**Need Setup HELP** with Classic Amiga 2000 HARD DISK (Bridgeboard)

[Pat the Cat]

So next step is playing with FORMAT Commands.
Windows XP doesn't have as low level on first Glance.

Will be possible now to create a DOS 6.2, or 3.2 DOS Boot Disk with a Legacy Format Command.

Yes. You pretty much HAVE to use DOS to rescue an XT system. Windows 95 onwards is not recommended for such a task. It gradually erases true DOS usage as a user choice for doing system tasks. 6 is usually OK, rarely do you have to use an earlier version (usually because the target system has very small memory, does not support the larger memory sizes so DOS 6 does not work).

Not necessarily MS-DOS, like I said, DR-DOS is an alternative. But MS-DOS is what most people use for the task. And a "real" old PC.

OR an Amiga with a Bridgecard, which can read MSDOS drives and file systems. Easier in some ways, trickier in other ways.

[Pat the Cat]

You might find this helpful, it makes a boot floppy for any western digital controller? Not sure if only for WD disks, not controllers, but it looks like it's a controller access method.

I suggest you make the floppy, but check it over to make sure it doesn't automatically run the EZ Drive software (it shouldn't, but it's best to check);-

http://www.driverguide.com/driver/detail.php?driverid=32531&si=d355eddaec425fe05a5be8474a5f501e

That one seems closest to what you need right now, if you do a search on the site for everything to do with that controller, most hits show "Windows", not "DOS". The "Disk Manager" software looks good if you do go with the 486, as it gives you options to copy data onto another connected hard drive. Do check over any disks made. You want to be sure about this before booting with floppies with the hard drive connected.

http://members.driverguide.com/driver_search.php?q=western+digital&si=d355eddaec425fe05a5be8474a5f501e&st=1485429222&si_prev=cd5e689088f78c3069cae44f526cde53&gqm0=western+digital

What you could do is, setup with the controller card in the Amiga, but with the hard drive disconnected.

When you are sure as you can be the controller is recognized, then switch off, attach the drive and try to access.

[Pat the Cat]

Pretty good, but a little bit modern for an XT. These are the sort of systems you are trying to emulate (not very pretty);-

http://www.uncreativelabs.net/index.php?site=xtreview%7Cxtreview.htm

The page mentions a SYS command to make hard disks bootable. Not relevant for what you are trying to do, but maybe explains why you had problems getting it to autoboot to DOS. The Bridgeboard, that is.

[Pat the Cat]

 
 So if I go thru the whole bridgeboard manual setup proces (but not format the HD), and I bring back the config file(s) from one of my original Workbench disks.  It might actually work.  (That was recommended earlier in this Thread by Pat_The_Cat.)

Just "Pat" is fine, Wally.

That is the thing with these early XT DOS systems - no CMOS to save settings. You had to setup everything with floppy. Single or double floppy was the standard, very few people had hard disks. A bit like Amiga in the early 90s. Apple II was cheaper for hard disk controllers, so more development happened on Apple II than PC-DOS in early days.

Bridgeboards (even early ones) do have one "killer app" - they let you use an ISA network card from the Amiga side, using software like Etherbridge on Aminet. Very primitive bridge, very slow, but VERY cheap hardware if you do have a Bridgeboard Amiga. Cheapest way to hook one up to a SANA-2 network.

Z80 is fun. Not as fun as 68K with an Amiga, but much simpler to get familiar with. I found both nicer than 6502.

A good job you had the external A1010 Amiga drive Wally. That saved your bacon. You are not quite there yet, but I think you are much closer to solution.

[Pat the Cat]

At one stage I was thinking of the mycpu project (http://www.mycpu.eu/)  which is a complete CPU from TTL logic but I thought thats probably a bit extreme.

Holy ****, S100 boards. Haven't played with  them since the mid 80s. That is hardcore. You got to be really good to get that right. What I cut my teeth on.

This guy does easier to build (and prettier) stuff if you want an easier Z80 dev. Still build it yourself, but simpler.

http://www.sowen.com/

[Pat the Cat]

I'll never give up, but I'll take it a bit slower.

Wife and kids want to kill me for blowing away a whole weekend on this.

Wally

Spend time with them too Wally. You've done most of the work, you know it's all viable. Personal relations  really are more important than technology.

If you are going to settle around doing things on the Bridgeboard and Amiga, take your time. Get a SCSI drive going on it. Make it easy for yourself when you do get drive access, to copy all the data off.

Like I said, you only get one guaranteed shot. You will PROBABLY get more than one chance, but there is no sense in rushing it too quick.

You got to remember, the world is different now. People can get ROMs burned over the internet, if they just want a couple. OK, some places do want their own ROM programmers, but there isn't a big market for them. Not for the old ones. There are still quite a few old ones around that work. They cost thousands of pounds brand new, but they don't cost that now.

You got to keep perspective about what really matters. This is personal project for you, so is very very important. I understand that.

[Pat the Cat]

Be cautious with those manuals - notice they have a block of strange characters at the end?

It looks to me that the original files might have been cut short. MS were very keen to remove ALL dos drivers from easy download. They spent a lot of money doing that, to force end users to switch to Windows 95 onwards.

But maybe I am being too negative. It's all about experimenting and see what works, without causing damage.

[Pat the Cat]

I'd just compare contents of S, DEVS, LIBS and L folders. That should show main differrences.

C could be important too if it contains command used by the startup-sequence. PATH and ASSIGN for example.

You probably won't find much in the way of C commands, they are usually stripped out from Aminet downloads, as they are still copyrighted, and people still sell Workbench disks (Amiga Forever).

[Pat the Cat]

OH!! MY!! (The Cables were reversed) ** Controller now talking to DRIVE ***

Classic problem when dealing with these drives - the cables are never keyed. So you have to check them both ends, from diagrams, to make sure.

As for links, I reckon if you check over the boot floppy downloads I recommended (just download, put on floppy, examine floppy contents) should give you a working boot floppy.

The BIOS on these controllers is very, very limited. Typically they do require CONFIG.SYS to have an entry that points at a driver file. They are extremely small, but required. That's booting on a PC.

Reading the BB manual and setup guides is vital to going through Amiga to get at the data. Especially the bit about how JH0, main PC boot disk, is implemented - as PC hard disk partition, as Amiga partition, or as Amiga hard file (not true partition, but encoded). I think those are main 3 choices, this is further on in BB manual.

Yes, the old noises are very encouraging. I think you are nearly there now, in terms of stages. But it's understanding how the different systems need to be setup to access the drive that you are missing.

This last stage will probably take quite a lot of reading and experiment, but the actual steps needed are not that big. It is just getting them right that matters.

Drive sounds healthy, like I said, the magnetic domains are BIG on small capacity drives, so they tend to remember things very well in storage.

[Pat the Cat]

Well, here's an idea...

... you say you have lots of SCSI drives stashed, and it's not that hard to get ISA SCSI controllers for the PC. MUCH cheaper than Amiga SCSI controllers. Getting 8 bit ones not so easy, true, but if you can find locally, should not be expensive - they are very very old and very very slow.

Why not try setting up a "virgin" PC SCSI controller and drive first, as a test run, so you can make mistakes without losing any data...

... Then, when you are sure you understand all the issues with using ISA hard drive controllers, you can do it for real with the old school card and drive you have?

That way, you have freedom to experiment, and mistakes don't matter. You can learn easier about the issues involved. Especially differences between XT and AT. I think that is where you having most problems - XT usage is very rare now. Most people never ever train with them, they learn theory from books and never use them.

As for removing battery, is good idea to replace. Amiga will see the clock is not updating and will report a fault. Is hard to say if this will be problem until replaced - maybe your old Janus config files are set to using clock and will not work without. I say "maybe" because I never test that, for obvious reason.

[Pat the Cat]

 
 All I need for the Amiga PC bus side is a controller card.  The WD controller I have won't work for anything other than my MFM ALOK Octagon.  Correct?

It should work with ANY MFM hard drive. It was a standard, just a very tricky one to deal with.

So, either look for another MFM drive to play with, or a different 8 bit ISA controller for a drive you already have.

Then you have test kit to learn with and you know the data cannot be messed with until you are good and ready.

EDIT: I will check my collection, I did have some ISA SCSI cards, if you cannot find any (but I would have thought not too hard to find). I paid 99 cents for them. This will not be quick though, I have rather a big collection.

[Pat the Cat]

There isn't a huge difference, but to be SURE, putting back the same one you used originally would be worth it.

For your peace of mind more than anything.

IIRC Setpatch on Workbench 1.3 was quite large, so there were some bugs introduced in 1.3 ROM, as well as some bugs removed.

I really doubt any of these affected Bridgeboard usage, but I could be wrong, and like I said, it is best to be SURE.

ROM chips are usually very robust, they can take things like bent pins, static electricity etc very well.

Contacting my friend who lent me the upgraded 486 which the PC case is  mislabelled 286. He keeps way more stuff in his storage room than me.

Also going to visit a Electronic Surplus store nearby. There is a  section at the back I never paid attention to. Piles of old  computers.

This is something good about Eastern Europe. In UK, stuff is either  recycled for gold and copper content or shipped outside Europe and dumped if  hazardous material.

Space / land is so expensive here, there are a few stores that hang on to old stuff, but they are nearly all gone now.

Happy hunting.

[Pat the Cat]

Contacting my friend who lent me the upgraded 486 which the PC case is mislabelled 286. He keeps way more stuff in his storage room than me.

Also going to visit a Electronic Surplus store nearby. There is a section at the back I never paid attention to. Piles of old computers.

This is something good about Eastern Europe. In UK, stuff is either recycled for gold and copper content or shipped abroad and dumped if hazardous material.

Space is so expensive here, there are a few stores that hang on to old stuff, but they are nearly all gone now.

Happy hunting.

[Pat the Cat]

Yes, battery is battery, will do the same job.

Remember, solder is old school - lead based. You do not need very hot iron, it should melt easy.

[Pat the Cat]

Since I'm stuck with the ISA/IDE adapter, I'm thinking about getting a IDE/SD card like below.

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/231881879210?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Not that expensive, but it will get me all setup on the Amiga PC side.
 
 There are Compact Flash and SD versions.    I have a few old CF cards 4,32,256MB.  For SD I have larger sizes.
 
 Is there an possible PROBLEM using the Larger SD version for the A2000?  (Like with FDISK not like a 1GB SD)

There is a problem with any media drives you connect via ISA - you only have 8 bit ISA, and usually that is bottlenecked by the way the two sides talk to each other.

Max boot partition recommended is what, 2 GB on 1.3? Probably same on 1.2. You can go for 4gb but it's not recommended.

It doesn't really matter if you got spare IDE drives, they'll still be throttled slow. Getting a card reader as well doesn't really get you much. Not with ISA. See how an IDE hard drive does, you won't be impressed.

As for Poles, went to school with a few characters called Durcaz, Prsbilski, Kovacs, Burkovich, etc. One of the Polish diplomats sent their kid there too. That was back when the Iron Curtain was still raised.

Boil stands for Bootable  OMTI  Interface  Loader and is(was) a commercial harddisk driver software for the Amiga dating back to roughly 1988 (Boil v3 is from 1993).

It made an standard OMTI MFM/RLL controller from PC/XT accessible from  an Amiga. You had to enter the disk geomety information there (number of  cylinders, sectors, heads and so on).

On the "English Amiga Board" I found some hints for Boil usge  (posting #7). For more information I would have to look for a readme file on my Boil3 floppy disk at home this afternoon...

Yes, this makes sense. Idea was you could access generic PC peripherals like hard disk standards. I NEVER reviewed a Bridgeboard that way, I think. I seem to remember always having an Amiga side Zorro connected hard drive partition setup with a DOS filesystem. I Don't seem to remember using a PC hard disk as such, deal was you could go either route, and I rarely had cause to enter a PC magazine office to ask if I could blag one. (Ahem). They probably had, happy to lend, I just didn't need to ask.

[Pat the Cat]

- According to the German Amiga wiki (http://www.amigawiki.de/doku.php?id=de:expansion:other:a2088xt), the German Commodore engineers in Braunschweig designed the PC/XT on the bridgeboard strictly in line with the original IBM 8088 XT/PC specifications.

And as far as I remember, the original IBM 8088 XT/PC only had two 5 1/4 360 kB floppy disk drives by default - no harddrive. That means you cannot use a harddrive with the XT/PC on your A2088XT bridgeboard - just the Amiga can access the drive via the bridgeboard and the MFM controller in the ISA slot.

Listen, the red parts are not true. Any XT could read and write to any ISA PC hard drive. It was delivered as a floppy only system, but it was upgradable. There may be a DOS partition on that drive, but whether it is BOOTABLE without a floppy, or Janus running correctly with right settings, or maybe both, is the issue. The original IBM PC is a different matter, XT allowed expansion beyond floppy.

All XTs could USE hard disks. Bridgeboards permit Amiga applications and operating system to access PC ISA peripherals, true.

There may not be any PC parititions, there may only be Amiga formatted partitions, BUT if Wally was using it as a PC as part of a university course, it's a certainty he used a DOS partiton for the DOS based work he was doing.

I say a CERTAINTY. Whether or not it's readable by the XT or any other system now is a different matter. I'm optimistic, I think it's still there.