AmigaOS 3.2 problems

[PunkTiger]

Well, since you already write that you are using 3.0 kickstart ROMs with 3.1, the “mystery” is solved - as Thomas mentioned above, it only works by luck because of a bug, and chances are high that if anything tries to fill up those 8MB of RAM, the system will crash. If you remove one simm, 3.2 kickstarts (and 3.1) will work. An option is to burn custom 3.2 kickstart ROMs with card.resource (iirc) from 3.1.4 kickstart, that miraculously managed to re-introduce the bug from 3.0.  You could also try to install 3.2 kickstarts and the load card.resource from 3.1.4 or 3.0 using LoadModule when you need pcmcia. But with all these “working” solutions, you run the risk of random crashes should something try to actually use all that ram (of which quite a few bytes of address space is pointing to the pcmcia rather than actual ram).

Modern RAM cards typically has reset options to switch between 4 or 8 MB of fast ram, so that we only boot to 4MB when we know we’ll be needing pcmcia. Like on one a600 I got, where I do the opposite, boot with 4MB fast RAM by default and only press ctrl-a-a a liitle extra long to get 8MB just occasionally when needed.

This is the most removed I've ever felt from the Amiga community. I now realize that I have neither the knowledge, nor the equipment (and in some cases, the software) to do pretty much any of the steps you've mentioned in your reply. I never realized getting the PCMCIA slot to work on the 1200 was such an absolute crap shoot, and that it was blind, stupid luck that I got a machine where it just miraculously worked.

As for Workbench 3.2, it's staying off my 1200. I give up. I've had enough. Another $50 that I shouldn't have spent gone right down the crapper. And now that my faulty hard drive is more sensitive than a sunburned back, the last piece of the karma pie is that I'll reformat it, reinstall WB3.1, and have the card slot not work again for literally no reason. But, I'm being defeatist. Tomorrow is another day, and all that.

[Thomas]

Apparently, it won't interfere with the PC slot, according to the link I just supplied.

Well, this information is incompete. A more precise explanation can be found on this page: https://bigbookofamigahardware.com/bboah/product.aspx?id=987

It says, if you install 8 MB RAM on the card, but set jumpers for 4 MB, then you can use the MagicMem program to work around the PCMCIA issue. But the memory will be divided into two address ranges and you loose 2.5 MB RAM.

Regarding your issues with CF cards: that the light stays on all the time is a well known issue with these CF-IDE adapters. It does not restrict the function.

And that the HDD disappears after a reset is also a known issue with Kickstart 3.0. Normally it happens with spinning harddrives, but sometimes also with flash memory. The usual fix is to cut the reset line of the IDE cable so that the drive's firmware does not shut down when the computer resets. Kickstart 3.2 should fix it, too.

[PunkTiger]

Hello again.

First of all, I want to apologise for my last posting here. I tend to become a bit of a drama queen when I start getting stressed out. I needed to walk away from the issue with the hard drive crashing and the PC slot, as it was really getting on my nerves.

I did end up wiping the hard drive and installed a fresh copy of WB3.1, and as I expected, I lost access to the PC slot. Fortunately, I managed to copy the contents of the original drive to a CF card beforehand. This afternoon, I sat down and tried to figure out why the original 3.1 could easily find the card slot, but the new install can't. Spoiler alert: I was paying too much attention to Devs/DOSDrivers and not enough attention to Devs. My eventual research brought me to two programs on AmiNet: fat95.lha and cfd.lha. To be honest, I'm not sure where the fat95 archive comes into play once CrossDOS is active, but they always seem to get mentioned together, so I installed it. CFD, on the other hand, is CompactFlash.device, and as soon as I put that in Devs, the PC slot worked again. Yes, with 8 megs of RAM in the DKB 1202.

It wasn't until everything started working that I took another look in the Devs directory on the backup. CompactFlash.device was right there staring me in the face. Taking the long/difficult way to do something seems to be a thing with me. Trust me when I say I hate doing that.

Now that I've figured out how to get my system back up and running, I'm a bit more open to experiment with the potentially faulty Kickstart 3.2 roms I have.

[Thomas]

I doubt the 3.2 ROM is faulty.

It's rather the 3.0 ROM you have which hides a hardware issue from you.

[PunkTiger]

By "potentially faulty," I mean the issue of my computer not booting correctly because the hard drive will suddenly spawn a DH0.1 and a DH1.1 alongside DH0 and DH1 when I install the 3.2 roms, and goes back to normal (just DH0 and DH1) when I reinstall the 3.0 roms. I've upgraded WB roms in the past (1.2 to 1.3 to 2.04 in my old Amiga 500), and that never happened before.

[kolla]

Do you by chance have some fastata in that a1200?

[PunkTiger]

Aside from the DKB 1202, and a Seagate ST9144A hard drive, my Amiga 1200 is bone stock. I have no other add-ons that didn't come with the 1200 when it rolled out of Commodore's factory. It went through a complete recapping last year from a reputable repair tech that specializes in Amiga repairs (in case that question comes up).