt onto the A3000. Ran it and I get this:

"logical SCSI units above 0 are not accessed" etc - is this 'normal'? What should it be if not and how can I use SetBatt to fix it?

Any guidance very much appreciated.

Weed!

Title: Re: A3000D Boot Issues
Post by: Matt_H on April 21, 2021, 06:59:51 PM
It just means that LUNs are disabled - perfectly normal, and the preferred running mode for almost all cases. LUNs are sometimes used on multi-CD changers and on SCSI multi-card readers (a different LUN for each slot). Enabling them adds complexity and slows down scanning the bus, so keep them off unless you have a specific use case that requires them.

What you want to do is clear the memory loss condition - I think it's "SettBatt amnesia". If that's not the correct argument, run "SettBatt ?" to get a list. The right argument will be obvious. :)
Title: Re: A3000D Boot Issues
Post by: Tumbleweed on April 21, 2021, 07:25:28 PM
Cheers Matt.

I got it working! Booted using the Gotek. Ran SetBatt A. Powered off. Reconnected the SCSI drive. Booted using the Gotek with Install 3.1 and then used HDTools to reconfigure the SCSI drive. Rebooted and bingo my Workbench and Work partitions are back. Just need to reinstall the OS and should be back in business. 

Thanks to all on the thread that helped me! Very much appreciated.

Weed
Title: Re: A3000D Boot Issues
Post by: Matt_H on April 21, 2021, 11:00:25 PM
Cheers Matt.

I got it working! Booted using the Gotek. Ran SetBatt A. Powered off. Reconnected the SCSI drive. Booted using the Gotek with Install 3.1 and then used HDTools to reconfigure the SCSI drive. Rebooted and bingo my Workbench and Work partitions are back. Just need to reinstall the OS and should be back in business. 

Thanks to all on the thread that helped me! Very much appreciated.

Weed

Ah, but the fun part comes when you reinstall all the expansion boards! Hope that all goes well, too.
Title: Re: A3000D Boot Issues
Post by: Tumbleweed on April 22, 2021, 06:07:06 PM
That part begins this weekend!

On a slightly different but related note. The A3000 has 3.1 roms and I have WB 3.1 and OS3.9. Which one is better to install?

When I last had it working I was running O3.9 with Boing Bags 1 and 2 plus the unofficial ones 3 and 4 installed. I also had some other patches and upgrades to libraries. With the CSMKII and Picasso II installed OS3.9 is my thinking. That said I see 3.1.4 is out but needs a rom update. Is it worth it? 3.1.4 vs 3.9 plus boing bags? What's folks views?

Weed!
Title: Re: A3000D Boot Issues
Post by: Matt_H on April 22, 2021, 07:07:15 PM
3.1.4 will run on a 3.1 ROM at the expense of some RAM - it has to kick in some module updates just like 3.9. There are rumors that 3.2 is imminent, so you may want to wait for that instead of going for 3.1.4.

That said, any of 3.1, 3.9, or 3.1.4 are good choices. I think you're right that 3.9 makes the most sense for now, especially since you have it on hand. 3.1.4 includes most of the improvements from 3.9, but not all of them, but does have additional bugfixes and improvements of its own. Ultimately, though, there's no wrong answer here.
Title: Re: A3000D Boot Issues
Post by: Tumbleweed on April 22, 2021, 07:10:49 PM
Cheers for that Matt. I'll install 3.9 and se how I go!

Best.

Weed!
Title: Re: A3000D Boot Issues
Post by: Tumbleweed on April 23, 2021, 07:46:47 PM
Looks like I was counting chickens.

Last night I partitioned the drive into three. DH0: Dh1 and DH2:

On DH0: I installed Workbench 3.1 and on DH1: I installed OS3.9. DH2: I left empty.

I installed the Z3 board between installing WB3.1 and OS3.9.

Everything ok.

Tonight, fired up the Amiga - no boot from HD. Back to insert WB disk screen. Booted off the Gotek. HD not showing.

Redid what I did last night. Ran SetBatt. Same output as I had last night - memory loss. So ran SetBatt A and did same as I did last night. HD still not showing.

Have removed the Z3 but makes no difference. HD still not showing.

Thought I had it sorted but now looks like IM back to where I started!  :(



Title: Re: A3000D Boot Issues
Post by: Pat the Cat on April 23, 2021, 11:06:32 PM
I would try settimg up the HD to boot from Z3 rather than onboard.

You seem pretty convinced the HD has been gradually dying, that might confirm it.

The question is whether the onboard controller is OK or not.
Title: Re: A3000D Boot Issues
Post by: Tumbleweed on April 24, 2021, 03:09:38 PM
Matt thanks for the tip.

I had no joy with the Z3. The A3000 does not have Buster 9. I think its 7. Z3 with the drive attached led to a black screen. I then dug out an old GVP II HC+8 that was in my Amiga 2000 (also not working  :()

Fitted it in A3000. Set it up using FAASTPREP and all is good. A3000D is happily booting off the HD on the GVP card. External CD Rom is also working via the GVP card.

I now have a funny issue with the expansion cards. The PicassoII wont work in the lowest Zorro slot. It used to. I can get it working if I put it in any other slot though. The set up I have now is as follows:

GVP HC in the lowest Zorro slot. SCSI drive connected to it. Card has 8 MB Ram. CDRom plugged into GVP card.
Next Slot up Empty
Picasso  II in the next slot
Z3 in the top slot. SCSI doesn't work (cause of the Buster being 7 not 9) bit it has got a decent amount of RAM on it which does work.

I have probs installing OS3.9 - resource.library missing. Looks like install from OS3.9 CD isnt working correctly. It might be because of a 68040 library issue. I had this and the 68060 library for the CSMKII. Have read this can cause probs with resource.library.  Now trying a clean install.

Weed!
Title: Re: A3000D Boot Issues
Post by: Matt_H on April 24, 2021, 07:11:18 PM
So it looks like the internal SCSI controller is misbehaving... Hmmm.... Could the drive be dying? Can you reseat the SCSI chip? Do you have an external terminator on the end of the chain? I'm leaning hard toward it being a termination/bus issue...

The Picasso II problems might be explained by the GVP card. Your Zorro II address space is over the 8MB limit. With 8MB on the GVP card and 2MB on the Picasso you're going to run into problems of some sort or another. Set the GVP card to 4MB of RAM and maybe you'll be back to normal (fingers crossed).
Title: Re: A3000D Boot Issues
Post by: Tumbleweed on April 24, 2021, 09:46:21 PM
Drive seems to be OK. Have now got eh MKII installed and OS3.9 running. PicassoII is working ok. I need to set up the screen modes correctly using Picasso Mode (I forgot how fiddly this can be!).

Os3.9 HDToolBox tools shows all three scsi devices: Scsi.device; gvpscsi.device and z3scsi.device.

Got WHDLoad installed and running populous II ok. Takes me back to my youth.

I'm tempted to leave it as is as its working but it irks me that the SCSI drive is not on the native controller as I've lost a Zorro slot which I was going use for my network card to get it back on the .net. I could swap out the Z3 as the MKII has 128MB Ram so dont really need the memory on the Z3.

The other thing Id like to do is put it back together with original screws. Ive got them but cant remember which ones go where. Id like to get it back to original or as close as I can.

Weed.

Title: Re: A3000D Boot Issues
Post by: Pat the Cat on April 25, 2021, 06:26:56 AM
Kudos for narrowing it down to the onboard controller not liking 3.9 for some reason.

I think the original scsi controller chip is replaceable for something more reliable and pin compatible. Beyond that I have no solid information on A3000D screw arrangements - on mine (for the brief period I owned one) the centre rear screw was oversize, but I have no idea if that was what was originally fitted. It was 2nd hand.

That does seem to tally with a factory machine but I can't be sure on that one. The four exterior screws were definitely identical and Phillips dome head I think. Centre one was a pan head.
Title: Re: A3000D Boot Issues
Post by: Matt_H on April 25, 2021, 06:05:58 PM
What's the revision of your onboard SCSI chip?
Title: Re: A3000D Boot Issues
Post by: Matt_H on April 26, 2021, 04:14:01 AM
Also, taking a lesson from a slightly similar EAB thread about SCSI issues: make sure *all* socketed chips on the motherboard are properly seated.
Title: Re: A3000D Boot Issues
Post by: mechy on April 26, 2021, 03:41:41 PM
Its not uncommon for D800(if memory serves-a diode near the back scsi port) to fail and you get no power to termination,hence it doesn't work. You can check it with a multimeter for 5v on both sides with the machine powered(it may read 4.8v+ which is ok).
some diodes were installed backward from the factory causing random scsi issues..
Good idea to update to a WD rev8 scsi chip or AMD 33c93A,it solves some multiple drive scsi issues the old chips had and are cheap.
on the A3000 its sockets sockets sockets!  Stop and reseat all the chips,these old sockets are notorious for bad contact especially after the machines been in storage. Doing this prevents you chasing your tail and random problems.

Check the power supply for +5,+12,-5v etc.. These old power supplies can need recapping. Low voltage will cause a host of odd problems.

I suggest you buy a buster 11,they are still available and its a good upgrade.
Title: Re: A3000D Boot Issues
Post by: Pat the Cat on April 26, 2021, 04:28:55 PM


I suggest you buy a buster 11,they are still available and its a good upgrade.

Alas Analogic ran out a few months back. I guess some people who did upgrade might have Buster 9s for sale.

Also rumours of a Dave Haynie new version, but it will definitely need a socket to plug into. Even if it does happen.
Title: Re: A3000D Boot Issues
Post by: Tumbleweed on April 26, 2021, 06:41:23 PM
The SCSI chip is WD33C93A-PL, pic attached. I have a buster 11 in my A4000D (which is also not working!). Could salvage from that.

I plan to give the board a proper clean with https://www.amazon.co.uk/WD40D-N-A-Contact-Cleaner/dp/B006UCJ5WQ/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=isopropyl+alcohol+wd40&qid=1619458728&sr=8-1.

Title: Re: A3000D Boot Issues
Post by: Pat the Cat on April 26, 2021, 08:07:27 PM
Original scsi controller chip. Can be a little quirky.

Checked 5V is going into and out of that diode? It is the most likely cause.

Also worth checking voltages, if you got low 12V or 5V that would affect the drive. Probably OK.

You might want to put a little DeOxit in the scsi controller socket, that might do the trick. If you're going to clean, do a little maintenance on the sockets too. Doesn't hurt putting some on the pins that run into ribbon cables, but do let it dry and wipe before putting cables back on.