Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: peroxidechicken on April 14, 2003, 12:29:28 AM
-
Does anyone know what software came with the SX-1 expansion for the CD32?
The CD32 and SX1 in question is able to boot from floppy but has trouble when it comes to formatting a new hard drive. A few different MaxTransfer settings have been tried through HDTools but the system always freezes in the first moments of formatting.
-
Can you not just read the drive settings in using HDToolbox (on the 3.x install disk/CD), save to the drive and then format?
The SX-32 provides an IDE interface right? (I don't recall it being SCSI) - should work fine... All my drives on my A4000 - SCSI or IDE configured just great with it - remember never low-level format an IDE drive though - that'll put you in a whole world of pain...
-
Um, well, if some idiot did low-level format his drive, how would said idiot recover from this faux par?
I've always thought that a good remedy for persistent hard drive problems is to plug it into a pc and use fdisk - if all goes well, try it on the amiga again.
-
Hi,
I own a cd32 with a SX-1 expansion, it didn't come with anything but a small two sheet instructions that told you how to plug it in and set some of the jumper settings on the SX-1 for memory and floppy drive.
The biggest thing to look at is the power supply, the original power supply had enough juice to power the cd32, sx-1, and an external floppy drive and maybe 2meg of ram (pushing it). After obtaining a big power supply I put in a 500 meg hard drive, I used the CD32 cdrom drive to load in os 3.5, NOW HEAR THIS I used hard disk toolbox to low level format my ide hard drive and then set it up. It worked perfectly fine, now since then I have installed a 800 meg and a 1.2 meg using same procederes and it all worked out fine. My hard drive works etc.
Look at your power supply. I can't find my paperwork on the settings but there may be some that you have to set up for the hard drive. I forgot. It's been over 2 years since I had done all this and now I am sort of in PC type machines and really haven't played to much with my old friend the Amiga's. Although I can't seem to tear down my A3000 and it still plays the best game of mahjong, and soliton for card games. I still like turning it on and have it play mods while I use my PC. By the way don't even try to play music and play a game with a PC it jumps and stumbles on a 900 mhz machine.
Smerf
-
Now I have to 'fess up a bit more - I've previously low level formatted other IDE drives on my own Amiga and everything seemed OK. That is, until I tryed to run larger programs like DPaint. Workbench was fine but all the workbench programs are quite small - but no matter how I partitioned the drive after that low level format I couldn't do anything with bigger programs.
But I wonder, if it's so bad to low level format an IDE drive, why does HDToolbox let you do it?
-
There's nothing wrong with low-level formatting a drive, unless you don't want to lose the data on that drive (in which case, why are you formatting to begin with? :) ).
The biggest problem with the SX-1 is that the standard cd32 power supply does not provide enough power. This is why I would suggest using a notebook harddrive, as they are not as power hungry as the standard ones. To trouble shoot the power problem, remove any extras on the cd32 and SX-1. This includes fast RAM, floppy drive, and headphones, as they all eat up power. When you boot the machine, wait a few moments and hit the reset button, or set the jumper on the SX-1 to wait a few seconds after boot (so the harddrive can spin up). You should be able to find a PDF of the SX-1 manual online easily.
The disk that came with the SX-1 is just a utilities disk; nothing really special.
-
There's nothing wrong with low-level formatting a drive
Yes there is: If you low level format IDE harddisk, it's dead for good. Don't do it.
In fact, only very old IDE harddisks allow this operation anyway, it was disabled later because users managed to ruin their disks. Clicking Low Level Format on HDTB for IDE hd does nothing.
In short: Never ever low level format, unless if it's a SCSI disk, and you absolutely know what you're doing.