My Deneb is here! (a little excited here)

[Darrin]

Well I got back from Brazil today and my Deneb card was waiting for me along with an A4000 I'd won on eBay (one of that batch of 20 that was for sale earlier this month).

The A4000 had WB3.1 installed on a 800MB hard drive and KS3.0.

First thing I did was remove the internal SD/FF from my A1200 and install it in the A4000 to use a PC monitor.  Everything worked so far... 2MB Chip, 16MB fast.

Then I installed the Deneb with the jumper set for Rescue and booted.  I found the flash hosted Deneb software off the bottom of the screen and tried to install it - could not find "Installer".  Bugger!  I found my AmigaKit PCMCIA ethernet software install floppy and dragged the Installer command from that to my hard drive and tried again.  It seems this is an older Installer and the Tools fails due to a script error, but Luciferin and Poseidon seemed to install OK.

I removed the jumper and rebooted and got the Deneb boot screen (very pretty) and after loading WB I was prompted to watch the animation which I rejected due to not having the correct files installed to watch it.

The A4000 came with no keyboard so I tried an old Logitech one that I had lying around (probably a USB1.1 with a built in 2 port 1.1 hub) - no joy, no power lights, no nothing.

I formatted a 2GB Cruzer memory stick to FAT16 and tried it in all ports with no response which was a shame as I wanted to use this to transfer files over from my PC (latest Installer, MUI, FAT95).  I tried a USB IDE/SATA adapter which at least lit up when plugged into a PC, but the LEDs stay dead when connected to the Deneb.

I can't run Trident prefs as it needs MUI and I found Psddromtag in my utilities draw, clicked on it, it asked if I wanted to add Poseidon as reset-resident, I said OK and then it told me "something went wrong" and removed Poseidon.

I've set the A2000 up to that I can burn some file from the PC onto a CD, put the CD into the A2000 and then copy the files to Amiga floppies (none of my ****ing PCs have floppy drives any more).

Am I missing something obvious?  Is the memory stick not showing because I don't have Fat95?  Is it because I couldn't install the Deneb tools?

Any suggestions would be appreciated and now I have to take the wife out to dinner. I'll have another go at it in the morning.

I also hope my A4000 PC keyboard adapter shows up soon as using an Amiga with no keyboard is a pain in the bottom.   :-D

PS.  I also loved the typo in the English manual on page 6:

"The bus type is sensed automagically"

I assume this is similar to automatically, but the sensing is done by some pixies or elves?    ;-)

[Darrin]

amigakit wrote:
Glad that your Deneb USB arrived safely.

I would recommend installing MUI - you need to add USB hardware to the Poseidon configuration file to tell it to use Deneb.

You can use the command line instead (but this is more complicated)

You are right, you will need FAT95 in the L: drawer.

Cheers, I appreciate the help.

Any news with regards to that PM I sent you?  I need to order those KS3.1 ROMS.  Do A1200 3.1 ROMS work in an A4000?

[Darrin]

countzero wrote:

Darrin wrote:
Do A1200 3.1 ROMS work in an A4000?

Amiga 4000 has full 32 bit system address space and a zorro3 bus. Amiga 1200 kickroms may boot, but you probably will be limited.

I gave it a go the other night and the A4000 refused to boot - just hung with a black screen.  I swapped the ROMs back and everything returned to normal.  I'm just having to put up with OS3.1 for now as I really wanted to get OS3.9 running on it before I threw the other Amigas up for auction.

I just started reinstalling my copy of 3.1 as I couldn't get the previous one to recognise the CD ROM.  I assume that the A4000 allows 2 devices on the internal IDE connector and the CD0: device needs to be set as Unit 1 if the CD ROM is configured as slave?

I've given up on the Deneb for now unil I get the CD ROM working.

[Darrin]

mbrantley wrote:
Yes, that's right. I have just that setup using CacheCDFS, and I've had it working before with asimcdfs.

Well I've replaced the old Hard Drive that came with the A4000 with a 2.1GB model, installed OS3.1, copied over the latest Installer and sucessfully installed all of the software of the Deneb (and FAT95 which was in the Bonus software - cheers guys!).

I've still got a couple of problems.

#1:  I've tried several CD ROM drives and none of them show up on the IDE bus (I've tried different cables too).  I've scanned using Find Device and Hard Drive Toolbox and only the Hard Drive shows up.

#2:  Nothing works on the Deneb.  I get the Deneb boot screen, but nothing I plug into the internal or external ports show up.  I've tried a USB laser mouse and a memory stick and neither even light up (the stick has a led on it and the laser stays off on the mouse).  I thought mice and keyboards were supported on boot-up?

Anyone got any ideas?

[Darrin]

amigadave wrote:
From reading this thread it seems that the person having trouble either did not get sufficient documentation and setup instructions with their Deneb, or they have not bothered to read everything that came with their new toy.

I hope the first case is not true, it is a PITA to get a new Amiga peripheral and have to struggle for weeks to get it working correctly, or you have to be an expert to know how to get it working.

I am guilty of being one of those that wants to just plug in a new Zorro card or device and have a Install file that sets it up with just a dozen or so questions answered (call me lazy).

It's me being lazy (probably).  From the description when this card was announced, I at least expected it to pick up a minimum of devices after insertion and definately after installing the software from the Flash ROM.  What made it doubly frustrating was the fact that I can't get this ****ing CD ROM to run on the A4000 (while setting up a CD ROM on my A2000, A3000 and A1200s has been a piece of piss) and that the PCs I have set up don't have a floppy drive.  Add to that the fact that my Buddha card has gone tits-up and reports any drives connected to it as gibberish and I've not been having an easy time.

Anyway, I've bought a USB floppy so I now have an A: drive on the PCs.  Cross DOS sucked at first for transferring files due to the file name limitation, but I got FAT95 of the Deneb (hurrah!) and now that problem is fixed.  I still haven't got MUI installed which is why I haven't been able to do anything with the USB stack preferenced (because I've been trying to get my ****ing CD ROM drive working to transfer the ****ing files).  PLus, I've not been able to apply my full attention to the problems as I've got several other things I have to deal with including having my wife in hospital with a heart problem.  Talk about stress!

Thanks to everyone for the pointers.  I've just got home from visiting my wife, so I guess I'm going to have to wade through all the instructions.  I've got MUI on a floppy now to install, however I was not impressed when my Buddha install disk refused to install CDFS as it thinks my Hard Drive has a negative capacity!

One interesting note for the developers:  With the Buddha card inserted, the software on the Deneb Flash ROM doesn't come up in rescue mode.  It does once the Buddha card is removed.

One last question:  I'm using a Kickstart 3.0 ROM in the A4000.  As I've said, setting up the CD ROM access in my other Amigas has been straightforward, but they all have 3.1 Kickstarts.  Is there extra code in KS3.1 that makes CD ROM access easier?

[Darrin]

I noticed so text briefly flashing up before Workbench loaded, so I inserted a wait command before the LoadWB and rebooted.

I get the following error during startup:

ENVARC:PsdStackLoader: Unknown Command

[Darrin]

MozzerFan wrote:

ENVARC:PsdStackLoader: Unknown Command

That's probrably because you haven't saved your settings
yet with Trident prefs.

Regards,
Lloyd

Cheers.

Now MUI won't install because it can't find a file called " "!  Sheesh!  I think I'll go and play with a PC for a while...

[Darrin]

@ Mozzerfan & MBrantley,

Cheers guys for the help.  I played a quick game of Star Trek Amarda, calmed down, fed the dog and went back to the Miggy.

In short, I've got it reading my memory stick!!!  Yeah!!!  OK, I officially love this thing - Deneb rocks!  :-)

I think the problem with the MUI install was that I used WinRAR to extract it, copied the files to 2 floppy disks, dumped them in a single folder on DH0: and tried installing from theere.  Something ebcame broke in the process.

I downloaded LHA and copied that to my C: folder, copied the MUI LHA archive from the floppy to the HD, extracted it via the command "LHA x DH0:38USR.LHA" to the RAM: drive and installed it from there.

I could then access Poseidon preferences.  I then rebooted, went back into the prefs, cleared all the error messages in the log, shoved the USB stick back in and then watched Poseidon mount it in seconds!

Next I need to get brave, dig out my old USB CD ROM drive and then see if I can use that instead of the ****ing IDE one.

Can I just suggest, for ease of use, that the following files are added to the Flash ROM for future Deneb batches:

Latest INSTALLER file.
MUI install package.

I need to test that USB to SATA/IDE cable again too...

[Darrin]

mbrantley wrote:
The above assumed you're trying to run the CD from the Buddha. If that's not the case, then nevermind.

Would it help to post my CacheCDFS CDO mountlist?

Firstly I tried to use the CD ROM as a slave on the internal A4000 IDE header.  It would spin up on power on, but would not appear as a connected device under SCSI.device whereas the hard drive could be seen as Unit 0.

I inserted my Buddha card and connected the CD ROM to that and it immediately showed up as Unit 1 on 2nd.SCSI.device (although the information on the drive is garbled as is the case for all drives since it stopped working).

IF you could, assuming you have your CD ROM drive set up as slave, can you please email me your CD0 DOSdriver file to "DARRIN01311 at AOL dot COM".  Cheers.

[Darrin]

Oh boy!  This is great!

I bought this device:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2329300&CatId=470

I just plugged in an old Amiga formatted 4GB 2.5" drive from my A1200, plugged it into one of the Deneb USB ports and it came straight up as an available drive with all of the old Amiga files visible.

This is going to make backing up or restoring a hard drive a breeze!

[Darrin]

Cheers.  It's still a no-go detecting Unit 1.  I'll give IDEfix a go in the morning along with that USB drive.  Thanks for all of your help.   :-)

[Darrin]

I hope you realise that I'm not even going to screw with the Flash ROM until I see you work it out.   :lol:

[Darrin]

I tried the USB DVD drive (HP DVD420e) and the Deneb detected it on startup and then seemed to assign the FAT95 file system to it as if it was treating it as an external hard drive (or possibly because I'm still having trouble with the CD ROM and CD file system although I appear to have CDFS installed).

It also seems that that the problem I've been having with the CD ROM detection might be the hard drive as the faded label on top seems to have seperate jumper configurations for Master and Master with Slave.

[Darrin]

MozzerFan wrote:

I tried the USB DVD drive (HP DVD420e) and the Deneb detected it on startup and then seemed to assign the FAT95 file system to it as if it was treating it as an external hard drive

Start Trident prefs. Goto Classes section and click on
massstorage class. Choose configure and check if the right
filesystem is entered with CD/DVD drives.

Regards,
Lloyd

Thanks Lloyd, I'll give that a go.

I know you want to scream "RTFM!!!" at me, so I appreciate the time and effort to post the "idiot's guide".

I'm in the middle of installing a 80GB Hard drive in the A4000 at the moment along with the CV643D and then I'll reinstall the Deneb.

[Darrin]

Well I did a nice clean install of OS3.1 on the new hard drive, installed the Deneb software, installed LHA, installed MUI and ran the USB stack.  Everything works great.

I tested the memory stick and it came straight up and then I tested the USB drive again, but this time it mounted with the correct file system and my good old AmigaOS3.9 icon and Emergency-boot icon appeared on the screen.

Now I just need some Kickstart 3.1 ROMS and I can try to install OS3.9 off the USB DVD+R drive.