**Need Setup HELP** with Classic Amiga 2000 HARD DISK (Bridgeboard)

[wbrejnia]

BATTERY REPLACEMENT ( COIN Battery with Diode )
 
 Found this link about just using a Coin battery instead of the rechargeable.
 
 I'll do slightly different, and run a wire to have access to replace the battery.
 
 http://www.retro-commodore.eu/2014/07/23/battery-replacement
 
 I have the parts (minus the Coin Battery Holder) but can build a hard Soldered version for now.

[wbrejnia]

That is an excellent point!

Do you remember back when you used to use this system, did you have to have a disk in both drives in order for it to boot? Odd system, in any case. Basically a bare-bones Amiga (not even the 1MB Agnus), but with a whole bunch of expansions added on the Bridgeboard/PC side. What did you use it for, back in the day? Mostly PC software, I would assume. :lol:

I've seen/built as least 300 computers its hard to remember my 3rd over 30 years ago (but the Amiga was special).
 I know I played games uses Floppies, since I still have them in a box.
 I know I use the Amiga PC for DOS and DOS Programs, since it was used for school.
 I still have every single floppy I ever had, (except the DOS floppies, which is a clue)
 
 BUT I can't remember if I had Workbench on a Hard Drive, or if I had Dos on a Hard drive (or both).  That is the mystery. (Best bet in it was Amiga Partition on the PC side, and Amiga Booted Amiga Workbench, because I remember the SOUND of the Hard Drive, and there never was a Hard Drive on the Amiga Side).
 
 I'm sure if I saw it whatever is on that Hard Drive Boot, then memory would come back.

[wbrejnia]

I've read the Bridgeboard Manual a dozen times.  (But just found something new.)

Everything in BB Manual (setup Apendix) points to running FDISK on the PC Side to partition the PC HARD DRIVE. Regardless of if a Partition exists or not.

but running (DOS6.2) FDISK returns "NO fixed Disk", which is pure [DOS PC] and the [WD controller - Hard Drive ]

** I keep hinting that maybe DOS 6.2 FISK may not support my setup **

So nothing can be done more for an DOS Partition and Format.

However I just discovered the "ADISK" command, with is the same as FDISK but to create an AMIGA Partition on the HD.

I found it in the Amiga Resource Section of the Bridgeboard. With all the DISKS that came with the Bridgeboard.



If things were working/setup properly, I bet if I run FDISK the AMIGA Partition will show up.

Could I be that lucky? Probably not, since if FDISK isn't picking up Controller, then ADISK won't (Who knows)

And I bet, I will face another challenge. Everything that came with BB was DOS 3.3 (so this ADISK may not run).

I DO have a 5.5" DOS 3.3 Boot disk, but it won't boot on the 486 PC.

So my work is to figure out some way.

[wbrejnia]

FDISK and DOS 3.x
 
 So I found out that FDISK in MSDOS 3.3 and lower was an INTENAL COMMAND, not a Separate FDISK.com command like in MSDOS 6.x.
 
 http://www.computerhope.com/fdiskhlp.htm
 
 So that MS DOS 3.3 (3.5" Disk) I have has everything I may need (FDISK).  And the Bridgeboard has a DOS 3.x version of (FDISK).
 
 But what's got my head scratching is why it won't boot on the 486?
 No read error, it just start booting, and HANGS.
 
 Is there a reason it won't boot?  I understand earlier version of DOS were built for the pre-286 CPU's.  (My Bridgeboard is 2088 CPU).
 
 I'm not PC expert, to understand the compatibilities, but my hunt is to get a DOS 3.x bootable disk working.

[wbrejnia]

SIGNIFICANT PROGRESS (but No Results)

- Got a DOS 3.3 Image
- Made a DOS 3.3 (3.5" bootable Disk)
- Booted 486 with (3.5" DOS 3.3 Disk)
- Formatted a 5.25" DOS Boot Disk

DOS 3.3 Format is different from higher DOS
http://www.robvanderwoude.com/format.php

FORMAT B: /4 /S (for a 360K Bootable Floppy)

- Copied over Janus and A-DOS BB files to Boot Disk

- Booted Amiga PC in MS DOS 3.3

- Ran FDISK, Runs Nice but (Error: No fixed DISKS)

- Ran ADISK, Runs Nice but (Error: Partition read/write error! )



** SAME ERROR with Drive cables connected or NOT **

 
 
NEXT STEP: (SOMEHOW THE CONTROLLER isn't properly presenting the C: Drive to Amiga PC) Need to figure out Why? (PC searches, Forums, ... ) )

[wbrejnia]

I'm still a bit confused about how your system is set up.

In my system 'autoboot' was not supported and so I had to boot from DF0: with a floppy disk called 'BootDisk'. This contained all the necessary files '(s/startup-sequence and all commands in c/ required by the Startup-sequence, incl. 'boil3' and 'movesys') to boot the system just far enough to be able to load Boil3 from the 'BootDisk:c/', to mount the harddrives with 'Boil3' and to move the system over from the floppy to the harddrive(s) mounted by boil3 with command "movesys dh0:". Then the "rest" of the startup-sequence was executed from DH0:s/startup-sequence.
After that my Workbench was readily booted.

When I wanted to use my "PC-bridgeboard" (the Vortex ATonce 286 classic) I had to start it from the already booted Amiga side - either by using the Vortex floppy disk, or by double-clicking a 'batch-file' containing all the necessary info to start the Vortex (after having copied all necessary stuff from the Vortex disk to the relevant Amiga system directories on the HD, of course). This initialised the Vortex board and booted the PC side from the M§-DOS partition on the (already mounted and working) HD(s).

Although your setup is completely different, I would expect it to work in the same manner:
- first your Amiga must be booted (either directly from HD, or from floppy to mount the HD for full booting)
- after the Amiga is fully booted the PC bridgeboard can be started and M$-DOS or Windows can be launched (either from floppy disks, or from HD).

Dandy,

Some great information here.

I agree with your boot sequence (my system was similar).
- Amiga Booted Intially from A WB disk (I still have 2 WB disks from the past) But don't boot (all files intact on WB disks). Assumption is OS is corrupt on Floppy.
- WB DISKS (Startup-Sequence) in those disks shows a mount of JH0: (vi DJMOUNT) and all directories (Mapped to JH0:xxx) which means the Amga then booted off the Image of AmigaOS (off the PC Hard Drive thru the Bridgeboard/Janus)
- JANUS (is in the Expansion Folder) of the WB DISK
- How the PC side worked is a mystery (Maybe I only used floppies, or maybe there is also a MDOS partition on the PC Hard Drive)
--------------> or it worked like your setup (the C: HARD drive DOS Partition on the PC side just booted)
- I'm not sure how things happened exactly (BOIL doesn't sound familiar at all)

- Biggest OBSTACLE is that (Hard Drive Controller and Hard Drive) COMBO are (c: PHYSICAL DISK) not seen by the PC Side (via FDISK or ADISK)
--------------> I can talk to the Controller via DEBUG
--------------> Controller appears to be talking to the HARD DRIVE
--------------> Perhaps the Level Format using (DEBUG) is required for that C: drive to be seen (doesn't seem right, but who knows)

My comment about the 486 was that I wanted to use it to get the WD-HardDrive-Controller working on it to get access to the Hard Drive. (Similar to the setup on the A2000/PCside)

I have some ideas, and thanks for the DOPUS program, that might be handy.

[wbrejnia]

Dandy,

That's really good information AGAIN!! I'll tackle this eventually.

I still don't understand what BOIL is. HW/SW, can you explain a bit more?

BTW, interesting Website (in your footnote). My wife is from German Family and just visited Germany this summer with one of my children. I'm Polish background, so a visit to Europe to show the 3 kids, would be easy to cover both parent's heritage since countries are side by side.

[wbrejnia]

NEXT TEST [Aread, Awrite to confirm Bridgeboard - DOS/Janus/AmigaOS working ]

What I plan on doing next before anything else, (now that I think I have many things setup and working) is try the Aread and Awrite commands available on the DOS side (they come with the Bridgeboard DOS diskette)

These commands should allow me to copy to/from Amiga/DOS file systems.

They should work, and if they do/don't that may provide evidence on if the setup, drivers, and libraries are in sync and configured properly.

If they DO WORK then more efforts can continue to enhance the setup to go further (Boot Amiga from PC Amiga Partition).

If they DO NO WORK, then more adjustments need to be figured out.

[wbrejnia]

Fine.

Have you already tried to find documentation/manual of your bridgeboard on the web?

There the "mystery" should be explained...

As we don`t know how your bridgeboard works all we could do is guessing, which mostly leads to nowhere.

Best idea is to get the manual and see if and how the HD can be used from the PC side.

Yes, I have the Full Bridgeboard install Guide (SCANNED PAPER ENGLISH COPY), the link is above in post.
THERE A GERMAN Electronic Version for your SPARE TIME READING http://l8r.net/technical/a2088.html (Look at the Appendix, that is where I am stuck "FDISK/ADISK")
I have done all the steps required, and the one step not working is the FDISK that should pick up the FIXED disk (PC DOS). or ADISK (AMIGA OS).

Nothing more can be done beyond that point in the manual.

[wbrejnia]

Fine.
The startup-sequence of this "special bootdisk" floppy for OS 3.1 looked like this:
;run system/cli
;add32bit-special resetfest
;setcpu cache burst fastrom config 2 trap 2
fastmemfirst
addbuffers >nil: df0: 35
addbuffers >nil: df1: 35
boilexists
IF WARN
boilchipmodule devs/boil.device 1 > nil:
boilchipmodule devs/nucleus003.device 1 > nil:
ENDIF
boilmount
addbuffers >nil: dh0: 35
;addbuffers >nil: _dh0: 35
addbuffers >nil: dh1: 35
movesys dh0:
dh0:c/execute dh0:s/startup-sequence

When I switched on the Amiga with the Bootdisk in a flppy drive, it started to boot the floppy and after a few seconds the HDs spun up and the complete Amiga operating system booted from HD.

I just got a copy of the Bridgeboard DOS diskette very recently.

My current DOS boot disk is very plain (just a command.com)

But the Bridgeboard DOS diskette does have some more files (not many, but all files are shown in screenshot above). They might do something similar to your boot disk setup.

What I haven't tried it creating a "config.sys" file to include running some additional commands possible (like emm.sys). One in particular is a command "bbsetup.com". A statement like "device=bbsetup.com" can be added and see what happens. (This is not mentioned in the BB manual, but possibly the disk that Came with the BB had this in place).

BUT I DID TRY RUNING THE BBSETUP.COM manually, and it loads the Janus drivers[and hangs system].
(Displays the SAME MESSAGE that shows normally before the DOS boot), so my guess this triggers Code thru the BB BIOS (already/somehow. So may not be needed TWICE).
However (what if the BBSETUP is the DOS version of the JANUS library, and the two (DOS/AMIGA) need to JOIN together).
I will try this too very soon.

FROM WHAT I RESEARCHED, there are more manuals/book for the JANUS specific stuff. I don't have that.
 My guess is those books are for developers, but I could be wrong.

[wbrejnia]

Fine.
The startup-sequence of this "special bootdisk" floppy for OS 3.1 looked like this:
fastmemfirst
addbuffers >nil: df0: 35
addbuffers >nil: df1: 35
boilexists
IF WARN
boilchipmodule devs/boil.device 1 > nil:
boilchipmodule devs/nucleus003.device 1 > nil:
ENDIF
boilmount
addbuffers >nil: dh0: 35
;addbuffers >nil: _dh0: 35
addbuffers >nil: dh1: 35
movesys dh0:
dh0:c/execute dh0:s/startup-sequence

Interesting. Darkage mentioned the increase Buffer DISK config in a previous post.
And the fact that (addbuffers) POINTS to hard drives might be very important.

In DOS the command is "BUFFERS", and also goes into config.sys
http://web.csulb.edu/~murdock/buffers.html

And more INTERESTING. There is also a command called "SYSTEM.com" on that BB DOS package.
I didn't list it in my screenshot, since it didn't fit into by 640K floppy (I added other programs like debug)\
It may be the same a your movesys .

This is starting to look like a Proper DOS DISK needs to be configured and booted from!!!  (Not 100% conclusive but possible)

Dandy, you have provided excellent information with you sample startup.

[wbrejnia]

ABOUT Points in two Posts above [ Amiga PC DOS Boot DISK ].

Yes, creation of a new DOS boot diskette is worth a try.  It is need for a new install.

However if the DOS side had a booting PC DOS HARD DRIVE then this would not be needed. (I am 99.99% sure, I didn't have a 5.25" Floppy sitting in my Drive to boot my Amiga).

[wbrejnia]

However if the DOS side had a booting PC DOS HARD DRIVE then this would not be needed. (I am 99.99% sure, I didn't have a 5.25" Floppy sitting in my Drive to boot my Amiga).

THERFORE A CREATION OF A (PROPER) BOOTABLE FLOPPY (if things fit) or a (RAM DRIVE - If Things Fit) might ENABLE to AMIGA to boot off the HARD DISK.
 
 That is why the Aread or Awrite might be also needed.
 
 Time to read beyond the FDISK (STALL point) in the BB Manual.

[wbrejnia]

TODAY'S TRIP to the (SURPLUS STORE) for a ISA Controller-Hard Drive ** AMAZING FIND**

I almost decide to got ahead a purchase the 8bit LO-Tech ISA/IDE Adapter that Pat suggested.
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Assembled-Tested-Working-Lo-tech-ISA-CompactFlash-Adapter-IDE-for-8-Bit-PCs-/282312406702?hash=item41bb2176ae:g:9HYAAOSwL7VWoBxq

Everything might be easier knowing I have something that works.

However for the price and wait I decided to head to a Electronic Surplus store (With hope to find a Old HD Controller with a Drive) .
The store nearby went out of business to it was a bit of a drive, but worth the trip.

Typical Warehouse Building on the outside.


Inside the FRONT OF STORE has Lots of Gizmos and Parts.


Store has Rows of Every Electronic Part Needed.


Things are organized in many section and I started searching for Computer Parts.


I finally found the section I was looking for.


I dug around for a Long while and found nothing. I gave up after cutting my hand digging deep into the pile.

Came across an interesting Ancient Telephone tester.


THEN ON THE WAY OUT, as if it was meant to be, I saw a book sitting there. That I immediately recognized.



That book is THE BOOK I BASED my University Graducting Project on. The Universal Prom Programmer which CORE was the (MC68705 CPU).

I spend some time flipping through pages which brought back memories of the whole year of designing and building. IT WAS TOTALLY GRATIFYING.

After that, I'm not so much concerned about the Paper on the Hard Drive.

MY QUEST IS OVER !! The Hard Drive and the School Paper.....(which is the whole reason I started this THREAD).




What cool, is I also got the parts for the Replacement Amiga Battery that I cut out . Plus some handy tweezer, ALL for under $20.



 
 - SO I'll STILL CONTINUE the REBUILD EFFORTS (Workbench, Dos Side, etc)
- NO LONGER SO CONCERNED about FORMATTING THE HARD DRIVE to get that School Paper. (but will hold off till no other option)

Time to finish the Amiga, one way or another.

[wbrejnia]

I saw this on the train from work today, a different homebrew card - ISA to IDE

https://twitter.com/lazygamereviews/status/826243842059927553

Cool, but I won't be building one due to a mistake on my behalf.

Yesterday when I was on Ebay considering to buy the "8bit LO-Tech ISA/IDE Adapter ", I backed off at the Paypal point to go instead to surplus store.

I didn't realize I clicked on BUY IT NOW, and was committed to paying, till this morning.

So as a honest Ebay customer, I just completed the transition and completed the payment.

The 8bit LO-Tech ISA/IDE Adapter is on it's way.

I have to be careful in the future.

HOWEVER the good news is I did more reading, many things:

- I learned about how there are differences between WB1.2 and WB1.3 and how MOUNTLISTS work (WB1.2 was central MOUNT LIST DRIVEN, while WB1.3 has the MOUNTS in DEVS/DOSDrivers)
- I also researched and found out what the STORAGE FLOPPY has for WB 1.3 (HDToolbox) which is more for and AMIGA Side HARD Drive
- These MOUNTLIST entries for AMIGA side take care of HD Characteristic in detail, but the a BRIDGEBOARD connected (PC Drive) the mount is a SIMPLE "Mount JH0:" via JANUS Library

Thus I will go thru all my original WB floppies, but am pretty sure that the FDISK and ADISK on the PC side should have taken care of the C: drive (DOS/ADOS) partitions whichever exist.

In other words, the 8bit LO-Tech ISA/IDE Adapter will be quite handy to figure things out.

[wbrejnia]

Since I'm stuck with the ISA/IDE adapter, I'm thinking about getting a IDE/SD card like below.

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/231881879210?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Not that expensive, but it will get me all setup on the Amiga PC side.
 
 There are Compact Flash and SD versions.    I have a few old CF cards 4,32,256MB.  For SD I have larger sizes.
 
 Is there an possible PROBLEM using the Larger SD version for the A2000?  (Like with FDISK not like a 1GB SD)