The magic of DVD drives: how to check if it works

[superfrog76]

Howdy?

I am trying to use my dvd drive on my tower 1200; to check some CU amiga cd that I have found online.

The dvd was on my old mac (2006); I've hooked it up to the IDE port, with a 3 way cable (Amiga board -->CF card 44 pin ---> IDE 40 pin)

It power up, when I put a cd/dvd spins, but nothing happens. Tried with a burned DVD, a couple of sony burned cd and an audio CD.

I have no idea how to check if the drive is configured correctly or not...I have tried the jumper either in slave or CS mode, and it doesn't make a difference. I am using ClassicWB, so the drives for the CD should be already installed (I see a cdo device in the DEVS folder). It is the ADV SP version (3.1).

Is there any quick way to figure out if the drive is working correctly? Like some arcane commands via shell, that may show if the miggy even see it configured correctly or not?

I could pull it out and put it in another computer, to check if it works, but I am curious to see how to check if the drive works on Amiga

Thanks!

[superfrog76]

Have you installed any CD filesystem like Asim CDFS or AmiCDFS?

I myself use Allegro CDFS that was included with the 4xEIDE'99 and im pleased with it.

I was thinking that it is already installed, and that I simply need to double click the cdo device to mount....

I think I have somewhere the free CDFS from Aminet; would that work?

[superfrog76]

It's been over 10 years since I had an A1200 with a CD drive, but when I had mine I used the Elbox 4xEIDE interface and software as well, and it worked fine. I did have to install a file system that supported it, and I know I had a bit of trouble... some combinations of devices (different manufacturers) just would not work correctly as Master/Slave. I went through a few different devices, and occasionally had to configure them backward to what I thought was "logical" (i.e., set the CD drive as master and the hard disk as slave, or reverse their positions on the cable, try things like that).
 
Do you have any other drive you can try? Maybe a plain CD-ROM would have better luck than a DVD drive?
 
Also, try firing up HDToolbox or SysInfo, see if they're able to detect anything.
 
Good luck!

I see, so mostly people use the EIDE adapter...I am using the plain interface....I remember that 20 years ago, I had a 16X cd rom and a HD on my original 1200 and it was working Has been so long....

I can get a cd to the local junk store; they have stuff that is even older than me in there I was using this dvd because I had 2 on my computer so I took it out of the computer, to use it in the Amiga...but I guess I will end up buying one anyway, from what I understand

[superfrog76]

There's a few different ones, some of the free ones limit you to 8.3 filenames when reading back discs burned on a PC, but otherwise should work, yes.  

I've burned the cd as ISO9660, 4x speed, naming set as iso 9660 level 1. The disk spin for a bit but then it stops, and nothing appears on the workbench. It loads fine on the computer, so I am quite confused. It may be a bad drive too...has been sitting for ages in my computer without being ever used.

At least I know now that it should work even with the free Aminet cdfs Will have to try to swap it

[superfrog76]

Check your Devs: Dosdrivers/CD0. Is there anything in it's settings that may be causing it to point to the wrong (or a non-existant) device? For example if your drive is on scsi.device, but CD0 is looking for "gvpscsi.device"? Just a thought!

I burn CD's on my PC all the time using the default values in Nero 10 and Nero 12, and am able to read them back on my Amiga's no problem.  You may also want to try a different burning software, just to cover all your bases.  

I see; learned something new today

The cd0 that I have in my DosDrivers has these parameters:

Activate=1
Device-scsi.device
Unit=2

Not sure if these are the right one....I have the dvd unit on the same cable as the CF card on the internal IDE connector....so I assume that is scsi.device and the unit is 2 (1 should be the hd/CF).

Could it be that since I use a mac, the world is full of sadness? I have Toast as burner (ISO9660 settings)

[superfrog76]

I try to get smooth DVD playback on a A1200 but was unsuccessful around 19-23 fps,anyway out of the two SCSI DVD drive Toshiba performed better than the Pioneer when reading DVD disk. This also showed up in the benchmark figures,but Toshiba drive performed very poor when reading CD.

You are actually able to watch DVD? I have a 030, which makes it quite impossible, especially with 3.1 WB

I would be happy to even have the Amiga to read a dvd or a cd....

[superfrog76]

Solved!

In case you are wondering what happened, this is what I did to make it work.

- Installed Idefix97, choose to say NO when it ask me to start idefix (otherwise it locks the computer) and rebooted at the end of the install.

- Removed the lines written in the startup sequence (so c:Idefix won't start)

- ran IDEfixPrefs :
Unit 0: atapi speed: default, Unit type: auto, Unit mount: Hd
Unit 1: atapi speed: default, Unit type: IDE Unit, Unit mount: cd
Unit 2: atapi speed: default, Unit type: disabled, Unit mount: disable mount
Unit 3: atapi speed: default, Unit type: disabled, Unit mount: disable mount

and saved

- in Devs/DOSDrivers, changed the CD0: tool types (idefix created one, I just replaced it with the one in Storage on ClassicWB) as following:

ACTIVATE=1
DEVICE=scsi.device
UNIT=1


Now after reboot, I see the cd mounting without problems on the desktop, works like a charm

Hope that this may help some others that has issues with the cd....I am not sure exactly what made it work, but I have added all the steps that I did, and it works now.

If someone has more info about what the heck is going on, I would appreciate, since I prefer to understand what happened

[superfrog76]

NP Mike Now that I learned the trick, I know what to look for

Altho I am always surprised about how these little bits are never mentioned in any guide....too much basic to be mentioned ?