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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: webmany on October 14, 2007, 03:27:03 AM
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I have a A1200 with 2 IDE HDs connected. One internal and one external. With both connected I can boot up and read data from both drives. If I disconnect the external drive, it will not boot up. I have verified that bootable is check on both drives, and I have tried C A A the 1200 after it is running incase it was a delay problem.
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Hi, does it give any error messages ? How have you connected the drives to the motherboard ? A specific adapter ? Is it possible the software that uses the adapter is on the other drive :-? Does the single drive appear in the early start up options as a bootable device ?
Good luck, and have a :pint:
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Is your Workbench partition on the external drive?
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Also please give details about how they are connected and jumpered. It may be that the internal drive is slave and the external drive is master, and some drives don't like being slave without a master connected.
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moto
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Both drives are connected to the HD connector on the motherboard. The internal drive is a 2.5" laptop drive with a long cable to connects to a 3.5" HD outside the case.
Both drives have a full install of OS 3.1, so it did boot at one time.
The boot menu does show both drives and all partitions are set bootable.
I don't remember the ability of changing a laptop drive from master and slave, isn't it cable select?
This machine was recently purchased and I am seeing what I can do with it.
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Sounds like there's something missing from your internal drive that the Amiga needs to boot up. Maybe some start-up files were moved to the other drive for some unknown reason and the Amiga needs to look there?
What about trying with just the external drive connected and see if that works?
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If you are using filesystems on RDB, make sure both HDDs have the same filesystems, and with same IDs.
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Hi
Sounds fascinating this. I would guess that the boot priority was using the 3.5" external, which is most interesting. Connect it back up then boot with two button mouse down and select the internal 2.5" to boot from. Also use the the trusty Workbench disk to boot from and with DOPus compare hard drives. Either a cable problem or as someone else said you have some files missing. Always an issue this cus HDToolbox keeps your drive info, and that just may be on the 3.5" disk.
By the way... get a buffered interface and IDEFix97 and you could strap a CD onto that system. Have fun.
scuzz
http://www.commodore-amiga-retro.com
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It looks like the external was the original drive and the internal was the new drive. What I think someone did was copy everything from the old to the new drive. Looking into startup-items they both the same (starting items from DH0), so if I disconnect the internal drive, items do not start.
So I guess I need to find out if some files either did not copy or are damaged on the new drive.
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Could be a naive suggestion: did you set the boot priority for the internal drive? +10 is a good choice, BTW.
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Does the boot priority matter if it is the only bootable drive, like when the external drive is removed?
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Boot priority does not matter if there is only one drive.
Check what Piru said. It's the best explanation for your symptoms.
Bye,
Thomas
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have you tried setting internal HDD as "last drive"?
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Hi
Interested, why if he was booting from just one hard drive that the file system would matter.
Sounds to me like the second hard drive had something on it that the 2.5" doesn`t. Both drives worked before, so the only real issue is what is missing, given that nothing has changed.
scuzz
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scuzzb494 wrote:
Interested, why if he was booting from just one hard drive that the file system would matter.
If the internal hard disk uses anything other than FFS for its file system then the chosen filesystem (e.g. SFS, PFS, AFS) *must* be installed in the RDB of at least one installed disk. If it is installed in the external disk then either drive will boot since the filesystem will be available and the partitions will be readable. Remove that external drive and you remove the filesystem, and the partitions are no longer readable.
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moto
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Hi
See what you mean. Thats why I say I would check the HDToolbox on both drives to see exactly how the drives are set up. Strange that 3.1 was installed on both drives. More likely one is a simple copy as a back up. If that were the case the file system would also have been copied. If not he simply needs to copy this over from the other drive. I tend to think it could be more than this.
Is it possible that the 2.5" is a none booting drive and can only be used as a slave, and that is how the guy set it up to get the 3.5" working. Just a longshot. I have had drives that have simply refused to boot from a cold start.
How do the two drives appear on the two button mouse down start up screen... Do we know ?
scuzz
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scuzzb494 wrote:
More likely one is a simple copy as a back up. If that were the case the file system would also have been copied. If not he simply needs to copy this over from the other drive.
That's not true. Filesystems for hard disks are not stored as a file on the disk. They are installed in the RDB of the disk. If the filesystem required for the partition was stored inside the partition itself, then how would the system know how to access the partition in order to access the filesystem? It can't, which is why the filesystem has to be installed in the RDB. If it's missing from one of the drives, then it will have to be installed in the RDB using HDToolBox before that drive will work on its own.
scuzzb494 wrote:
Is it possible that the 2.5" is a none booting drive and can only be used as a slave, and that is how the guy set it up to get the 3.5" working.
Disks aren't booting or non-booting. This is configurable in HDToolBox. The drive itself doesn't decide whether or not it boots.
scuzzb494 wrote:
Just a longshot. I have had drives that have simply refused to boot from a cold start.
It's probably more likely that they didn't spin up in time for the system to attempt to boot from them.
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moto
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Hi
Fundamentals of formatting, thanks for that..
Not that up on RDB, though I was appreciative of the way disks generally store such things. However to update the file system you would need to access the file system from the L drawer on the computer... This is how I do it with HDToolbox. Same goes for HDInstTools as understand. The key here is to access the HDToolbox which should show just how the drive is currently set up. Saying all that I only use FastFileSystem on OS3.0.
[ checking A1200 base system ]
One internal 2.5 and two external SCSI plus ZIP and CD:
Amiga 1200... HDToolBox
Partition drive
Advanced Options
Add/Update
Add New File System
Delete File System
Update File System
Enter Filename of File System
[ l:FastFileSystem ]
[ checking A1200 Tower with 3.1 ]
Buffered interface two 3.5" IDE, ZIP and CD.
IIyima 17" monitor ... nice
This machine has IDEFix
Sexy Lara backdrop
Checks HDToolBox... And its just the same.
I was just pointing out that the HDToolbox and the Workbench are on both drives, which tool did he use to format which drive. I am sure that you are aware that you can edit the tooltype of HDToolBox to scan for different drives. [ highlight icon .. Info ]
[ To boot or not to boot ]
Giggles... Sorry. I assume when we are talking HD set up we use the HDToolbox. For me this is key. I have customised my HDToolbox to read internal drive and external SCSI drives differently. I will repeat what I said... What exactly does the HDToolbox report on these drives.. ?
I've tried SlowBoot... Gave up in the end and changed the drive
http://aminet.net/package/util/boot/SlowBoot
[ end post ]
Fun that...
Where was I... A500, GVPHD+ and a 49MB massive hardrive, fingers crossed.... 1.3 don't you just love it. 2.0ROM on a 500+ mobo and the RAM icon jumped the other side of the screen.. Not sure I like this board in a 500. Button pressed Whoo hoo working.. NUKE 1.5a no less 955376 graphics and a massive 3988032 other. Happy days.
scuzz
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Found it. If the external drive is removed, then the internal drive does not show up in the boot menu. Find this a little weird as I have a second A1200 setup with a internal HD and it works fine. Even tried a different cable.
Guess I will track down a different laptop HD and try it.
Thanks for all the help.
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Or try to re-install it from HD toolbox , sounds like the HD is working but was not installed properly.
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Webmany, sooo did you look at your RDB with hdtoolbox and check that the filesystem you use was also installed to the RDB of the internal drive?