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

[Dandy]

...
A SCSI controller can be connected to 7 devices, any of which can be a controller.
...

Wutt?   :confused:
Why would anyone connect 7 controllers to an SCSI - the correct term is - host adapter?
The SCSI host is the one that controls the up to 7 devices on the SCSI-II chain (up to 15 devices on UW-SCSI chains)...

(Typo edited)

[Dandy]

Moving Forward (Setup almost done)

*** SOME ADDITIONAL CLUES ***

The WD HDD Controller is DOUBLE HOOKED UP to Hard Drive
as shown below:

(And the Next Photo of the OLD WORKING WORKBENCH DISK IS ANOTHER CLUE)
...

Well, this photo makes it clear that it is a MFM/RLL harddrive.
I still have a self-built dual 5 1/4" harddrive unit (2 x 65 mB) with integrated XT power supply, that is connected to the Amiga500 via the so called 'ct-interface' (from the 'ct Computer Magazine), that provides one PC/XT Slot and is plugged into the A500s Expansion port at the left side. In the PC/XT slot sits a 'OMTI MFM/RLL' controller from an old XT PC.

The driver software to operate it on the Amiga was named 'Boil3'.

Provided your controller was not just capable of the MFM format, you could also format a harddrive in RLL format, which allowed for roughly 1/3 more capacity on the same drive.

In my case I got 65 mB when I formatted the drives in RLL format - compared to 43 mB in MFM format.

Back then I also had a "PC Bridge board" in my A500 - the Vortex ATonce 286 Classic .  I could run the Amiga and the PC in parallell and switch back and forth between the systems, which was pretty cool back in 1988/89...

The PC side was started from the Amiga side - I had all the necessary files on the Amiga side of my harddrives. There also was a partition for the PC side on the one of the drives, from where I booted M$-Dos 6.22 or later one of the early Win versions - but just in "monochrome" (IIRC, it was called 'Win for 286')...

[Dandy]

@ Wally

I was looking at documentation for the A2386 and the A1060, other Bridgeboards that also use the Janus software. According to those docs, DJMount appears to be self contained. It's apparently able to detect the partition layout on hard disks connected to the PC side and automatically mount Amiga partitions.
...

You mean the PC side boots before the Amiga side was booted?
I don't believe it works that way.

I mean - I have no experience with Janus and the bridgeboard he has - just with the Vortex ATonce 286, PC Task and PCx.

All of them REQUIRE the Amiga to be booted first and then the PC to be started from the Amiga side - and not the other way round.

[Dandy]

So here is how far I got.

Basically I have a working Bridgeboard disk that I can actually boot from.

-> I used the disk to boot, followed instructions from README

-> PC Booted MS DOS from Floppy (Which is nothing new)

-> Then I ran the SAME commands like on my WORKBENCH DISK

Things Worked.

-> But no HARD DRIVE PICKED UP by Either the Amiga or the PC

Could this mean Hard DRIVE IS TOAST / Maybe Controller Board?
* NOT GIVING UP THAT EASY. I think they are fine **

There are Install Scripts on that Bridgeboard disk that copy stuff to a working Workbench Disk (personal one).

I like the idea of making a new WORKBENCH disk and copy over what I had, and see if things work.

My SUSPICION is there are config files missing on the GENERIC "Bridgeboard DISK". Drive Mappings, Mount points etc.

HERE ARE SHOTS of What I did, and how things worked

Any idea's on next steps???

...

I have BLANK Floppies ready.

Over to you guys for your advice.

Well, your screenshots clearly show you have to start the Amiga first to access the bridgeboard.
So I would assume the HD is Amiga formatted and contains all the stuff to start (initialise) the PC from there, as well as a PC-partition for booting the PC side...

[Dandy]

On the TOPIC of Photo's and Labeling.
 
 You should get a copy of SnagIt.  It's the best Photo Capture, cropping, labeling, Video All in one tool.  Quick, Easy.  I use at work, and even my kids used at school.  (Worth every penny the few bucks).

I use Xabier Payet's 'SnapShoter (http://www.xabierpayet.com/).

[Dandy]

...
BTW. It would be amazing if "cd jh0:" worked. But it doesn't'.
The behaviour is the same as in the Photo above.   "cd jh0:" gives (can't find jh0: ) and "cd jh1: (Pops up the Insert Volume jh1: ). So something is special about "jh0" when DJmount is run.

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).

And I proved that different versions of WB disk commands don't mix and match well. When I copied over some stuff from my Original WB disk, it works (PC Boots) but this message POP UP. I can't trust this disk anymore, till I restore it.

Yeah - mostly this happened when you booted e.g. WB 3.1 and then tried to run an obsolete command from WB 1.3...

I think a post above talked about a tool for disk partially-unredable recovery.
But in general this command line copy is painful. What are some good tools for file management?

For "quick and dirty" file operations I use DOpus 4.16.
But you can also try one of the later versions.
Download the version you like from DOpus (Directory Opus) on Aminet.

Is there a way to use a NEW WB Disk, and then my OLD working copy, and just copy everything I can get off of it (overwriting the NEW WB Disk)?

Not sure if I fully got what you mean...
You want to overwrite a new WB Disk (an 'original' one?) with the content of your old working copy of an original WB disk?

I would never overwrite 'original' disks...
Your "OLD working copy" may have been modyfied (either by you manually, or by the system automatically - e.g. the "user-startup") and so be no longer 'original'.
But basically you can of course overwrite any "new WB Disk" - just make sure the "Write Protect" is disabled.

[Dandy]

...
I'm no Amiga or PC-XT Expert, but there are 3 basics scenarios (corrupt or not-corrupt).

1) The drive has a AMIGA FORMATTED IMAGE (one or more partitions)
2) The drive has a DOS FORMATTED IMAGE (one or more partitions)
3) The drive has BOTH a [DOS and AMIGA IMAGE]

** due to small drive size, there is probably only 1 or 2 partitions **

Most likely it's option 3)...

I need to read the BRIDGBOARD install Guide steps to fully understand how that new-install/config would be done (there will be clues)
...
Next step is to READ THAT BRIDGEBOARD MANUAL very carefully and understand the NEW BUILD procedure for a IBM-SideHDD and a AMIGA SIde Access to it.

That seems to be the best idea...

[Dandy]

...
All I need for the Amiga PC bus side is a controller card.  

No.
Normally you have a PC Partition (or a PC 'file') on your Amiga harddrive.
No additional hardware (e.g. drive controller card) needed for the PC side.
The PC side normally uses the Amiga harddrive (either a partition on it, or a 'file').

The WD controller I have won't work for anything other than my MFM ALOK Octagon.  Correct?  

It should at least work for all MFM harddrives. In case the WD Controller is also capable of RLL, you can format your drive(s) in RLL format in order to  obtain roughly 1/3 more drive storage capacity.

I wonder if the 486AT Hard Drive/Floppy drive controller would go into the Amiga (I have  drivers on the 486 MS DOS), but I doubt it.  Highly doubt it.
 

Why would you want to use this 486 Controller with your Amiga?

BUT before I consider any of the above, I want to try the ORIGINAL KICKSTART ROM and all my OLD workbench disks. (That won't cost me a penny).

If you have several different versions of Kickstart Chips, you might want to fit an Reprogrammable Kickstart Switcher or an mechanical Kickstart Switcher.

[Dandy]

Dandy,

Some great information here.


I agree with your boot sequence (my system was similar).

Fine.

- 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.

OK.
What WB disks do you have?
For example - the complete set of "Workbench" disks of OS version 3.1 consists of 6 DD floppy disks wich are labeled as follows:
1) Install - Version 3.1 (contains the installer to install the complete OS on HD)
2) Workbench - Version 3.1
3) Extras - Version 3.1
4) Locale - Version 3.1
5) Storage - Version 3.1
6) Fonts - Version 3.1

Initially I had to boot my Amiga from the WB floppy disks.

Then I had to prepare the drive(s) with the Boil3 software (from a backup copy of the Boil3 floppy disk - entering drive geometry data & saveing, mounting the drives).

Then I had to install the OS on the HD from the "Workbench" floppy disks.

As I already mentioned, my RLL HD setup had no autoboot option - so I had to boot from a "special bootdisk" floppy.

As I had booted the OS (from the floppies), I could insert a blank DD floppy disk into a floppy drive and format it as bootable disk from the Workbench. This way the my "Bootdisk" was for the same OS version that I used to boot from the floppy disks, e.g. "HD-Bootdisk 3.1".

First I created the necessary directories on this Bootdisk:
c
devs
l
libs
s
system
t
Then I copied all the system files to this "special bootdisk" floppy into the relatred directories required to "boot" the Amiga to such a degree ("minimum system") that it could load the required Boil files, mount the HD(s) and finally move the system was over to DH0: and the startup-sequence on DH0: was executed.

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.

- 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

So far it seems to work analogue to my setup.

- 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)

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

There the "mystery" should be explained...

--------------> 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)

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.

In my setup, the Vortex ATonce 286 classic software had to be installed on the Amiga side. In its Preferences, you could select the boot method (IIRC, M$-Dos formatted HD partition or HD-file in Amiga format, or floppy disks) and then all you had to do to start the PC (in my case from M$-Dos formatted HD partition) was double-clicking on the ATonce icon on the WB.

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)

IF there really is a M$-Dos formatted partition on the HD, then you could see it this way.

But as your setup seems to work similar to my setup, I would assume there`s already an Amiga partition on it. And if you succeed to boot that, I`m quite confident you can start the pc from there.

I think the trick is to get the Amiga to boot from the HD (which possibly requires a "special HD boot disk" similar to what I used on my setup.

If you could find the installation files for your bridgeboard, it could be that it offeres the option to create such a bootdisk.

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

You`re welcome!

[Dandy]

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

Boil stands for Bootable  OMTI  Interface  Loader and is(was) a commercial harddisk driver software for the Amiga dating back to roughly 1988 (Boil v3 is from 1993).

It made an standard OMTI MFM/RLL controller from PC/XT accessible from an Amiga. You had to enter the disk geomety information there (number of cylinders, sectors, heads and so on).

On the "English Amiga Board" I found some hints for Boil usge  (posting #7). For more information I would have to look for a readme file on my Boil3 floppy disk at home this afternoon...

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.

Yeah, but unfortunately our original website had been hacked (due to outdated CMS version) last summer  and infected with "malicious scripts" - therefore our provider disabled the access to the old content.

So we had to install the latest version of our Content Management System, which is said to be without this security gap. But as the new version was not fully backward compatible, we had to start from the scatch and still have to migrate the old content and to adapt it to the new CMS version manually. Unfortunately I'm just responsible for translating from German and maintaining the English page - so I don't have access to the old stuff on our webspace. My colleage is the only person with access to the webspace itself, while I just have an admin account in the CMS. So I have to wait for him to make the old stuff accessible for me. I had intended to do a lot of this work during my xmas holidays (5 weeks) - but he didn't migrate a single article and so I couldn't do anything. Bummer!

We're in close collaboration with a railway museum nearby our line and they have a historic train hauled by a little, 102-year-old steam locomotive called 'Waldbröl'. Our society has a railcar from the 1950s, currently in general inspection.
This joint venture of the 'Dieringhausen Railway Museum' and our 'Society For The Preservation Of The Wiehltalbahn' is called Bergischer Löwe.

B.T.W. - my father was born nearby Opole (Silesia) - so one part of my roots is also there where today is Poland...

[Dandy]

Yes, I have the Full Bridgeboard install Guide (SCANNED PAPER ENGLISH COPY), the link is above in post.

Still have to look for it...

THERE A GERMAN Electronic Version for your SPARE TIME READING http://l8r.net/technical/a2088.html

Ahh - very interesting. Have you seen this:

...
Floppy Disks: Supports up to 2 standard PC floppy disk drives:

5.25" Drives: 360KB (Comes standard with 360KB drive)
3.5" Drives: 720KB (Uses Amiga external floppies drives on the external floppy connector)
...

No harddrive mentioned...makes me think...if there is an M$-Dos partition on the harddrive at all...

(Look at the Appendix, that is where I am stuck "FDISK/ADISK")

At the "GERMAN Electronic Version" link is no "Appendix" - what do you mean with that?

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).

Hum - should the PC-XT on the bridgeboard really support no harddrives on the M$-Dos side I`m not surprised that `fdisk` does not work...

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

Still have to find this manual and the `Appendix`...

[Dandy]

...
No harddrive mentioned...makes me think...if there is an M$-Dos partition on the harddrive at all...
...

The same at http://bboah.amiga-resistance.info/cgi-bin/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=328:
"This card may have been supplied with a 360K 5.25" floppy drive however the card can also use a real external Amiga floppy drive, to read 720K DOS disks."

From the schematics at your "GERMAN Electronic Version" link I`m beginning to understand:
- The Amiga 2000 has Zorro-II slots and ISA-slots (pre-PCI age) on the motherboard (partially in line).
- The card plugs into both a Zorro slot and an ISA slot and so allows you to use real 8bit ISA cards in the ISA slots of your A2000, which are disabled by default and can only be activated and `linked` to the Amiga`s Zorro bus by a "bridgeboard" (hence the name). This allows you to use a MFM ISA controller card with MFM harddrive in your Amiga.
- According to the German Amiga wiki (http://www.amigawiki.de/doku.php?id=de:expansion:other:a2088xt), the German Commodore engineers in Braunschweig designed the PC/XT on the bridgeboard strictly in line with the original IBM 8088 XT/PC specifications.

And as far as I remember, the original IBM 8088 XT/PC only had two 5 1/4 360 kB floppy disk drives by default - no harddrive. That means you cannot use a harddrive with the XT/PC on your A2088XT bridgeboard - just the Amiga can access the drive via the bridgeboard and the MFM controller in the ISA slot.

Therefore I do not believe there is any M$-Dos related stuff on your drive - just Amiga stuff, I`d say...

Sorry for the bad news...

[Dandy]

These are the two Bridgeboard Guides on the NET (thanks to Darkage in post above)
-
The PDF Scan of the Original Paper Bridgeboard Manuals(One German and One English - with the Appedix and FDISK)
http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/a2088xt (On this site you can also get the BB disks images)


Here is the AmigaOS Manual (where I read about the MOUNTLISTS and where they are placed, and Read at Boot time.)
http://wiki.amigaos.net/wiki/AmigaOS_Manual:_AmigaDOS_Additional_Amiga_Directories

Thanks for the link! That was what I was looking for...

I am pretty sure PC Side supports Hard disks.

After having had a Brief look at the table of content I have to agree - there's a chapter about fitting a harddisk: "D.   Einbau einer Harddisk   D-1".

So forget my guessing about the A2088XT not being able to use harddisks.
I was just confused because in the docs I had seen so far floppy drives were mentioned, but no harddrives. In a "tech spec" I would have expected the mentioning of the possibility of using harddrives with it...

Now I can start to read the manual in detail...
I'll come back later...

[Dandy]

@wbrejnia

Please read the complete posting - solution comes near the bottom...

Original by wbrejnia:

** THINGS ARE NOT GOING WELL with my FIRST TRIAL (Jlink Virutual Drive : Appendix C (BB Manual). **
************************************************** ***************************************

1) I tried the section in the BB manual (To create a VIRTUAL DRIVE) on the AMIGA FILE SYSTEM

I Properly run "ADISK" on the Amiga side.

Errmmm - you're confusing me.
"ADISK" s not mentioned in the Appendix C of the BB manual - just "JLink".

As far as I can see, "ADISK" is mentioned for first time in "APPENDIX E: INSTALLING AND USING A HARD DISK ON THE PC SIDE" at the bottom off page 71.

Original by wbrejnia:

I properly added DEVICE= JDISK.SYS into the MDOS Boot DISK CONFIG.SYS file.
It does load, since I even did a TYPO (Jbad.sys) and the Boot complains that file doesn't exist.

If I don't include that entry into CONFIG.SYS and run Jlink.exe (I get an error message saying (JDISK.SYS
not installed:)

Did you start "PCDisk" before running "Jlink.exe"?
As Appendix C on page 61 of the BB manual says:
"PCDisk must be running in order for the JLink program to work."

To start "PCDisk", you have to insert the "PC System Disk" into a 5.25 inch disk drive and
the "PC Workbench" diskette (apparently this is the one 3.5 inch floppy disk containing the
Bridgeboard "PClnstall" program, delivered with the BB) into the Amiga's 3.5 inch internal disk drive
before running the "JLink" program, according to Appendix C on page 61 of the BB manual. Open the PC
drawer on the Workbench, and double-click on the "PCDisk" icon.

At this point, page 7 of the English manual might be interesting:
2. INSTALLING THE BRIDGEBOARD HARDWARE  (page 7)

MAKE SURE you received the following items in the Bridge board box:
...
· One 3.5 inch floppy disk containing the Bridgeboard "PClnstall" program*
  . * NOTE: In some countries you may receive a "special PC Workbench disk" in place
  . of (or in addition to) the Install disk listed here. In this case you will not need to go through the
  . process of installing the PC software on a copy of your Workbench disk, as described in Chapter 3.    
  . However, you will find Chapter 3 useful if you want to create a personalized "PC Workbench" disk for
  . some special use.
· Three 5.25 inch floppy disks containing MS-DOS System Software, GWBASIC and other special software
  for use with the Bridgeboard
...

Do you have this "special PC Workbench disk"? (important to know)
(The term "PC Workbench disk" is misleading and confuses me each time, as there exists nothing like a
"PC Workbench". In our daily use of the language we normally refer to a "PC" (x86 IBM compatible
computer) when we say "M$-Dos" or "Windows" today, while the term "Workbench" is linked to Amiga
computers.
To be clear, we should either say "PC disk", or "Amiga disk"...)

It will also be important to know which AmigaOS version (Workbench version) is used on the 3.5" floppy
disk from the Bridge board box, as it must correlate with the Kickstart version you're using.

On my system I always made a new boot disk for my HD each time I upgraded to a new Kickstart & Workbench
version. For this I booted the Amiga with the new WB, formatted an empty DD floppy disk as bootable and
copied over all the stuff from the OLD boot disk for my HD.
And I named the disks properly, e.g. "HD bootdisk 3.1" for use with Kickstart & OS (Workbench) version
3.1.

Original by wbrejnia:

But then running JLINK hang on any switch (ie JLINK e: RAM:vd /C:160). Even tried JLINK by itself which
should just list any VIRTUAL DRIVES. (160KB in minimal size, if you use 4 KB it complains)

Make sure that you start "PCDisk" before trying to run "Jlink.exe"! (see above)

Original by wbrejnia:

I thought the RAM drive might not have enough space so I tried a trick to test if communication between
PC and AMIGA is happening

I saw the manual also has a chapter about RAM expansion...
But I highly doubt you can find a 128 kB RAM expansion board for ISA slots nowadays...
(keep in mind your A2088XT cannot use more than 640 kB RAM and has 512 kB by standard, IIRC)

Original by wbrejnia:

1) I used notepad to CREATE a FILE on DF0: call "VM" full of text

OK...

Original by wbrejnia:

2) I ran the command ( JLINK DF0:VM )

Confusion again.
As you said a few lines up: "But then running JLINK hang on any switch" - did it work this time?
If not, possible reasons could be either that JLINK did not work (possibly "PCDisk" not started before?), or linking the file to a drive letter did not work.

The syntax of this command is as follows:

JLINK n: filename /sw

where
- "n" is the virtual drive to use (letters A and B are reserved for physical floppy drives, C   for physical harddrive. So chose D or beyond),
- "filename" is a standard Amiga path specifying a file (e.g. DH0:s/user-startup), and
- "sw" is one of the following switches:
  /n -all messages suppressed except errors
  /c:n -create that volume on Amiga side. Here, "n" is the size in kilobytes
  /u - unlink that volume
  /r -link read only (all write access will fail)

Note: If you do not specify a switch, "JLINK" will attempt to link to an existing file.
If the file does not exist, the link will be unsuccessful.
If you use /n with /c, existing volumes are deleted without any warnings.

Original by wbrejnia:

3A) According to the manual if the "VM" file exists on df0: then it should prompt you with (a question
if you want to continue)

Note: If you do not specify a switch, "JLINK" will attempt to link to an existing file. If the file does
not exist, the link will be unsuccessful.

Ah - I think now I understand what the issue is.
You created the "VM"-file with NotePad. But this is just a text file for the computer - not a "virtual drive"-file!
A real "virtual drive"-file is generated with the "JLINK n: filename /sw"-command!
You used "JLINK DF0:VM" - but it should have been e.g. "JLINK D: VM /c:100", where the "100" specifies the size of the "virtual drive"-file to 100 kB. German manual says that the default value for "n" is 32768 (32 mB). Keep in mind that the floppy disk in df0: has a maximum capacity of 880 kB on the Amiga side - so I doubt that higher values than 720 kB (max. size of PC DD floppy disks) make sense in this experiment...

The Germn manual furthermore says that you MUST close the used virtual file (with
"JLINK D: VM /u") before switching off the computer!

The German manual also comes up with a nice idea:
Creating the virtual file in the Amigas RAM: disk with e.g. "JLINK D: RAM:PC_DRIVE_D /c:1024" (provided your Amiga has enough RAM, e.g. more than 1.5 mB)!

Original by wbrejnia:

3B) But no PROMPT
3C) And no activity on DRIVE LED

In the face of the above explained things I`m not surprised...

Original by wbrejnia:

...
Dandy, If you have a Sidecar then can you try this an see if it works for you?
...

Nope.
Don`t have a "siecar" - I just had an 80286 HW add-on that plugged into the CPU socket of the A500.
B.T.W. - as far as I remember, the "Sidecar" originally was an external expansion for the Amiga 1000.

Today I use my towered A4000 with CyberstormPPC accelerator, Mediator PCI busboard with Voodoo4 graphics card, Terratec soundcard and 100 mBit network interface card. It has broadband access and is networked with a WIntel box (core i5 quadcore).
To access the PC from the Amiga I use a registered copy of Darren Eveland`s little program "RDesktop".  
To access the Amiga from the PC, you can either use "Samba", or just "smbfs" (SaMBa File System ) - I use the latter.
Works like a charm - no slow bridgeboard required...

Original by wbrejnia:

...
I have no idea why this doesn't work, or what I could do to fix.
...

But I had - see above...
;-)

[Dandy]

Thanks Darkage, any info on KALOK Octacon Drive helps.
...
This Photo is extra Large in case someone see's a clue for Model Type.
...

Data for KALOK hard drives taken from Maurice Small's Hard Disk Reference Manual:

Code: [Select]

Make Model No. Drive Type Capacity in mB No. of Cyl. No. of Heads Sect. p. Track

KALOK KL 320 Octagon 20. MFM 21 615 4 17
KALOK KL 330 Octagon 30. MFM 33 615 4 17
KALOK KL 330 Octagon 30. RLL 33 615 4 26
KALOK KL 340. MFM 42 820 6 17
KALOK KL 360. MFM 42 820 6 17