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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: motorollin on January 08, 2008, 07:25:36 PM

Title: X-Surf IDE interface and hard disks
Post by: motorollin on January 08, 2008, 07:25:36 PM
My X-Surf won't see any hard disks connected to it. I've tried an IDE Compact Flash adapter with a 4GB card and that didn't show in HDToolBox, and neither did a 250GB IDE hard disk which I connected as a test. I connected a DVD-ROM drive and was able to mount it, although it wouldn't recognise when a disk was inserted, but ISTR having the same problem with that drive when connected to the internal IDE interface.

TIA

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moto
Title: Re: X-Surf IDE interface and hard disks
Post by: skurk on January 08, 2008, 07:47:10 PM
You do have xsurfide and xsurfide.info in sys:expansion, right?  (Loads with C:BindDrivers)
Title: Re: X-Surf IDE interface and hard disks
Post by: motorollin on January 08, 2008, 07:48:35 PM
Yes, they are in there.

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moto
Title: Re: X-Surf IDE interface and hard disks
Post by: LoadWB on January 08, 2008, 08:09:01 PM
In the past I have been unsuccessful in getting the X-Surf IDE ports to recognize a CF card adapter and some large capacity hard drives.

ISTR that the built-in scsi.device in the A4000 saw the at least one of the X-Surf's IDE ports, so allowing the scsi.device patch in SetPatch would be beneficial.
Title: Re: X-Surf IDE interface and hard disks
Post by: motorollin on January 08, 2008, 08:22:50 PM
@LoadWB
Not sure what you mean. Is scsi.device required for xsurf_atapi.device to work?

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moto
Title: Re: X-Surf IDE interface and hard disks
Post by: Thomas on January 08, 2008, 09:32:14 PM

xsurf_atapi.device only sees atapi devices (CD-ROM etc.)

XsurfIDE adds both, xsurf_atapi.device and scsi.device (or 2nd.scsi.device or 3rd.scsi.device or 4th.scsi.device, whichever is not yet used by other controllers).

To see a harddrive on the X-Surf, you should scan scsi.device. AFAIK HDToolbox searches the 2nd, 3rd etc. variants automatically.

Bye,
Thomas
Title: Re: X-Surf IDE interface and hard disks
Post by: motorollin on January 08, 2008, 09:35:53 PM
Thanks Thomas, I will give that a try. That would also explain why I've got a scsi.device available even though I have removed it from my Kickstart - presumably the one I can see is the X-Surf.

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moto
Title: Re: X-Surf IDE interface and hard disks
Post by: motorollin on January 08, 2008, 10:02:52 PM
Hmm, if I select scsi.device in HDToolBox, it either quits HDToolBox, returns me to the list of devices, or shows a blank device list. I tried MountDos with the following commands:

MountDos DEVICE scsi.device UNIT 0 LIST

and it said it couldn't open scsi.device unit 0. The Amiga's internal IDE interface is removed from Kickstart and there are no other devices (2nd.scsi.device...) so I can only assume scsi.device refers to the X-Surf.

[EDIT]
Is it possible SetPatch is patching the X-Surf's scsi.device because it thinks it is the A4000's IDE interface, and this is screwing up the device?
[/EDIT]

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moto
Title: Re: X-Surf IDE interface and hard disks
Post by: voxel on January 08, 2008, 11:56:52 PM
By design (very simple design ;-)) the x-surf IDE ports only works with some (a few) IDE Hard Disks. If I remember well what is written in the X-Surf "manual (:rtfm:)" it's a timing issue.

HDtoolbox should show you a list of devices availlable if you set the "ASKDEVICE" tooltype in its icon. so you should see both x-surfide.device and x-surfatapi.device if the binddrivers have been succesfull. :-)
Title: Re: X-Surf IDE interface and hard disks
Post by: motorollin on January 09, 2008, 09:04:16 AM
x-surfide.device? I thought it was scsi.device or 2nd.scsi.device? Now I'm really confused!

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moto
Title: Re: X-Surf IDE interface and hard disks
Post by: keropi on January 09, 2008, 09:11:37 AM
just run sysinfo motorolin, and see the names of the devices present in your setup...
Title: Re: X-Surf IDE interface and hard disks
Post by: motorollin on January 09, 2008, 09:21:24 AM
Oh good idea Keropi, thanks. I was trying to remember the application which does that :-) Will give it a try when the office is free again.

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moto
Title: Re: X-Surf IDE interface and hard disks
Post by: motorollin on January 09, 2008, 11:36:13 AM
Ok here is what SysInfo reported on the devices tab (obvious incorrect ones included for completion)

gameport
timer
keyboard
input
ramdrive
trackdisk
console
cybppc
scsi
xsurf_atapi
netinfo
x-surf


I wanted to find out if scsi.device is the Amiga's IDE interface or the x-surf. So I cold booted with no startup-sequence, ran SetPatch, then checked SysInfo and there was no scsi.device (to be expected because it doesn't exist in my KickFlash). I then ran binddrivers checked SysInfo again, and xsurf_atapi.device and scsi.device had appeared, so I think that scsi.device is the x-surf. But it still doesn't recognise any hard disks attached :-(

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moto
Title: Re: X-Surf IDE interface and hard disks
Post by: Framiga on January 09, 2008, 01:27:28 PM
here i have

2nd.scsi.device ver 104.16 (the xsurf one)

xsurf_atapi.device ver. 120.5 (xsurf for cdrom and such)

do from shell

version scsi.device full

and you will get what is seen onto your system.

10/0.AmigaOS:> Version 2nd.scsi.device full
2nd.scsi.device 104.16 ( 3-Lug-2000)

Title: Re: X-Surf IDE interface and hard disks
Post by: motorollin on January 09, 2008, 04:37:10 PM
I forgot to mention that I checked the version of scsi.device and it is 104.16, which backs up the theory that this is in fact the X-Surf. Maybe the X-Surf doesn't like scsi.device not being there :-?

I'm not having a good retro computing day :-(

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moto
Title: Re: X-Surf IDE interface and hard disks
Post by: Thomas on January 09, 2008, 06:17:43 PM

I think you are following the wrong trace. "Cannot open scsi.device unit 0" does *not* mean that scsi.device is not there. It means that unit 0 is not there. And that means that scsi.device did not recognise any device on unit 0.

You say, your CD-ROM drive works with xsurf_atapi.device. If you connect it again, you will see that it works with scsi.device as well.

As mentioned above, the IDE port of the X-Surf is very limited. It may well be that all of your hard drives are incompatible with it.

Bye,
Thomas

Title: Re: X-Surf IDE interface and hard disks
Post by: motorollin on January 10, 2008, 03:47:53 PM
Quote
Thomas wrote:
I think you are following the wrong trace. "Cannot open scsi.device unit 0" does *not* mean that scsi.device is not there. It means that unit 0 is not there. And that means that scsi.device did not recognise any device on unit 0.

That is what I thought actually. I have just been trying to confirm that scsi.device is definitely the X-Surf, not some remnant of the driver for the Amiga's internal IDE interface.

Quote
Thomas wrote:
You say, your CD-ROM drive works with xsurf_atapi.device. If you connect it again, you will see that it works with scsi.device as well.

You're right. I just connected a CD-ROM to the X-Surf, created a CD mountlist using scsi.device unit 0, and was able to use it to access CDs in the drive connected to the X-Surf.

Quote
Thomas wrote:
As mentioned above, the IDE port of the X-Surf is very limited. It may well be that all of your hard drives are incompatible with it.

Yes, I have reached the same conclusion now I know I'm definitely using the correct device. This is a real pain since I was planning to use the X-Surf IDE interface for my Compact Flash drive for backups :-(

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moto
Title: Re: X-Surf IDE interface and hard disks
Post by: rkauer on January 10, 2008, 04:15:54 PM
 Erm...

 Moto, why not use a small SCSI HD?
Title: Re: X-Surf IDE interface and hard disks
Post by: motorollin on January 10, 2008, 04:19:58 PM
I want to back up my system as LHA archives on to a FAT formatted compact flash card, which I can then put in to my Mac to store the archives (I don't want to keep them on CF cards as they may become unreliable, and I don't want my backup on an Amiga formatted partition which may be hard to get at if my Amiga stops working).

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moto
Title: Re: X-Surf IDE interface and hard disks
Post by: Thomas on January 10, 2008, 08:55:14 PM

If I understand correctly, you don't have any device on the internal IDE port. So why don't you use the internal port for the CF reader ? It should be faster than the X-Surf anyway.

If you fear the boot delay when scsi.device is enabled, you can keep it disabled and use a disk-based version of it in Devs: for your CF mountlist.

You can use the rumupdatesplit program which comes with BlizKick to create disk-based modules from OS3.9's ROM Update.

Bye,
Thomas
Title: Re: X-Surf IDE interface and hard disks
Post by: motorollin on January 10, 2008, 09:01:34 PM
Quote
Thomas wrote:
If I understand correctly, you don't have any device on the internal IDE port. So why don't you use the internal port for the CF reader ? It should be faster than the X-Surf anyway.

If you fear the boot delay when scsi.device is enabled, you can keep it disabled and use a disk-based version of it in Devs: for your CF mountlist.

The boot delay is exactly why I disabled the Amiga's internal IDE interface. I never would have thought about putting scsi.device in DEVS: and using it for the mountlist. I'll give this a go. Thanks!

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moto
Title: Re: X-Surf IDE interface and hard disks
Post by: motorollin on January 11, 2008, 07:03:11 PM
@Thomas
Just wanted to let you know I have done what you suggested and it works great!

Thanks

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moto