Awkward OS4.1 Classic boot procedure

[rvo_nl]

Hi all. Now that my system is working again, Ive 'upgraded' from OS4.0 to OS4.1. Had lots of troubles getting it to install, in the end I had to remove my IDE-Fix. It's now installed, but its very difficult to start it up. But first a little background.
 
I have a single 120GB IDE drive connected to my IDE-Fix Express (on the right channel). I really wanted a dual boot set-up (OS3.9 and OS4.x) so I created a boot partition within the first 4Gb with just a basic Wb3.1 installation. My machine boots from this partition every time I reset. When I start up from cold it fires up idefix and mounts all partitions above the first 4Gb using diskchange. It then prompts me to start either OS3.9 or OS4.1. Selecting each results in some assigns being made and either blizkick or bootloader kicking in, rebooting the machine. It then starts up from that basic partition again, but since its checking the version of exec.library its able to determine which OS Im trying to load, does the assignments and executes the right startup-sequence from the right partition. All completely transparent.
 
This worked perfect with 3.9 and 4.0. But now with 4.1 a lot has changed. When I now choose to boot 4.1, it gets to the bootloader part on the OS4.1 partition, reboots to a blue screen (on indivision) and then, nothing happens. When I then do a soft-reset, it shows me the 4.1 Classic boot screen (while on the indivision it gives me first a purple, then a black/white garbled mess). If I then wait for half a minute, the system boots up from that basic 3.1 partition again. Ofcourse it recognises the new exec.library and goes into the 4.1 booting part. Here it fails, it gives me an error about HD2 (with OS4.1) not being a DOS disk. Generally, this is the warning you'd expect when IDE-Fix hasnt loaded. So I made sure its really there and diskchange has really been run. I've tried with LoadIDE too but that also failed. Somehow I have the feeling the OS4.1 bootloader is patching scsi.device, causing a conflict with my IDE-Fix, but perhaps its something else. Does anyone have a clue?
 
Some notes:
 
- First, I know this is quite a non-standard way of installing 4.1. But I did it before and Im sure there is a way to do it again. I cant install 4.1 below the first 4Gb. Its occuppied by PC and Mac partitions.
 
- There is one way to get it to boot sometimes: by holding down both mouse buttons before the OS4.1 Classic screen comes up, selecting HD2 as boot device and clicking Boot. Naturally, this is not what I want and not something I had to do when I had OS4.0 installed.
 
- Changing the  boot prio of the OS4.1 partition to the highest has the same effect: I then have to hold down mouse buttons when cold booting, select boot from HD0, then choose to load OS4.1. At that point it IS able to boot straight into 4.1. But this is obviously just as awkward.
 
- Keep in mind it IS reaching HD2 when booting from cold, it goes into its startup-sequence to start up bootloader. After the reboot, it is NOT able to reach it anymore. There isnt anything I can change in the OS4.1 startup-sequence.
 
- My OS4.1 partition is using SFS2 (68k version) and during installation I havent touched media toolbox. Ofcourse I did set the flags for IDE-Fix support and Ive also tried Allow Base Page Access.
 
- In the kicklayout-a1200 Ive added the bootdevice module and created the file with 'hd2:' in the kickstart folder, as I already did for OS4.0
 
- Here is part of the startup-sequence on my Wb3.1 boot partition:
 
;loading idefix, patching scsi.device
C:IDEfix
;mounting partitions >4gb using diskchange
c:diskchange hd1: ;OS3
c:diskchange hd2: ;OS4
;checking for resident rom modules
version >NIL: exec.library 52
if warn
;os4 kickrom not found
version >NIL: exec.library 45
if warn
;os3.9 kickrom also not found, ask user which OS to boot
ask "load OS3.9?"
if not warn
ask "load OS4.1?"
if not warn
;booting WB3.1
(...)
else
;booting OS4.1
assign sys: hd2:
assign c: sys:c
path c:
assign s: sys:s
assign l: sys:l
assign libs: sys:libs
assign devs: sys:devs
assign fonts: sys:fonts
assign envarc: sys:prefs/env-archive
assign envarc: sys:prefs/env-archive
execute >NIL: s:startup-sequence
endcli >NIL:
endif
else
;booting OS3.9
(...)
endif
else
;os3.9 kickrom found, booting..
(...)
endif
else
;booting OS4.1
assign sys: hd2:
assign c: sys:c
path c:
assign s: sys:s
assign l: sys:l
assign libs: sys:libs
assign devs: sys:devs
assign fonts: sys:fonts
assign envarc: sys:prefs/env-archive
assign envarc: sys:prefs/env-archive
execute >NIL: s:startup-sequence
endcli >NIL:
endif

[rvo_nl]

Hello sir, thanks for your reply. Said modules are active in my kicklayout config. Maprom is disabled already, because I'm using Blizkick. I have SFS/02 (68k, version 1.290) already in my RDB. I did create the bootdevice file (though i'm in doubt whether it should be hd2 or hd2:. only the last one doesnt give me an error, although in os4.0 I used just plain hd2).

So basically Ive done everything you said, except putting OS4.1 within the first 4Gb of my drive. Like I said, I dont want to do this. I didnt have to do it for OS4.0 and I have my low-level partitions already in this space.
 
There must be a different way. Im quite sure it has something to do with my kicklayout config. I also need to solve that strange 'freeze' after initially loading bootloader. Anyone here with a similar set-up willing to share their experiences and / or kicklayout config? Please help. This looks like a fun OS. Its much faster than I expected, too.

[rvo_nl]

hi JurassicCamper,

Thanks so much for your reply. I made a mistake, (no idea how), I have SFS 1.279, it shows up as such in both 3.9 hdtoolbox as 4.1 mediatoolbox.

Its still complaining about hd2 not being DOS when the first reboot took place.
I knew about commenting out the stuff I dont need from kicklayout, I tried but didnt help much so I left it alone for now.

With much interest I read the part about changing my boot script. Did you notice there are 2 parts in my script? First part loads just bootloader, second part is the part that runs when bootloader has reset the machine and new exec is in place. I guess you're now only talking about the first part, since I see no mention of executing os4.1' startup-sequence. I assume I dont need to touch the second part.

So I put your lines into my script, but I get an error when it loads up bootloader. It says it cant find a default set-up in kicklayout-a1200. are you sure this syntax is right? It knows by itself I need kicklayout-a1200, right? (although I have no idea where this is configured)

When I leave out the filename hd2:kickstart/bla stuff, it outputs lots of stuff about the loaded modules, reboots, and fails to recognise hd2 again, unless I tell it to boot from HD2 using the early bootmenu, as explained before.

One thing though, I noticed one of the loaded modules: smartfilesystem (ppc - native). why is this loaded when I only have 68k installed in RDB, I thought. So I went back and removed it from kicklayout. Didnt help though.

Do you have a dual/triple boot set-up too? If so perhaps you can share your script and/or kicklayout config? Would help me out, Im sure!

[rvo_nl]

After a long time trouble shooting I've got it sorted..
The hang-up after the first reboot is fixed by clearing the second port of the IDE-Fix, must play around a bit with jumpers later to see if it can be fixed.

The non-dos hd2 issue was solved by a combination of things. I made my boot script much simpler and played around with enabled modules in kicklayout-1200 until it worked. Just in case anyone needs it later, it needed the following adjustments:

disabled scsi.device_ppc.mod
disabled ata3/sata/pata stuff
enabled atapiismajik
enabled BootDevice module (camel case, no semicolon inside!)

in the startup-sequence of my os4.1 partition I disabled c:bootloader, since its already being run by my triple boot script on my Wb3.1 drive.

the startup-sequence of my Wb3.1 drive looks like this now:

first part:

assign sys: hd2:
assign c: sys:c
cd sys:
c:bootloader

second part (after reboot) :

execute >NIL: hd2:s/startup-sequence
endcli >NIL:

many thanks for  your suggestions, Im really happy its working now! Also, sorry for cross-posting. For some reason I cannot access amiga.org on my pc anymore. This was posted using Ibrowse