Powerflyer (FastATAcontroller) does not detect CDrewriter

[Effy]

I am one of those people that have been using a pc for the past two years but remained Amiga minded all the time. I recently purchased a bare A1200 with kick 3.0 and a flashing fast Seagate 120 Mb 2,5" hd, motherboard dates from 1992. It has been a long while since I used any Amiga so it was very exiting to restart. First I added a Microbotics 1230 XA with 32 Mb. Then I added a Powerflyer ATA controller with kickstart 3.1 and connected the big Seagate 2,5" hd. It worked just fine, really. I installed the FastATA´99 software from an orginal Elbox floppy. Still no problem. Then I added a 5,25" Aopen 52x CDrewriter to the 2nd IDE port ... and that´s where my problem started. I can not detect that thing. The software has an utility that searches for connected IDE devices at the beginning of the startup-sequence but it only detects the Seagate at port 1. I tried to replace the CDrewriter by a 3,5" 1 Gb Quantum hd and it was immediately detected as Pio4. So I tried to add to the startup-sequence ´Setpatch SKIPROMUPDATES´ but that resulted in a crashed bootup because it did not understand the ´SKIPROMUPDATES´ ... something tells me that there is a gap in my memory, a place where the answer is but is not impossible to find (because of age or too many hours behind a pc) ... can somebody with a clear mind (or infected with the correct beer) inform me what I forgot to do
I still have 3 A4000´s and a PPC A1200 that scream to be used again, and I have absolutely no intention of buying a Pegasos or AmigaOne !!!

[Effy]

Nope, still won´t do the trick. My Setpatch does not accept NOROMUPDATE ..
The CDRW has been tried as master, slave, and cable select.None of these worked. I do know that when I boot that the ATA3 menu spends at least 5 secs on searching, meaning that it does have a kind of problem.
HDtoolbox only sees the primary 2,5" hd ...
After the ATA3 menu the CDRW freezes, I can not even get the tray open ...
The Setpatch command, does it come before the ATA3 stuff in the startup sequence or after There was a Setpatch before and I deleted it but no better result. Now there is only a Setpatch QUIET after the ATA3 lines in the startup sequence.

[Effy]

This CDrewriter is a spare one that I use for my pc´s in case of trouble. It works 100%. On the Amiga´s Powerflyer it is connected to the secondary port as I can only connect one device to the primary port with that 2,5" cable that connects to the Seagate 2,5" hd. If I use SCSI Inquire of AsimCDFS then only the hd shows up, so it is certainly not a matter of mounting CD0 problems, that would be easy to solve. I have now reformatted the hd and put OS 3.1 on it, the one that was on the hd was OS 3.0 ... don´t know if it makes any difference ...

[Effy]

Brain : that doesn´t really make sense, but I sometimes have the same problem on pc´s so I shall give it a try ...

[Effy]

The thing is that I have a small 2,5" hd inside the desktop A1200 and I wanna put the CDRW outside by using a long IDE cable.If this were inside tower then there would probably be no problem but now I am limited to space so I have only the option to put the CDRW master on the 2nd IDE port ...

[Effy]

Not yet Brian, I would like to have three or four extra hours a day to do the things I like most ... but I shall surely let you know if it works or not !!!

[Effy]

Finally found time to experiment. I tried to connect a 3,5" harddrive to the 2nd IDE port and disconnect the CDrom. Result : it could not be found. Strange. So I removed the 2,5" Seagate and connected a 3,5" Western Digital 1,6 Gb as master and an old Sony 4x CDrom as slave, both on the primary IDE port. They were immediately detected and after installing OS 3.1, FastATA´99 soft, AsimCDFS, and DirOpus V4.12 I can not finally start copying an older backup of a OS 3.1 partition on the harddrive ... but now I need to find a way to get something connected to the 2nd IDE port. I know that an Amiga 1200 doesn´t know a 2nd IDE port so I think I have missed something somewhere in my humble way of thinking ... but what Brain, any ideas Anyone

[Effy]

JaXanim : I have installed the FastATA´99 soft by using the install icon on the disc, so yes the lmb and other lines are inserted on top of the startup sequence, and the Prefs do work if I hold the left mouse button while starting up ...

Brain : "Just a stupid question but you do understand that the first 2.5" IDE connector and the first 3.5" IDE connector are both primary IDE and only one of them can be used at any time and that the second 3.5" IDE connector is secondary IDE, right?

So if you have connected a 2.5" HD (primary master) you need to use the second 3.5" IDE connector for any other device such as a CDRW and it need to be set as master (secondary master)." ...I knew that by having read the manual a long time ago (years). I didn´t even think of trying to connect the 2,5" hd and the 3,5" hd to the same primary port ...

[Effy]

But a little voice inside me tells me that I need to to something to make the Amiga ´see´ the 2nd port and I think I forgot what to do in this case ...