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

[darkage]

Thanks.  If I do go forward with upgrading (I actually might) it won't be with all this flaky unreliable stuff.

demo video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUxsmQxJZ3c

[darkage]

nice project looks very clean and professional!   You can detect the hard drives within the bios on the 486 right ?    It might make more sense if you can try and find a way to create hard drive image file from the MFM drives via the 486.  Not sure if you have to convert he MFM drive images at all.  You will need to read up.


  Then you might be able to load the hdd image with Winuae emulator configured with a bridgeboard..    

video example - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rC8UUgXPnsw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnsZBX_AYKA


even if you dont take a image of the MFM drive, you could still fire up WinUAE configured with a bridgeboard to become more familiar with the setup and how the system should react minus any bad hardware disadvantages.   Might be a useful training aid on a fast modern day computer.

[darkage]

Looks like you can get the WD1002A-27X


$19 from a computer recycler http://www.4drives.com/4drives/WD1002A-27X.htm

$40 to $79.95 from ebay  http://ebay.to/2jvp7sU

[darkage]

What documentation says is you can access to on Board BIOS using the DOS "Debug" command, and entering this command "G=C800:5.", which starts a text based interactive menu. (to Format, Partition, etc).

Careful with that debug command.   It looks like it only executes a low level format app from memory.   Manual says the following

'This controller has a built-in low-level format program. To enter the program run the DEBUG utility supplied with DOS and at the prompt enter: G=C800:5.'  

Also dont set the jumpers on the MFM/RLL controller card, looks like that triggers low level format.


Screenshot of debug app running showing just low level format option, may be a different controller  -  http://angelohouben.nl/restoring-an-ibm-5150-computer/  


Not sure if you have checked all terminator resistors are inplace and correct jumper settings are setup.   If the terminator resisters are sockets you may want to remove and reseat them.   I didn't realise the 5.25 floppy has these until this thread pop up, not sure if these are on the MFM drives at all.    

heres some handy old school applications,  you might want to see if you can load checkit diagnostics perhaps

http://www.minuszerodegrees.net/software/software.htm

On the 486 you will probably want to disable IDE if onboard and/or remove the ide controller card, if you are adding the MFM controller to that.

Edit - You may want to hit up on the vintage computer forums, they might be handy for MFM stuff http://www.vcfed.org/forum/forum.php

[darkage]

So if I put a Formatted BOOT DISK in, or a unformatted disk, I get a quick "BOOT DISK FAILURE MESSAGE".

even on bad floppies I would expect to hear floppy main motor spinning and the head motor engaging  while read light shows and the drive attempt to seek.  Normally a very quick return of a error message like that without sound, indicates hardware not setup correctly or hardware failure.      

Heres the German manual that you can translate to english within the browser if translate extension is used  -   http://l8r.net/technical/a2088.html  

BridgeBoard guide from Aminet - http://aminet.net/search?query=bridgeboard+guide   Think its the same thing.  

Can you populate the following missing information -    

5.25 Floppy Brand and model number  = ?
486 motherboard brand and model number.  = ?

We have established the following models -

ISA Western Digital WD1002A-27X MFM / RLL controller
Octagon ST-506 Hard Drive

NOTE - IF you need to transfer a file like a floppy image over to the Amiga you can use a NULL modem cable and theres a little script for AmigaBasic or ARexx that you can type up just to receive the first file.  

http://adfsender.stoeggl.com/adfsenderterminal/methods.html  

just incase you want to recreate any of the Janus or PC setup disks.


Not sure if you have tried to access the bridgeboards bios -

http://home.arcor.de/kickstart/TKA/Tutorials/bridgeboard/pcjanus.html

'In the BIOS is accessed by pressing the key combination Ctrl-Alt-Esc active PC Monocrome display .'


I will probably have to buy myself a bridgeboard some day now

[darkage]

From bridgeboard guide -

    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)

[darkage]

Good job!  

My goto website for general bootdisks is this one  http://bootdisk.com/

[darkage]

Is this BIOS only for the 286/386 bridgeboard or Sandwich Card and not the 2088?

Looking at the manual and logically thinking.   Your bridgeboard actually doesn't have a battery onboard for electrical rewritable eeproms.   It just has a static ROM onboard, so it probably doesnt have a configurable bios setup.    The 286 onwards models have coin batteries to help store bios settings.

I too would definitely recreate all the available disks for the bridgeboard and go through the setup again.   I recall theres memory locations in the documentation that the bridgeboard and isa cards have to be set to to avoid conflicts.   maybe go through the setup guides from the start and see what happens.

[darkage]

Now I wished I had a bridgeboard.  Seems like alot of fun

Actually been thinking of building a z80 clone to try and learn more about hardware artitecture.  

http://rc2014.co.uk/

or

http://www.malinov.com/Home/sergeys-projects/zeta-sbc-v2

[darkage]

Z80 look cools, but you might have more fun and purpose with a Raspberry PI.

Raspberry PI is too high level, Ive already got 3 of them.  I really want to get down to basic hardware level to get a deeper understanding.  So constructing a 8bit system would be perfect.  I can also try to design my own peripherals to help teach me more.  

At one stage I was thinking of the mycpu project (http://www.mycpu.eu/)  which is a complete CPU from TTL logic but I thought thats probably a bit extreme.

[darkage]

This guy does easier to build (and prettier) stuff if you want an easier Z80 dev. Still build it yourself, but simpler.

http://www.sowen.com/

Looks like the RC2014 which is the unit Im interested in since it has a modular bus and is not too expensive.

030 sbc looks cool, but I figured I better take baby steps with Z80 first

https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/doku.php?id=boards:sbc:gryphon_68030:start

[darkage]

Found a better reference for your controller card that covers fdisk and all that

http://www.coleskingdom.com/files/WD1002.TXT  

also found a dump of the ROM onboard the ISA controller card.  After you rescue your data, you might want to see if this is a new version of the ROM or not

http://www.minuszerodegrees.net/rom/rom.htm

Edit - I actually have a eprom programmer, picked up on one my the many trips to the electronics markets in china.    Its pretty amazing it does hundreds and hundreds of chips.  
http://www.vipprogrammer.com/top3000-eprom-programmer-top3000-universal-programmer-mcu-pic-avr51-programmer-788

Works good, even helped a forum member somewhere else burn a chip tune for their car

[darkage]

Im pretty sure the ISA MFM Controller, has the driver in the bios.      From the 80's / 90's Ive only seen SCSI and VESA & other IDE addon cards with I/O ports needing additional drivers.   If the hdd controller was on the motherboard then driver would already be on the m/b bios.  

When I saw the screenshot of you successfully running debug against the controller card, my first thought is hook up the MFM drive.   It should automatically work in theory.  (fingers crossed).  

Hopefully the MFM drive is okay and isnt experiencing bit rot.   Thats when you start to investigate applications like spinrite.  

hook it up and see what happens.    and dont run that debug cmd while the hdd is in, dont want to low level format it.  

Edit - Found this article about XT hdd driver -  http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com.au/2016/05/working-with-st-506-interface-mfm-hard.html

'The IBM PC and XT BIOSes do not support hard drives and know nothing about them.  Support is added via a BIOS extension found on a hard drive controller card.  The default settings for XT controller cards are I/O 320, IRQ5 and DMA3.  An alternative I/O setting is at 320 and some cards allow the IRQ to be set to 2.  The latter is necessary when using an MFM controller in a Tandy 1000, which uses IRQ5 for video (Ghostbusters will not work properly if IRQ5 is disabled for video, as it can be on the SX and TX).  The controller's BIOS extension also provides hard drive tables for the types of hard drives it supports.'

[darkage]

This seems interesting even though it would be slow & is expensive.. but still interesting

A MFM / RLL drive emulator http://www.drem.info/

[darkage]

Im wondering if the drive has to be low level formatted to match up parameters with the controller card.    but of course we dont want to do that.    this drive has only ever last been used with the amiga right ?

[darkage]

try   cd jh0:  

Not sure if you need to increase the buffers for JH0:  

Found this article http://members.quicknet.nl/rhm.herold/computing/amiga/access%20a%20JanusTools%20hard%20disk.htm