First time HD install in A4000 w/OS3.1

[K7HTH]

I am building an A4000HD but cannot get the OS3.1 Harddisk toolbox to acknowledge the drive. The cable is good and I have 3.0 ROMS. The drive is an 8GB Seagate. I understand OS3.1 drive defaults are SCSI, but I am using the internal A4000 IDE connectors and need to know how to get this drive mounted and partitioned. I also hope to get the ATAPI IDE CDROM working too; so when I can partition the first 2GB I can install OS3.9 and partition the rest. Thanks for any help.

[K7HTH]

TjLaZer wrote:
You are using "Scsi.device" in HDToolBox right?  Is it seeing the drive?  Once seen, setup partitions, with DH0: under 4GB and the rest as you please.  Should work fine.  You may have to unselect international mode, delete and reload FastFileSystem and try that.  For some reason that made the partitions not seen until I unchecked it.  Maybe that is a bug in the OS3.9 FFS, not sure, but try that.

Hi Tj, Yes HDTolbox is set for SCSI.device which I am not using in the A4000, I am trying to install an IDE drive. Therefore, HDToolbox is not seeing my IDE drive. Can you tell me what lines need to be typed in the information box for HDToolbox so I can recognize and partition this IDE drive? Thanks. I am using OS3.1 until I can get this HD installed an the CDROM working somehow.

[K7HTH]

Please note my Army brother that I need a primer here. "Setting" anything needs explaining. I open the icon HDToolBox with the Information command on the menu. I see lines of data all prefaced with 'SCSI'. IDE is nowhere listed. What lines do I need to add in the information window to make HDToolBox see my IDE drive to partition it?

[K7HTH]

@Argus

Thanks for the info. As for 3.1 ROMS that is another issue I am having with this A4000. I installed a Kickflash OS4 that I loaded with Firmware 1.6 and 3.1 Kickstart ROMS for the A4000 on my A200HD. Well, no luck the A4000 chooses to ignore the Kickflash and boots directly to 3.0 ROMS. I followed all directions and even removed the jumper as instructed with no results. So I wasted 50 USD there and will have to burn another 60USD to get the actual ROMS. I tried installing a WD 6 GB drive that already had a 2 GB Amiga partition and OS3.1 loaded on it. When I plugged it into the A4000, the screen turned gray, red, yellow three times then prompted me at the 3.0 ROMS screen for a kickstart disk. I rebooted and the drive powered up, spun, and I was back at the 3.0 KS screen. I have small notebook drives I could use but I suspect the same result with HDToolbox as I experienced this same symptom in the A500. Even with 3.1 ROMS. That was why I went with the AdIDE2 which worked much better adapting a HD to my Amigas. (A500 & A500+) I am very much looking forward to getting this machine straight so I can mothball it in the closet.    

[K7HTH]

TjLaZer wrote:
Hey man, Do not worry about IDE, on the A4000 the IDE driver is SCSI.DEVICE!  All you have to do is set the tooltype: DEVICE=scsi.device and remove the rest! No need to use any IDE tooltypes.  Once you run the HDToolBox click to see if it sees the drive, if not click on Edit, and then Read Configuration.  After that click Ok, then partition.  I was able to get a 20GB drive seen as a 8GB with 3.0 ROMs so you should be ok.  I later softkicked to 3.1, and I installed 3.9. I was then able to repartition the drive to 20GB and reinstall 3.9.

And I am in the Air Force!

Oh, hey, OK so you are on McCord then. I thought you were at Ft Lewis with your South Tacoma location, great.

I can now see my Drive is unkown. I select it and load parameters even though the size it comes up with is way low, but not bad at 2 GB. When I go to save the changes I am told the disk is too full. Now what?
 
Thanks for the idea my AirForce bro.  

[K7HTH]

Well, good times. I got 2GB out of the configuration, I was able to save chnages to the disk by deleting the foreign langugaes on the floppy, and am now formatting the drive. What I need to do now is find a way to get my 44 speed CDROM to get recognized. Any suggestions?

[K7HTH]

@All,

Thanks for the great info. At the moment I have no drivers for the CDROM and was ignorant in not thinking I needed one. I am still stuck in PC mode thinking all attached drives will be recognized by the ROM/OS. Where could I get the respective drivers for my CDROM? It is a generic 44X ATAPI/IDE drive.

As for the Kickflash, I loaded the KS 3.1 ROM for the A4000D. I had to use the A2000HD desktop to run the program to load the firmware. Now that I have OS3.1 loaded I could work to get the Kickflash loaded again but do so on the A4000D.  

[K7HTH]

Well, I must say I am suffering the symptom of the disappearing hard drive. I loaded OS3.1 and all install well and good. Then I warm boot, good to go. Then I cold boot and the OS3.0 prompt screen returns. I know I selected the HD to boot thatwas evident upon the warm boot. So I boot with OS3.1 Install disk and there goes the HD Icon lost in the Amiga netherworld. I go through the whole installation process again and the same thing again. I am using a WD Caviar 36400. I was unable to get the 8MB Seagate to recognize. What I find curious is that my drives have 39 pins but I use a 40 pin cable because there are 40 pins on the A4000 mobo. I am tempted to breaking pin 31 on the mobo so I can use better cables that have that pin blocked on the cable connector.

[K7HTH]

I would like to use the Seagate but I just can't get HDToolBOX to acknowledge this 8GB drive at all.

Since pin 31 is of no consequence, cliping it off the mobo is acceptable?

[K7HTH]

Orjan wrote:

Well... I don´t know exactly what pin 31 does, if anything, but I can tell you for sure that cutting the pin of the motherboard won´t make a difference, and I don´t really see why you should consider that at all... If there´s no pin on the drive, then the pin isn´t connected on the motherboard, so to speak... The wire is physically present in the flat ide cable, but it doesn´t go anywhere...

My thought exactly, thanks. Well there is hope in all this since I chose to not quit. I got the Seagate to come up and be configured for partitioning. I got 4GB out of it so far. Right now I am formatting it and hope to install 3.1 again and have it stick this time unlike the WD drive. I will work on the CDROM after I can have a somewhat stable HD installed. Stay tuned.

[K7HTH]

Hmmmm, intialize. I never noticed that. Well, formatting is done, OS3.1 installed, Cold boots fine, but misses the first boot with the CDROM attached, causing me to warm boot then the HD takes over. Now, I am decompressing Kickstart files on my laptop to hopefully get it working in my A4000D.

[K7HTH]

Orjan wrote:

Tip: You normally don´t have to "format" drives if they have appeared as icons in Workbench.. You only have to "initialize" them ( choos format in the menu system, then initialize ) Initialization only takes a few seconds, compared to a format which takes, well, forever... :-)

I take it formatting a drive without a WB icon would be unfeasible. When you mean 'initialize' from the format menu, you mean to Quick Format, right? I am using WB 3.1 until I can get Picasso drivers loaded and this darn Kickflash to supposedly load KS 3.1 so I can even run the Picasso. I hope to get my CDROM working via the Budda/Catweasel, but right now the Catweasel disk is corrupt right out the box. Got to love this vintage money pit technology!

[K7HTH]

Argus wrote:
Ah yes, the money pit.  Who among us doesn't know the $$ needed to sustain the habit?

I finally got around to working with my 3.0 rom'd A4000.  I couldn't get 3.1 to recognize a 1Gb ide drive nor cdrom but 3.0 installs perfectly on the 1GB Seagate ide drive and AsimCDFS installed my 4x Mitsumi atapi drive no problem.  I think you're going to need to softkick into 3.1 from a 3.0 harddrive install.  If you have another A4000 w/ 3.1 ROMs you can copy the ROM image onto floppy for use with the softkicker program.  I've done this with A500s before but not an AA machine.  Same principles apply though, so it should work.  I would think you'd want to save your Kickflash flashrom space for the 3.9 rom update later.

At the moment I do not have faith in this KickflashOS4 to support the 3.9 ROM update because it cannot properly load Kickstart 3.1 ROM even with CoyoteFlash1.6. It is curious you mention kickflash flashrom space for 3.9 ROM update because there are two locations on Kickflash one each for ROM update AND Kickstart ROM.

My current 8GB Seagate was partitioned and formatted under OS3.1 using 3.0 ROMS. The only Amiga I own more than one of is the A500.