Help !! No scsi.device on A1200 PPC+ 233/060

[Effy]

I tried to build a PPC card with scsi in my metal Micronik tower where my A1200 was mounted with a Powerflyer Lite IDE board. After several minutes I found out that I needed to remove the Bvision gfx card because the Powerflyer was in its way. Okay, I can live with that, data speed is sometimes more important than screenmodes. Okay, everything was in its place. Powerflyer had kickstart 3.1 on it. To test I attached an older Quantum scsi harddisc to the system (connected to PPC scsi) and tried to install that. No problem. Then I connected my Plextor 40x12x40 to port 1 and set it as master. That was the
only IDE device connected. When trying to install that cdrewriter I discovered (after 238 times trying and trying and rebooting and trying  ...) that the system could not find anything at scsi.device. I did see that doing the search on scsi.device took a very long time. I changed the rewriter to port 2, still master, and then the system rebooted much faster but still didn't see anything at scsi.device. Tried to connect a IDE harddisc as slave, no result. Tried to disconnect the rewriter, but harddisc was still not seen by the system ...
No need to say that this was getting on my nerves ... :-x
But there were still plenty of options left. One of them was changing the cable. Could have been a reason. Wasn't. Other cable gave same result ...
The Powerflyer itself then. Okay, I knew that I had problems with that Lite version in the past, so I removed it and place another Powerflyer, a full version this time with no limits, but this still gave the
same result. The system boots up, but when something is connected to port 1 and is master then the booting itself (the time before you get into workbench) takes a long time, and when AsimCDFS tries to mount CD0 then it also 'hangs' for more than 10 seconds and then says that it doesn't see CD0 at that place. When I come into workbench I load a program that shows me what is connected to what device, in my case it is Scsi Inquire, and it doesn't show anything at scsi.device.
The tower where the PPC card came from was also one of my worries. The system often refused to boot up. I blamed it on the PPC card. People told me, also on Amiga.org, that a PPC is a very sensitive card and needs a lot of cooling and a lack may cause boot failure. So I installed a twin-cooler in that other tower, but it still often refused to boot up. Now I have mounted that damn PPC card in another tower, connect an old SCSI hd to it and suddenly the PPC card boots up every time, not one single #### up !!
And now a clue, in that previous tower I had a Zorro4 busboard with a cool megafast Z4 Powerflyer !!! The best you can get, brandnew, got it from the fair in Aachen 'a few months ago' ...
Now somewhere in the back of my confused mind the idea starts to grow that BlizzardPPC and Powerflyer(aka Winnner Fast ATA controller) do not really like eachother. Is this true or do I have two faulty motherboards that both have something against the (standard) scsi.device ??
I'm not a genius in hardware, but I do have learned a long time ago that if there is a problem that I have to take away all the things that might cause any trouble and so finally reach the origin of the problem. But now there really isn't much connected at all, just one louzy hd and one (superfast) rewriter ... :-(
Can anybody please help me out ?? Please ??

[Effy]

About the Z4 tower with the Z4 Powerflyer that the BPPC card was first in. Now I have added a Blizzard 1230/50/50 to it, a normal state of the art qualtiy card, but not to fast as the BPPC. Funny thing is that the tower also refuses to boot with the Z4 Powerflyer connected, with or without IDE device connected. Now that's a 2nd problem for me.  First my BPPC in a Micronik tower that does not see any IDE device connected to the Powerflyer (and also not to Powerflyer Lite). Going the scsi way is an option, but that doesn't change a thing about the fact that IDE is also supposed to work !!!  :-(

[Effy]

A Powerflyer ?? No, to install a Powerflyer  you need to take out the kickstart's, mount them on the controller and mount that controller back on the motherboard together with another piece that you need to press over an existing chip. Don't ask any names, I don't know them, but I do know that it's a tricky thing, because the slightest lack of presssure results in crashes ...
Don't compare it to an IDE Express, that's something different.

[Effy]

Matt H : to install a CDFS, Allegro or AsimCDFS, you first need to locate a cd and this happens to be the key problem. Besides, I have used AsimCDFS for years with my old Powerflyer and it gave absolutely no problem at all !!! Until now ...

[Effy]

And what about connecting a CDrewriter WITH burn proof to the standard IDE 2,5" port of the A1200  :-?

[Effy]

Hasn't anybody else got any experience with a BPPC card and a Powerflyer IDE controller ??  :-?

[Effy]

The power supplies are still the original ones. One tower with Z4 and Z4 Powerflyer and now 1230 has got the original Elbox powersupply and the other tower without Z4 or any other Zorro but with Powerflyer mounted on the board and BlizzardPPC has still got its original Micronik power supply ... it all used to work until I started with Powerllyer ...

[Effy]

Did a large mail to Elbox support with detailed info about both computers, with the serial numbers of all 3 Powerflyers (Lite, full version to fit on motherboard, and Z4 model) and now I wonder what they will say ...

[Effy]

I still have got a scsi-to-ide controller unused, so I could perfectly put a 40 Gb IDE drive in that and connect it to the scsi of my BlizzPPC, but how would I have to connect an IDE cdrewriter ?? To the standard 2,5" port ?? That is actually the reason why I need such a Powerflyer, not just only because scsi harddrives are expensive,  but also because a scsi cdrewriter becomes rare on the market !!  :-(

[Effy]

 :-)  Lemkee, you made my day (I hope) !! Gonna do a mail as soon as possible !! I have no idea of when or if the card has been flashed. I only know that it's a card from the so called 2nd generation that has less flaws than the first ones who were sent back to DCE and would stay there for more than a year (or are still there) ...
But about that cable to to motherboard ide controller(3rd pin on top right if it's inside tower), isn't that only to give info to the led that shows harddrive activity ?? That cable got broken on the Z4 Powerflyer but I thought I didn't need it anyway ...  :-o

[Effy]

Edderkop : I know that scsi on Blizzard PPC is called BlizzPPC but the standard device to connect IDE devices on a A1200 or other Amiga is always called 'scsi.device'. This comes from the time that the A500 only allowed real scsi harddrives to its system and in order to keep compatibility backwards they kept the name 'scsi.device' on later Amiga's like A1200, even if it is actually a IDE.device ...

Lemkee : first, when I have time, I shall try to mount a Blizzard 1230 in place of the Blizzard PPC to see if the Powerflyer on the motherboard still works or not.

[Effy]

PaSha : have done the test with the ESC key and I do get into a menu that I have never seen before, but the first option, the scsi one, is that for the IDE scsi.device or for the BlizzPPC scsi.device

[Effy]

Have tried again by playing around with the jumpers on the cdrewriter. Have placed it on master, slave, cable select, DMA (yes, 4 options). None of the attempts results in seeing the device, but it only happens when jumper is set to master that the system needs more than 10 seconds to 'search' for any device, but the result is the same. If I insert a driver disc of the PowerFlyer Lite then I get the error message that the ATA controller can not be found.

[Effy]

A weird turn in this event. Let me explain, though it doesn't make much sense ...
Lemkee thought it might be that my BlizzPPC needs to be reflashed in order to see the Powerflyer. Could have been and still can be. To make sure it was the BlizzPPC his fault I removed the turbocard and mounted the slightly slower Blizzard 1230/4, the one that has a problem with the Zorro4 and Z4 Powerflyer. Result, still no cdrewriter at the scsi.device. I used the same boot-harddisc which was an old 237 Mb Quantum harddisc with the most simple OS 3.1 and AsimCDFS V3.x. AsimCDFS is a great program that almost never has let me down, so I can't put any blame on this program which I had bought legal in the days of my A500+. So, the computer in Micronik tower boots up with the 1230/4 using a hd connected to 1230scsi.device and when in workbench I use ScsiEnquire to check what is connected to scsi.device. When I run this program it shows all my devices that may be of any use, but it only showed the 1230scsi.device, just like it showed BlizzPPC.device when the PPC was connected. In other words, maybe the PPC needs to be reflashed but the 1230 had the same problem. I tried not to give up and decided to disconnect the ide cdrewriter and connect an ide harddisc instead. Normally I took an unformatted (pc format) harddisc but this time I took the spare IBM DALA 512 Mb harddisc that came with the tower, not very big, meant to backup the running OS, but most important it was formatted in Amiga OS. I connected that hd to port 1  device1 (or zero) and rebooted again with two mouse buttons pressed to see if the early startup menu could 'see' any hd connected to scsi.device. To my impressive surprise it did 'SEE' the IBM DALA hd !!! When in Workbench a few seconds later the icon was also there. I turned it all off and connected the cdrewriter again, this time as slave and rebooted again. Result : IBM DALA was still there but no cdrewriter. Suddenly it came to me :
ofcourse it won't see any cdrom or cdrewriter, Amiga OS 3.1 standard never sees it, you need IDEfix library to make it see or OS 3.9, but to install OS 3.9 you need cd support .... damn  :-o I was speechless .. should have known this a long time before ...

[Effy]

Eureka !! It ####ing works !!!!!!!!! I now have got my Blizzard PPC running inside my stone aged Micronik tower without any Zorro slots, but WITH the Powerflyer (2 IDE ports, full version with no Gb limit), and I also managed to squeeze the Bvision too over the Powerflyer !! Rebooted and I now have got the Bvision working too !! It's only Os 3.1 from its original discs, but that's for later !!!!!!! Cool !!!  :-D
Now I am supposed to have a real fast Amiga with endless storage capacity (actuallly it's a 160 Gb limit per harddrive) and 4 IDE ports. Now I only need an ethernet card and that should be enough to start with, won't it ??!  :-D
I really must thank you all for the great support you all give me !! It really gives me the feeling that this is all one big family and I shall try in return to help as many people as possible !!! :-D