Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: frl9lk on October 25, 2007, 11:12:49 PM
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I have a scsi tower I want to add to my A4000. I have an Emplant and am attempting to use it as the scsi card. It works to the extent that a Zip drive installed without problem. However, using HDtoolbox (and empscsi.device) I'm having troubles with hard drives (and a SyQuest for that matter). They are recognized and their information is read. But if I try a low level format I get "Driver returned I/O error code 20". If I put in partitions and try to save changes I get "Error code 44 on write!" I know the drives are suitable (I have identical units in a tower w my A2000). Thanks.
Also, the Emplant checks out OK on its diagnostic.
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From what I remember the emplant scsi device was really buggy, is non-DMA and so you'd probably be better off with another card.
I'd recommend a GVP 4008+ for a 24-bit DMA card that'll actually work in your setup, give you slow but effective DMA and won't cost an arm and a leg.
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The emplant was clearly inlcuded with the card as a lifeline to use a mac hard scsi drive as Amigas did not ship with SCSI hard drives as standard, yet all macs after the MacII had scsi included.
It's not autobooting and it's slowwww...
and A2091 would be better.
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As a SCSI controller, the Emplant is pretty weak. But even if it wasn't, don't bother trying to low-level format. Just partition and format from Workbench.
EDIT: Especially don't try to low-level format SyQuest cartridges.
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Just an update to this info...
The EMPLANT SCSI was not autobooting for the Amiga side, it was of course for the Mac emulation. The speed was limited by the speed of the Zorro II bus and the device you were using. With fast hard drives we could max out the Zorro II bus width pretty easily.
empscsi.device did work with HDToolBox as well as various caching programs.
I wrote empscsi.device (as well as everything else I did) in assembly, so it was as fast as the Amiga would go.