A600 with KS37.300 not being kind with new HDD

[cartmanau]

I just put the 40 Mb (Seagate ST9051A) out of my dead A1200 in my A600. I loaded the computer using Install 2.1 and was surprised to not see the icons for the drive on workbench.

I opened HDTool, deleted the partitions, created new ones, saved to disk and restarted. Still no Hard disk.

I loaded HDTool and exited. The hard disk icons appeared on the desktop. I fomatted them and installed Workbench (or so I thought). At the end I pulled out the floppy - and restarted. It did nothing.

I then turned it off and back on, holding down both mouse buttons (for the boot menu). No sign of DH0 or DH1 there. I then pulled the HD out, put it in my other A1200 and partitioned it. Put it back in the A600, nothing.

I also borrowed a mate's WB 2.05, removed the RDB and partitioned and formatted. Still no go in the A600. It can see it after HDTool has touched it but it just will not auto mount :pissed:

The HDD will boot the A1200 but not the A600. WTF am I doing wrong?

[cartmanau]

Daedalus wrote:
I'm a little bit rusty at WB2.05 installs, but are you sure you have a filesystem that the 2.05 ROMs can understand installed on the drive? If you install it on an A1200 you'll get the 3.0 version of FFs installed, and it won't boot on the 600... Make absolutely sure you've got hte 2.05 version of FFS in L: on your boot floppy before you install it with HDToolbox...

I am using the disks on the A600 to set it up (2.05 and 2.1).

Failing that (and I don't want to insult your intelligence here), but you did check the automount option in HDToolbox? It may or may not be stored differently between the WB2 and WB3 versions of HDToolbox, so checking it on the 1200 might not necessarily mean it'll automount under WB2...

I have done this in the HDToolBox on WB2.

[cartmanau]

adonay wrote:
What kind of ide controller have you got in the 600 and what ide software (scsi emulation modes etc ) and i dont think 2.1 supports 4Gb-> drives ..try wb 3.1 witch will need 3.1 rom (this dont count for 1200 witch can run 3.1 from 3.0 roms) if you dont have 3.1 rom in the 600 i think u have a problem whith large disks..


adonay :-)

Standard A600 IDE, 40 MB drive.

[cartmanau]

IMO this shouldn't happen, KS 2.x ROM FFS should read the filesystem just fine. At least that is my experience.

However, putting the latest FFS (for the particular OS) to the HDD's RDB can't hurt...

How does one do that?

[cartmanau]

orange wrote:
Did that A600 ever work with any HDD?
I'd try PFS and different versions of HDToolbox(other programs). Maybe somethings wrong with its KS..  :inquisitive:

Never had a HDD the whole time I have had it, so I wouldnt know.

What is PFS? I have tried HDToolbox 1.3, 2.05, 2.1 and 3.1. 1.3 wont detect it, the rest do. I have tried a paritioner from Aminet (HDInst or something like that) as well as the 2.05 HDInstall script.

Frankly I am at a loss as to why it doesnt work.

[cartmanau]

whabang wrote:
Type 'info' in the shell, and see if it appears there...

Only after it appears on the desktop.

[cartmanau]

Jope wrote:
Also be sure to check by rebooting with both mouse buttons down that the partitions are visible in the early startup menu..

Done that. Doesnt appear

- installing the correct filesystem in the RDB

Is this done in HDToolBox?

[cartmanau]

Generale wrote:
Hi there.
Here's my 2c worth. Just read this thread and it looks a little different from my less WB savvy perspective.
To me it looks like an electronic fault in the controller/cable. Simplest level, drive doesn't seem to be receiving a signal from the write pin..pin 23 i think. It's probably more complex, like a lightly fried chip, but it's worth checking components associated with R/W operations.

A less savvy perspective is always refreshing. I have only decided to revisit the world of the A600 after years of trouble free A1200 use. I have never had an Amiga as troublesome as this A600.

It is definantly reading and writing to the HDD, when I put it in the A1200 it is perfect. Just wont auto boot on the A600 (nor automount).

Oh, is there corrupt data afterwards or no change?

Data is perfect.

[cartmanau]

Jope wrote:
Yes..

And I said it a bit unclearly before:

Set your dostypes to normal FFS (DOS/1 or 0x444f5301) .. my sentence was a bit backwards.

I have tried it as a custom with 0x44f5301 as the type. On the next boot it appears in the boot menu, but after that it is gone again.

@Kronos
It is a 2.5" drive

[cartmanau]

Doobrey wrote:

 Is that after a warm boot or a cold boot ?

If it`d only doing this on warm boots, and considering it`s an old drive, it might be the reset problem that plagued many Amiga users years ago. Cutting the wire that goes to pin #1 should stop it.

It will only appear in the boot menu after setting it up in HDToolBox with a warm reset.

[cartmanau]

Generale wrote:
So if I understand correctly the drive isn't detected after a cold boot but is after a warm boot?
Could have something to do with the delay time for detection used by the A600 coupled with a drive that is slow at getting its marbles together.

It only appears after a warm boot after being played with in HDToolBox, every boot after that it isnt there. Go figure.

[cartmanau]

Argus wrote:
@Doobrey

I have a 540mb 2.5" drive from an IBM Thinkpad (DHAA-2540) that just won't work at all with 2.1 of an A600 nor with 3.0 of an A1200.  It will appear under HDToolbox and I can get it to set up partitions.  But then, upon warm reboot, no familiar icons for the partitions.  If I click on the HDSetup program, the icons for the partitions will suddenly appear.  I can then format these and install Workbench on the bootable system partition but after warm reboot nothing again.  Very frustrating indeed.  I've thought about cutting the first wire of the ide cable but never did because the cable cost more ($5.00) than the drive (free).

This is pretty much the exact same problem as I am having.

I was going to grab a 2.5" drive from work today (just to try a different one) but unfortunately I couldnt find one. Will have to ask the boss to find one for me  :-D

@jahc
Actually 37.300 is the first KS to support IDE HDDs in the A600. It is limited to drives of less than 40 MB but the support is there. If there was no support in Kickstart for HDDs then not even HDToolBox could find it as there would be no scsi.device

[cartmanau]

Alright, seems the problem is sorted now.

I managed to get my boss to drop me around a nice 200 MB drive last night. Popped that in and it worked fine. THinking then it is obviously a drive problem, I pulled pin 1 off the mobo, most boots the 40MB is there, but if not (when the insert disk screen comes up) I just reset and off it goes.

Thanks for all the help guys

[cartmanau]

orange wrote:
'mobo' is on HDD, not A600, right?

Mobo - motherboard. I did it dodgy - I just snapped pin 1 off the board of the A600