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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: cbcvenice on October 19, 2005, 12:19:06 AM
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Quantum atlas 2.1 gig probs.
Amiga 3000
http://www.alyon.org/InfosTechniques/informatique/drives/quantum/scsi/xp32150.html
recieved a used quantum xp32150 that had been in an SGI system. Took out 40meg hd in A3000 and went to put this one in and format to put workbench 2.04 and all I get is a white screen upon bootup.... HD led light active, and no diskette reader activity. Any help would be appreciated.
I set Id to 6 with jumpers and put jumper on for termination enabled.
Oh yeah, No other Scsi devices hooked up.
Thank you very much.
I have feeling you will be saying WD chip version 8... Am I right?
:-o
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>I have feeling you will be saying WD chip version 8... Am I right?
Nope... it should work. I have a Quantum Atlas 9 gig and
also a 6 gig. Both work just fine on my origonal WD chip
in my A3000.
I have found that some drives are kind of fussy when they
were used in another system. I suggest a Low-Level format.
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Did/does the old 40 meg still work?
Get a multiple device internal scsi cable and put the new drive inline with a different scsi id
Boot normally and go through the steps of getting a drive into the system.
Should NOT have to low level format the drive. I've rendered several drives useless by low level formating.
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An obvious thing but you've terminated the drive right?
Also I've been witness to a freaky harddrive that died on me due to software error while writing priority to the harddrive. Was no way the system would boot with the drive installed after that, not even if all partisions where skipped and another harddrive/floppy was used to boot from... not until it got formatted on a PC and put back into the Amiga. :/
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@Brian
>not until it got formatted on a PC and put back into the >Amiga. :/
I agree... I've had the same type of thing happen to me.
A known good drive would not work on my Amiga until I
Low-Level formatted on my PC.
I strongly dis-agree with this advice of never Low-Level
formatting a SCSI drive. Its true you should never low-level
and IDE drive.
Anytime I get a new 'USED' drive, the first thing I do is
Low-Level format it. I don't know what system it came from
and whats on it. The ONLY way is to start fresh is with
Low-Level format. It 'WILL NOT' harm the drive.
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In my case I belive the RDB was corrupted and the Amiga hanged trying to make sence of it. I just made a normal format on the drive on the PC, I too say never lowlevel format a SCSI drive as it'll corrupt the drive. IDE drives can handle it but SCSI can't, that's why most tools perform a nromal format when you ask to lowlevel format a SCSI drive.
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Always be very careful when formatting at low level!!!!!
If power on electrical lines goes down, i mean, if the power is off due to power failures, the disk will go unusable.
Always perform such task using an ups device or similar.
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You simply can't low level format a SCSI disk. Never. There's simply no command for it.
What you all probably mean is zeroing the drive, i.e. writing all 0s or 1s to all blocks. While doing this the drive remaps bad blocks, so it can sometimes cure read errors.
In ancient times you could kill an IDE drive by trying to llf, but many years ago they learned to tolerate it.
Drives with linear actuators require servo information to keep the heads on track - but there's no way a drive could actually rewrite them on its on behalf, it must be done in the factory.
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The above A2000 worked with the 40 meg drive.
Suggest you disconnect the hard drive, and wait it out. If the request for the Workbench appears, all is OK. Does your SCSI cable have an "orientation notch". It is possible with un-notched cables to insert the cable FLIPPED.
Glad your still at it, I'll be moved down to FL late Jan06.
As soon as I unpack the Amiga parts, and test gear, I can be somewhat local to you.
As for low-level formats and SCSI vs IDE. As an Amiga owner, re-seller, and trouble-shooter, it has been my experience that SCSI drives should be low-leveled, data-blocks verified, and then partitioned. After "in-service", low-level formats are only used when a drive becomes hopelessly corrupt and fragmented beyond normal data-block intregrity repairs. (AmiBack or QuarterBack Tools).
I would never low-level an IDE drive.
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Amiga4k wrote:
As for low-level formats and SCSI vs IDE. As an Amiga owner, re-seller, and trouble-shooter, it has been my experience that SCSI drives should be low-leveled, data-blocks verified, and then partitioned. After "in-service", low-level formats are only used when a drive becomes hopelessly corrupt and fragmented beyond normal data-block intregrity repairs. (AmiBack or QuarterBack Tools).
I would never low-level an IDE drive.
You said much better than I did :-)
I really don't know where they get this idea of never
Low-Level formatting a SCSI drive.
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Melott,
Thanks for the comment.
cbcvenice,
As I said, your system worked PRIOR to your changes. Do the test I asked, and report back. As for the SCSI-08 chip, it is NOT needed for internal SCSI connected drives. Your reading too much into my email and comments.
Re-stated to all: The A3000 internal SCSI port and SCSI controller chip are adequate for the internal hard drive. Adding a drive on the external SCSI port "overburdens" the -04 and Proto SCSI controller chip revisions. The -08 chip was created to address these timing issues on the SCSI buss.
Trying to DIY sometimes leads to disaster. My offer still stands, but the cost went up because now you'll have to ship the drive 2 ways.
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Sorry for delay in reply here...
The Skinny so far,
A3000 with 2.04 Rom chips on motherboard and workbench 2.04 loaded on quantum 40mgb prodrive HD. Computer works fine when just the original HD. I purchased a PC scsi card and "dual HD scsi cable" ($7.00) and am trying to set up a 2.1gb Quantum Atlas xp32150 as second HD with said cable (replaced original a3000 single HDscsi cable. The goal is to format the 2.1gb and install fresh amiga operating system on it. The problem I believe I have is that the 2.1 was in a Silicon Graphics machine (it may still have operating software on on it from the SGI)with scsi id 6 and no termination set on it. I put terminator jumper on it and change the id to "2" with another jumper, but Amiga 3000 will not get past a "white or grey" screen with this arrangement.
The thing I am not sure about is what to do about termination on original 40mg quantum prodrive...some documentation I ran accros says it has no terminator, but a resistor....???
Any more help on this would be appreciated. Lastly, is it really worth going to Amiga OS 3.1, 3.5, 3.9 for this A3000/16 with 2meg chip and 4meg fast ram?
Thanks again! Keep Smilin'
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cbcvenice,
Please understand this is not a rant, or anything similiar.
1)Computer works fine when just the original HD. Like I said.
(2)You purchased a PC scsi card and "dual HD scsi cable" ($7.00) and am trying to set up a 2.1gb Quantum Atlas xp32150 as second HD with said cable. NO-NO-NO !!!!
You should have asked --- you need another Amiga SCSI card, not an Windows PC SCSI card... You could have gotten the right card, and cable (from me) for less than $35.00.
(3)You put terminator jumper on it and change the id to "2" with another jumper, but Amiga 3000 will not get past a "white or grey" screen with this arrangement. ---- Just what did you actually attach to the drive. The drive is more than likely the original Quantum LPS 40 meg, and I have the proper "Terminator resistor" sipps in my parts bin. What is strange is the fact you said it worked without them.
The thing I am not sure about is what to do about termination on original 40mg quantum prodrive...some documentation says it has no terminator, but a resistor... I have the correct sipps in stock.
Any more help on this would be appreciated. Lastly, is it really worth going to Amiga OS 3.1, 3.5, 3.9 for this A3000/16 with 2meg chip and 4meg fast ram?
A 16MHz can not handle 3.5 and above. It is too slow.
You can not install an 040 or 060 card w/o a $110-$130 chip upgrade first. (Buster Ramsey, DMAC).
[I am prepping an A3000 030 with these chips Nov 18th].After that date, I close my Amiga part bins, and packup for the move.
If anyone is willing to Agree or Disagree with what I said, I ask you to please reply. This guy really needs the truth.
(Yes I gave him a price to prep, partition, install AmiagDOS on the drive, and offered free phone help during all problems).
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@Amiga4k
>You can not install an 040 or 060 card w/o a $110-$130 chip >upgrade first. (Buster Ramsey, DMAC).
I can't really agree with this statement......
(Unless I'm mis-understanding your meaning)
I recently bought an A3000/16 for my wife....
I installed the A3640 card with no other chip upgrades.
It runs great.. no problems whatever.
As to the origonal topic of this thread ....
If he has a PC SCSI card and a PC ...I would install
the problem Quantum Atlas drive in the PC and format
it Low Level on the PC using the SCSI tools there.
I have an Adaptec SCSI card in my PC and I've used it
2 or 3 times to format a drive that was giving me
problems using Amiga's HDTools.
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Alrighty.... looks like I might be in business. Currently Low -level formating Atlas 2.1gb drive on amiga...
Solution was to take the wierd resistors/terminators (3 of them) of the original hard drive (40mg quantum) and then also to place "spin-up" jumper on the Atlas 2.1 gb Hd....
So, next question.... Once I have drive recognized and usable, should I leave in the configuration I have it, or change the atlas 2.1gb to boot first with workbench and how to go about doing this... I have all orignal disks for the system etc....
Lastly (for this series today), Say I want to go about moving amiga software to and from systems via the Atlas 2.1gb HD i.e. Amiga to Athlon 2800 win xp pro and back. Is this possible with WinUAE on PC with the scsi card I recieved?
Thanks again. Keep Smilin' :roll:
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Melott,
Here is an edit from the National Amiga Technical journals:
The RAMSEY and DMAC chips are important A3000 custom chips that, among other things, implement part of the A3000's onboard DMA SCSI host adapter. Nearly all A3000 were delivered with the revision combination of DMAC-02 and RAMSEY-04. The problem with this combination is, the DMAC-02 does not like 68040 boards like the A3640. There are both heat and timing problems. If you are lucky, the tolerances of your DMAC-02 are wide enough to work together with the A3640. If you are not so lucky, SCSI will not work correctly anymore with the A3640 installed.
Your very fortunate your DMAC is either an excellent 02, or you have an 04 in your machine. It's extremely hard to be critical of you, as your knowledge base equals or exceeds most Amiga users I can come in contact with. If you would like a copy of my Amiga technical journals and file database on CD, please let me know. It's over 650 Megabytes on a PC CD, so you'll need to turn off CrossDOS via a shell or command to see the long file names.
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Well, looks like I will be placing the tekram scsi card into my AMD2800 pc system and try to format Atlas drive there...
Amiga 3000 recognizes this 2nd drive (atlas) and lets me identify it, but low level format doesnt work... Maybe the "spin up" jumper shouldn't be on the atlas and "sync" should be on instead?
I have a suspicion that this Atlas drive is Dead. :-(
It sure was hot to the touch after I tried the format.
Will keep ya posted..
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cbcvenice wrote:
Amiga 3000 reconizes this 2nd drive (atlas) and lets me identify it, but low level format doesnt work... Maybe the "spin up" jumper shouldn't be on the atlas and "sync" should be on instead?
I have a suspicion that this Atlas drive is Dead. :-(
It sure was hot to the touch after I tried the format.
Will keep ya posted..
Hmmm... I have a Quntium Atlas 9 gig in my external SCSI
box on my A3k.... it gets warm but not too hot to touch.
If your's is getting that hot then it may well be scrap.
If your Atlas is dead, I would suggest picking up a
Quantum FireBall 3.2 gig 50 pin off EBay, they are
reasonably priced (around $10.00 to $15.00). I have them
in both of my A3000's and think they are best Amiga drive
ever made (BUT that only my opinion :-D )