Someone please help me out here

[Gav]

Bump

[scuzzb494]

Hi

I hate to say this but I think you have a hardware conflict. I use to get similar problems with an Apollo and a CD ROM. I resolved this by swapping over to a Blizzard and all was fine. What other kit do you have on the machine. Infact give us the whole breakdown of what you are running there. Plus some info on the ZIP drive.. As much info as possible please. I mean the whole darn shooting match.

The icon images are defined in your Prefs/Env-Archive/Sys/ drawer... well they are under 3.1. I use these prefs to self define the action a certain icon instigates by clicking. Like say BMP icon to launch say FastView.

Un-initialising isn`t about the icon. The actual drive has not been mounted, and the disk is not understood. But this could be a hardware conflict.

What do you mean by Bump... or did I miss something.

scuzz-retro
http://www.scuzz.org.uk/amiga/a_amiga_inframe.htm

[Gav]

Cheers for the reply mate
Well my A1200 is as follows,A1200,3.1 rom,Blizzard1260/50mhz,128mb,scsi add on board for blizz,mediator sx,voodoo3,sound blaster128,tv card,network card...My zip drive is a iomega zip 100 ide drive connected to the second channel on my power flyer.My first slot has a 30gb hard drive as master and cdrw as slave.
Thats my whole system right there but also rememebr i cant get the new ata3 software to work either.Oh i just wrote bump to bump my post back on the main board..
Cheers

[Stew]

 I don't have a powerflyer but have used jazz drives with several of my Amigas as well as PCs. The disks were all formatted the same with one partition, so a diskchange was unneeded. The icon never changed but the contents would with a disk swap. Is it really important that the icons and partitions be different? Worked better than ethernet for file sharing large files quickly.
  It should work for the zip as well. I never had the zip but did use a Syquest EZ135 on one of my 4000's in the same manner.

Hope it helps.

[Gav]

@Stew
Well when i eject the disk and change it for another it just comes up "checksum error" when i click the icon so i cant access it like that....

[scuzzb494]

Hi

You have an SCSI controller on the Blizzard so I would avoid using the scsi device on the ZIC or ZIP tool. I think that, to use the disk your gonna have to set this up as an atapi.device. The other way is to get an SCSI ZIP drive and run it off the SCSI, that way you can define the UNIT No quite clearly. Maybe, just maybe ( long shot ) you have a conflict on the way the Blizzard handles things and your getting two trains crashing in the station. The powerflyer is wanting to treat the ZIP as a hard drive. There is a utility on Aminet called ZIP4MAT if I recall, that gives a good guide on how to use these drives. You have to edit the mount file, but works just fine. I have a ZIP set up like this on an A4000. Problem is my other Amigas won`t see the disks created on the 4000. Sexy icon for the ZIP though, and you have to have the ZIP in the drive on boot. Great for running extra apps. I even have DOPUS set up on the ZIP drive.

To get the ZIP working as you do I think you need IDEFix97, LoadIDE in your startup after the SETPatch, and an atapi.device as the tool type. That way the ZIP is mounted through the DEVS and not through the HDToolBox as hard drive. If you check the HDToolbox it'll scan for devices and I guess it'll find the ZIP when you boot.

The thing the disk is missing is a small file called disk.info. If you check the hard drive on the machine you will find disk.info on each and every partition. Without disk.info on the disk the HD mount on the Amiga will register the disk as uninitialised. The way you get round this is to get the Amiga to read as a floppy. You do this through the DEVS: DOSdriver, but to load an Amiga Disk you would need an actual SCSI driver and device, or an atapi.device.

Long way round the houses but I do believe your gonna struggle. See if you can get hold of ZIP4MAT and format your disks with this. The software will find the disk, even if not showing on the workbench screen. It's a pig but it will work.

Pure SCSI is much better, or IDEFix97 and atapi.device.

Have fun.

scuzz

[Stew]

Are both disks formatted and named the same?

[scuzzb494]

Hi

Have had this response from an Amiga guy I know, may help a bit more.

[ quote ]

The Power Flyer differs to the usual 4-way splitters (IDE Express etc.) in
that it physically patches into the Kickstart roms and the Gayle chip, and
it doesn't require IDEFix. The driver is loaded at the start of the
startup-sequence, and lets the A1200 boot in the normal way, then applies the
speed-up patches for the Fast ATA. Four IDE/ATAPI devices can be run from
two channels, without the need for IDEFix software.

It is my understanding that ATAPI devices (CD-Roms. Zips) run without any
special ".device" software on the Flyer, unlike other splitters which use
"atapi.device".

On any Amiga, Zip drives can be used two ways; as fixed hard-drive devices
(as your friend is doing) or by way of the Dosdriver system (as you have
done with Zips and IDEfix). I too have come across the problem of being
unable to eject disks with the drive's eject button. I can't remember the
circumstances, but it may well have been when using "hard-drive" Zip disks.

The answer is, of course, to use the Dosdriver system. OS3.5/9 comes with Zip
dosdrivers. I don't think 3.1 did, can't be sure offfhand as I don't have a
bare installation - I seem to have added 3.9 dosdriver icons on my 3.1 boot
partition.

Anyway, it seems to me that whatever OS your mate is running, it is possible
to load dosdrivers from 3.5/9. Set the tooltypes for "Unit number" to 1 for
primary slave or 3 for secondary slave. I'm pretty sure the device tooltype
will be "scsi.device" since the Flyer patches the roms. In any case, the
Flyer software would  include a ".device" if it doesn't use scsi.device, and
the tooltype would be set accordingly.

OS3.5 also includes the IomegaTools software, which can be used to eject
stubborn disks if he prefers to stay with the hard-drive format disks. You
can set up a hotkey with ToolsDaemon, or a button in AmiDock. so that it is
only two clicks to eject a disk.  

Hope this helps.
BTW   There is supposed to be a very good manual with the PowerFlyer.

[ end quote ]

Well there you go.

scuzz

[JaXanim]

As he probably remembers, I've been following Gav's Zip saga for what seems like months now and I really feel for him. I have almost exactly the same A1200 setup and yet I haven't had the slightest problem installing my Zip drive with a PowerFlyer.

The stuff about mountlists and device drivers has been mulled over and over and the poor guy's getting nowhere. I'm far from an expert in any of this stuff, so I just follow the instructions provided by Elbox. Maybe he's simply missed something out somewhere. I don't think he's actually got the manual (?)

I've also read quite a number of posts to Gav on this problem and some of them appear to be quite at odds with the info in the PF manual. Of course, there's probably more than one way to skin this cat, but all the conflicting views on the solution has bemused me, so I can't imagine how scatterbrained Gav must be!

Anyway, have we discussed the Startup Sequence? If so, maybe I missed it, but I think it might be useful if you (Gav) give us sight the S/S you're using.

Cheers,

JaX

 

[doctorq]

@Gav

Well, since you have a SCSI controller then I maybe have some good news for you. I have a SCSI ZIP drive that I´m giving away, you just have to pay postage.

As I have no ZIP disks I can not test it, so it might not be working, but if you want it, it's yours. If it solves your problems I don't know, but the drive is free of charge.

-EDIT-

By the way, anyone else is free to have it as well :-)

[doctorq]

About the ZIP drive; if noone wants it, it is binned sunday night :-) Have no use for it, and never will get it.

[amigadave]

@ doctorq,

If no one else has claimed the free scsi zip drive, I will gladly pay the postage to have it delivered.  Send me a private email here with the postage cost to ship it to zip code 92506 in the USA and we can make arrangements.  Thanks

[billt]

I don't know if the IDE is different than the SCSI version on Amiga, but for SCSI I have my Amiga disks prepped under hdtoolbox to have RDB, and I use mountlist for PC and Mac formatted disks. The Amiga disks are recognised and can be booted from. Using the DKB Rapidfire or Spitfire the disk changes are detected very nicely and it all feels just like using Amiga floppies. I've heard other cards need more handholding such as a tool to tell the OS when the disk was changed though, I have kept a DKB card in my machines just for use with my Zip drive, even in my A4000T which has much faster SCSI built in the motherboard. If the drive is scanned at boot time you should be able to have an RDB disk recognized at boot time, and use the diskchange notify tool as needed.

[Gav]

Hi there
Well i have took a break from my amiga as it was just doing my head in with starting from scratch almost.Well the way i see it is that i get an icon on screen under "scsi.device" but not under "trackdisk.device" .
Well i have the zic and zip dos driver in devs and i get a hard drive like icon on screen with a shadow over it saying it is uninitialized.
So if i try and format the disk i get a message saying error 254...So does anyone know what root i should take from here?The zic file is under scsi.device..
Thanks for the offer on the zip drive and i would have taking the offer if i had anymore hardware for my scsi adaptor but at this moment i dont.
Cheers for all the help so far...

[Gav]

??

[Gav]

Hi peeps
Well just to let you all know that i was able to back my drive using the demo version of frying pan.Well i installed the new ata3 software and then installed the other partitions that it made vanish.Oh and guess what??Yup still no zip drive so i dont get it really.Is it to be trackdisc.device which i have had no progress with whatever.Then "scsi.device" which makes my zip disks act like a hard drive so in other words cant be removed until i reset..Ha who knows maybe i should just take it that a ide zip drive is turd with a powerflyer and elbox dont have much of an idea also....