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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Software Issues and Discussion => Topic started by: TheRogue on August 17, 2010, 03:55:55 AM
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Hi there guys. So I'm having a problem with WHDLoad. The setup I am running on is as follows:
A4000D in Mirage 4000 Pro tower w/ 2MB ChipRAM
CyberStormPPC 060-50/604e-200 with 128MB FastRAM
CyberVisionPPC
256MB ZorRAM
Elbox FastATA4000 with 80GB Hard disk
2GB System hard disk and CD-RW on onboard IDE controller
Deneb USB
X-Surf 3cc using the Genesis stack
Delfina flipper on X-Surf clockport #1
OS 3.9 BB2, WarpOS 5.1, PowerUP emulation, Warp3D 4.2, CyberGraphX 4
WHDLoad 16.9 registered
WHDLoad was working fine a week ago, but now when I try to run any WHDLoad software that preloads the system will hang at the WHDLoad intro screen, and if I run any WHDLoad software without preload the intro screen will disappear and the system will hang at a black screen. I am thinking perhaps some of my SIMMs on the CyberStorm have been damaged as we've had a heatwave here recently and I left my system on for several hours the other day with the case open by accident. Please let me know what I should do. Thanks so much.
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Have you noticed anything else not working properly, or is it just WHDLoad...
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I haven't noticed anything unusual except for the WHDLoad issue. I tried a memtest which gave me way too many errors to allow a system to function, so I am guessing the program was incompatible with my setup. If someone can recommend a memtest that is known good with my system, that would be a good first step I suppose.
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Can't think of any memtest progs offhand right now, but an easy way to check the fast ram is to (if you have some), copy lots of lzx or lha archived files onto the ram: disk and then test each one, even one bit of bad memory should cause an error to show during the test, bit time consuming I know, but it does work.
Also noticed that you said you had left the case open recently, first thing I would do is open it up again and check all connection and socketed chip, just in case the heat has caused some movement.
Snoopdos is quite good for tracking down some of these WHDLoad problems also.
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try to turn off the Genesis TCP/IP stack. When this is runnnig, then the WHDLoad won't work.
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Aminet's a good source for memcheck progs, here a quick link to some of them...
http://aminet.net/search?query=memcheck
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Just ran the memtest in the MemCheckBH.lha archive on AmiNet. The results look good. Since I have 128MB on the CyberStorm and 256 on the ZorRAM in addition to the 2MB chip it tests 3 segments:
08000020-0FF7FFFF (Roughly 128MB) - No Errors
40000020-4FFFFFFF (Roughly 256MB) - No Errors
00004020-001FFFFF Chip RAM - No Errors
So I suppose that the RAM is not the culprit. I guess I can try re-seating all the chips and see where that takes me.
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Look's like the mems ok. So I don't think you need to do the re-seating yet, I would run snoopdos end let it write a log file so that you can see at which point WHDload is failing.
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The problem was not with WHDLoad at all but rather with my FastATA it seems. Once I ran a WHDLoad program from my system drive rather than from the FastATA work drive things worked ok. It seems nothing wants to run from that drive. What could the problem be? I have the drive formatted as one 80GB partition, but I was under the understanding that FFS in OS3.9 could handle large work partitions. Do I need to patch/get a new version of FFS?
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The problem was not with WHDLoad at all but rather with my FastATA it seems. Once I ran a WHDLoad program from my system drive rather than from the FastATA work drive things worked ok. It seems nothing wants to run from that drive. What could the problem be? I have the drive formatted as one 80GB partition, but I was under the understanding that FFS in OS3.9 could handle large work partitions. Do I need to patch/get a new version of FFS?
No FFS can only handle partition sizes of just under 4GB with FASTATA. You need a file system like SmartFileSystem (the one I use), with SmartFilesystem I have varous sized partitons on my 2 500GB HDs and FASTATA, the biggest of which is 250GB, but there is no real limit on partition sizes using SFS and I have never lost even one bit of data in the years that I have been using it. :)
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Ok, that explains a lot then. How do I go about installing SFS and having my drive be formatted in that instead of FFS?
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First thing, if you don't already have SFS you can download it from Aminet here...
http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/SFS
It's not really possible to explain here just how to set it up, but the docs included with it explain quite clearly just how to install SFS and set it up.
Only thing I would say is make sure the first partition you create is a FFS system partition, cos if you want to be able to boot from this HD then due to the way the Amigas OS works and the way that FASTATA works you really need a FFS partition of no more than 4GB as the first partition in order to be able to boot up from that disk.
There are two types of filesystems you can use with SmartFileSystem, SFS0 & SFS2, I would recommend you use SFS2 as there is no size limit to an individual file with SFS2 whereas SFS0 if limited to just under 4GB per individual file (a bit like FAT32).
Read the docs carefully before you attempt to install and partition you HD. It might look a bit complicated at first but it's really quite simple once you get the hang of it, and it's certainly worthwhile in my experience, no more file size limits and easy to store DVD images on like I do. :)
Cheers :drink:
Franko
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Thanks for all your help! I really appreciate it! I sent you a PM just now as well.
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Got your PM, sent a quick reply back...
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Did you have your Deneb USB installed when the WHDLoad was working?
Poseidon crashes almost every WHDLoad game that I know of.
Try turning Poseidon USB stack off.
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No FFS can only handle partition sizes of just under 4GB with FASTATA. You need a file system like SmartFileSystem (the one I use), with SmartFilesystem I have varous sized partitons on my 2 500GB HDs and FASTATA, the biggest of which is 250GB, but there is no real limit on partition sizes using SFS and I have never lost even one bit of data in the years that I have been using it. :)
Ummmmm no. I have only ever used the standard Amiga file system with FASTATA. It has no problems with partitions this size. especailly under os3.9.
There is a limit to filesizes of a couple of gig, cant remember the exact size. but your 80GB partition/drive should be fine.
You dont need SFS. Though it is a better file system
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I agree with amiga1260 & lauri.lotvonen : I have a script running before any WHDLoad launch that disables TCP/IP stack & USB stack.
The quote is from the WHDLoad Support page, you may try this but at the end you should disable any running tasks that create interrupts ;-)
check the Tooltypes (or the options if started from the CLI/Shell), many things can be adjusted setting Tooltypes, there is hardware which requires that you set the correct Tooltypes, maybe your system is to fast - so set NoCache, some games are working only under PAL or NTSC - so try the Tooltypes PAL and NTSC, some extra hardware creates at random interrupts which confuses the installed games/demo - so try Tooltype NoAutoVec, sometimes also the Tooltypes NoVBRMove and NoMMU may help
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Ummmmm no. I have only ever used the standard Amiga file system with FASTATA. It has no problems with partitions this size. especailly under os3.9.
There is a limit to filesizes of a couple of gig, cant remember the exact size. but your 80GB partition/drive should be fine.
You dont need SFS. Though it is a better file system
Hi JJ, can't say for certain whether your right or I'm right on this one. I can only go by my own experience of trying to use 2 500GB HDs on my various amigas, never managed to get them formated or partitioned properly under OS3.9 & FFS, thats why I went with SFS and also for the reason that I have lots of files larger than 4GB and the filesize limit of just under 2GB on FFS was no use to me. :)
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@ Franko
You were probably hitting the the LBA barrier at 128GB; the default 3.9 FFS will choke with anything that large or larger. There's a patch on Aminet to get around it though, so you could theoretically use your 500GB drives with FFS. :)
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I've installed SFS, but that doesn't seem to be the problem. The problem seems to be that no matter how many times I change the driver type to nosplit in the FastATA prefs, the system always defaults back to split and doesn't detect that I have installed and partitioned the drive as a nosplit drive. What am I doing wrong?
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I've installed SFS, but that doesn't seem to be the problem. The problem seems to be that no matter how many times I change the driver type to nosplit in the FastATA prefs, the system always defaults back to split and doesn't detect that I have installed and partitioned the drive as a nosplit drive. What am I doing wrong?
Its a fault in the actual ATA3.driver itself (all versions) if you have one partion set to split then another set to nosplit on the same port, the ruddy driver sets everything to split (no matter what you select in the prefs prog).
The only way I solved this problem was to disassemble the driver and rewrite it to allow you to have both split and nosplit and no more of the annoying default back to split.
Wrote to Elbox once showing them how to fix this bug/problem but never heard a thing from them.
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Here's the thing though, I don't have anything set to split. There is just one drive on the Primary port and that's what I'm trying to set to nosplit. I'm using the driver versions from their webpage though because I bought the controller second hand and don't have access to the latest drivers. Could the problem be that I'm using old drivers? Otherwise, how can I fix this?
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Here's the thing though, I don't have anything set to split. There is just one drive on the Primary port and that's what I'm trying to set to nosplit. I'm using the driver versions from their webpage though because I bought the controller second hand and don't have access to the latest drivers. Could the problem be that I'm using old drivers? Otherwise, how can I fix this?
Dunno about everyone else, I can only say what works on my set ups. For example. The FASTATA MKII manual states that the boot partition must be in the first 4GB space of a hard disk for the OS to be able to recognise it as bootable.
An example of the way one of my 500Gb HDs is partitioned is...
DH0: 1GB partition (used for booting in OS3.0 to 3.9) FFS (ie: contains Workbench for booting up in whichever version you use)
DH1: 1GB partition (used for temp storage) FFS
DH2: 2GB partition (used for booting in OS 4.0) FFS
DHA: to DHW: various partitions used for data etc... (rough total about 80GB) FSS
HD0: 200GB partition (used for data, large files etc...) SFS2
HD1: 200GB partition (used for data, large files etc...) SFS2
Not sure how clear this is to you, but sticking with this type of set up for me causes no problems. :)
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I suppose it may have to do with the fact that I'm using earlier drivers. Have any idea where I can get the latest ones? I'm using like 2.5 I believe and I've seen people talking about version 7.x. Where can I get this later version?
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If your talking about the FastATA drivers I use V8.8
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Yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Where can I get that version?
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Don't go away yet, Im going to PM you.
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Great, thanks so much.
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Why bother, the latest drivers are available at Elbox website (http://www.elbox.com/downloads_fastata.html).
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Why bother, the latest drivers are available at Elbox website (http://www.elbox.com/downloads_fastata.html).
Hi Bamiga2002, TheRougue had heard that there was a version 7.x of the A4000 drivers, he already had the ones from the Elbox site, I've been scouring the internet but can't find any drivers beyond version 2.5
Anyone else able to help out TheRogue here... :)
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Wrote to Elbox once showing them how to fix this bug/problem but never heard a thing from them.
Typical Elbollocks behaviour...:madashell:
On the other side of the problem attack: Newest/latest version of WHDLoad (16.8 onwards) is aware of Poseidon & LAN stacks and disable those during the game, so nothing may be wrong on this front.
I agree with the Elbollocks hardware/software crippling problem on this matter, as I had it once on my Medi(T)ator system. Was on pre-16.7 WHDLoad, but the problem was there.
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Well I got everything working. Like I said in a previous post it wasn't a problem with Genesis or Poseidon because I found out later when I ran whdload from my system partition it ran fine. The issue was my FastATA drive kept corrupting itself no matter what I did. I finally made it work, even though the FastATAPrefs still state the drive and driver are in split mode (???). I first had to prep the drive in split mode, installing every 4 gig chunk, then restart, prep the drive in nosplit mode with one 2 gig FFS partition and one with the remainder as SFS2. Then I restarted, formatted the 2 new partitions and everything worked as it should, even though as I said the FastATA prefs are still reporting the drive and driver in split mode. It's such a shame that Elbox, one of the few remaining Amiga hardware manufacturers is so disorganized and backwards...
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Hi Bamiga2002, TheRougue had heard that there was a version 7.x of the A4000 drivers, he already had the ones from the Elbox site, I've been scouring the internet but can't find any drivers beyond version 2.5
Oh it was the A4000 version, dunno about that then. I had A1200 version.