Bsc Tandem ide+cd installation

[Thomas]

The AT file is the general driver for the IDE bus. I am not sure if it automatically mounts partitions. And even if it does, it probably only mounts Amiga partitions and surely not a FAT32 partition. In order to mount the FAT32 partition you need to install a file system which can read FAT32 and runs on Kick 1.3. I doubt that FAT95 will run on Kick 1.3. And you need a mountlist entry. On WB 3.1 you have CF0 in Devs/DosDrivers. For Kick 1.3 you have to add the contents of CF0 to Devs:Mountlist.

[Thomas]

Hi Thomas, ok but the manual says that the only thing to do it's copy AT into "Expansion"; well ...

From their point of view this is true. The AT file is all they need to provide. Everything else is the task of other software vendors.

I don't know how to create mountlist: could you help me? I've tried to copy Mountlist in dh0:Devs/, renamed it to "CF0"

This is exactly the opposite of what you have to do. In WB 3.1 you have a seperate dosdriver for each device. In WB 1.3 all devices are described in one file called mountlist. The file has to be named mountlist, you should not rename it.

Copy CF0 from your A1200 to the A2000 and open it in a text editor. Then open mountlist in a text editor, too. Now copy the contents from CF0 to the end of mountlist. Surround it by CF0: at the top and # at the bottom, just like all the other entries.

Device=compactflash.device needs to be changed to what the tandem needs, probably tandemat.device (the manual should contain the right name).

Filesystem=l:fat95 also needs to be changed. I think MSH works on Kick 1.3: http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/MSH-1.58

From all the files in the archives you should only need MessyFileSystem.

However, you should read the manual of FAT95 because it describes very detailed what the entries in the mounlist are for. I could imagine that the "automatic" partition mounting of FAT95 does not work with MSH, so you might need to enter correct values for Heads, BlocksPerTrack, LowCyl and HighCyl.

[Thomas]

fmsdisk.device is for accessing virtual floppy disk images (ADF files). It does not access your CF card.

To mount the CF card you have to use the device which points to the Tandem controller. By examining the installation disk I would say that it is oktagon.device.

[Thomas]

Please download http://thomas-rapp.homepage.t-online.de/downloads/tsgui.lha and unpack it to your harddrive. Run TSGUI and choose "select raw device" from the menu. As device select oktagon.device and as unit select your CF card. Click on Ok, then choose "create mountlist" from the menu. Select a file name and attach the resulting file here so I can see the details. (The created file cannot be used without some adjustments.)

[Thomas]

Not sure what you mean by "bridge slot". Every Zorro slot should be usable for AmigaOS IMHO. The bridge board connects one Zorro slot to the ISA slot next to it so that the ISA slots are usable by the PC operating system. AmigaOS normally has no access to the ISA slots. Only with software tricks AmigaOS can access an ISA network card through the bridge board.

LED activity is dependent on the CF adapter. Some CF adapters don't drive the LED at all. With some other adapters the LED is on all the time. If you are in doubt you should first try with a real harddrive.

For power cables actually I only know red/black/black/yellow. But colors shouldn't matter. Important is voltage 5V/GND/GND/12V. If you mix up 12V and 5V or + and GND, your device will be destroyed quite soon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molex

[Thomas]

PrepCard can only prepare SRAM cards. To prepare a CF card you need to use HDToolbox or similar (although I am not sure if compactflash.device supports partitioned harddisks, it's more likely meant to be used with mounlists/dosdrivers only).

[Thomas]

Please connect the CF card to your A1200, run TSGUI, click on CF0 in the list and select "create mountlist" from the menu. Attach the resulting file here.

FastFileSystem won't be able to read a FAT disk. You need MessyFileSystem if the card is formatted as FAT.

And as I said above you need to put valid values into LowCyl, HighCyl, Surfaces and BlocksPerTrack. TSGUI on the A1200 should be able to read these values and save them to the mountlist.

[Thomas]

Done, after selected oktagon.device, tsgui reply: "Cannot determine HDD size".

At which unit number is the CF card?

[Thomas]

Is this mountlist correct?

This might be a working mountlist entry for Kick 1.3:

Code: [Select]


CF0:
FileSystem     = L:MessyFileSystem
StackSize      = 8192
GlobVec        = -1
Device         = oktagon.device
Unit           = 0
Flags          = 0
BlockSize      = 512
Surfaces       = 1
BlocksPerTrack = 1
Reserved       = 2
Interleave     = 0
LowCyl         = 0
HighCyl        = 7812819
Buffers        = 25
BufMemType     = 1
DosType        = 0x4D534400
Mount          = 1
#


Except for the unit number which must match the actual position of the CF card reader.

[Thomas]

After reading the docs I come to the conclusion that fat95 should work on Kick 1.3. Tried it and it does.

So this mountlist entry should work:

Code: [Select]


CF0:
    Device = oktagon.device
    Unit = 0
    Flags = 0
    BufMemType = 1
    MaxTransfer = 0x20000
    Mask = 0xfffffffe
    Filesystem = l:fat95
    StackSize = 4096
    GlobVec = -1
    Buffers = 200
    Mount = 1
    LowCyl = 0
    BlockSize = 512
    HighCyl = 1
    BlocksPerTrack = 1
    Surfaces = 1
    DosType = 0x46415401
#


Make sure that the fat95 program is in L.

[Thomas]

I suppose there is something wrong with your oktagon.device. Which version of the driver disk do you use? There are four different versions on the Amiga Hardware Database: http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/tandem

What happens if you use the supplied HDInstTools program? Does it find the CF card? Does it allow to create partitions on the CF card? (Warning: this will delete all existing data on it!!)

If everything works so far, please try this program: http://thomas-rapp.homepage.t-online.de/download/getgeometry.lha
Unpack it to ram and run it from the Shell like this:

ram:getgeometry oktagon.device 0

Does it crash, too? If not, what does it print?

[Thomas]

There: http://www.amiga.org/forums/showpost.php?p=726401&postcount=13
you say that in TSGUI you can select oktagon.device and that the CF card is shown at unit 0. Is this still true? Can you make a hardcopy of the window after you selected the CF card unit?

Oktagon.device wasn't present in any of the .dms on amiga.resource.

oktagon.device is created in memory when the AT file is executed by Binddrivers. Please don't mix drivers for different controllers.

[Thomas]

You need AT and AT.info in Extensions and BindDrivers in Startup-Sequence. (AT.info is only visible in a DOS shell. If you see AT in the Workbench drawer, then AT.info is present.)

Also make sure that the hardware is still connected properly. If you often remove and insert the CF card, some other components might loose connection, especially if the CF card reader is connected directly to the controller (not through a cable).

[Thomas]

On WB 3.1 there is a command called ShowConfig which lists all expansion boards recognised by the system. I didn't find a similar program on WB 1.3, so I wrote this: http://thomas-rapp.homepage.t-online.de/download/showboards.lha

Run it and look for a board with Vendor=082c and Product=06. This is the hardware the AT driver binds to (see icon information -> tool types).

Only if the hardware is recognised, the driver will load and initialize.

[Thomas]

But it was alive few days ago. Perhaps you can clean contacts to make it work again.