A3000 SCSI issues.

[x56h34]

OK, I've got a rev 9/01 A3000D, 3.1Roms, 2MB Chip, 1MB Fast. There was a Hard Drive inside when I bought the system, I think it was the originally included Quantum 50 Meg. No termination on the mobo.

It was installed with OS3.1 and it let me boot to it fine. HD Toolbox reported 5 Quantum drives connected though! Weird.

Anyways, I removed it and installed an IBM 4.5GB SCSI-2 Hard Drive (actively terminated and providing term power) and the machine won't boot anymore from the HD. It just defaults to kickstart disk insert menu. I don't think it's the time-out issue, as the drive spins fast. I reset, and I get the same results. I've heard that A3000 SCSI is very flakey. WD SCSI 08 and Buster 11 are on their way to me, so I'll update them ASAP, however at the moment I am running WD 04, DMAC 2, Ramsey 4, Buster 7.

I've also tried connecting an external CD-ROM (actively terminated) however this doesn't let the system work at all (permanent freeze on boot). I just get a black screen.

All you A3000 experts out there...HELP! :-)

[Ilwrath]

It just defaults to kickstart disk insert menu.

You mean the 3.1 ROMS purple screen with the disk flying in the drive?

The superkickstart selection menu was only available from the wacky stock SuperKickstart ROMS (not the 2.04 or 3.1 versions) as far as I know......

[Acill]

You need to make sure that A3000 has real 3.1 roms in it, and it wasnt booting from a ROM image. The A3000 used a "super Kickstart" rom that read from the hard drive for its rom info. Some people just added images for the 3.1 roms and it wont work with a new drive that way without the special software to set it up first.

[Castellen]

My A3000 is basically the same setup.
I've found that setting the boot device (your hard drive) to unit number=0 can help.

This is the first ID to be polled.  Sometimes the SCSI controller gets unhappy and won't boot if it detects something like a CDrom first.

Even though you have your drive set to supply termination power, I'd check diode D800 on the motherboard is not open circuit and can supply 5V to the bus.

Play round with the termination a bit.  I've seen really weird instances where termination is definately set correctly, but it doesn't work.
Try things like disabling MB termination and enable drive termination.

Download one of the many utilities from Aminet such as SetBatt and check all the SCSI contoller settings.
If in doubt, reset them to default.

Also make sure you don't have a faulty 50 way ribbon cable, try another one.


Enter the early startup screen and see if the new partitions are listed there (you should see DH0 or whatever you made them in the list).
If not, then they are not being auto mounted on startup, so go back and check your HDtoolbox settings.
Note that if HDtoolbox can actually see the drive, it's a good sign that the hardware is probably OK.

Failing all that, perhaps try a different drive.  Some just appear to be not compatible with the A3000's SCSI instruction set.

[melott]

It sounds like you have an 'IBM DOHC-4F' drive,
I don't know what it takes to get these drives to
work. I have one and I never did get it to work on
my A3k. I almost threw it out several times as a
bad drive. I finally put it in my PC and it fired
right up.
The best I can say is I don't think Amiga likes
these drives.
If you do get it to work I would be very interested
in knowing what you did as I would still like to use
this drive in my A3k external drive box.
Also it shouldn't matter if you have the Ver.37 roms
(SuperKickStart) I only upgraded my roms when
I installed an accellerator (required).
I had internal and external Harddrives and CD Rom
with Ver 37 roms with no problem.

[Jagabot]

Hi Mel, I also have never been able to get that same IBM drive to work in any Amiga 3000. Sorta weird, considering it works on any other scsi controller I've tried it on in a pc. I've ran across a few other scsi drives that behave the same way (even on a 2091 they don't work but they work fine on an Adaptec controller in a pc).

[x56h34]

Thanks for replying guys.

I have an IBM UltrastarXP DFHS S4F, 4.5GB in size. I have real 3.1 Roms for A3000, no software crap. It's the real thing.

I will try everything if I have to from your suggestions guys, and see what happens. Perhaps it could be due to the particular IBM drive, perhaps not. Maybe the soon to arrive rev. 08 SCSI chip will make a difference, who knows.

This IBM drive worked fine with Blizzard 1230-IV SCSI and A4000 w/ CSMKII 060 SCSI, so it's definitely not faulty.

I've emediately replaced the old battery on the mobo with a new one, as I've noticed that time was not being saved correctly, and I feared leakage, so I'll definitely try the SetBatt archive and see if there' some NVRam corruption due to this. Now time works fine (it is being saved correctly after shutdown).

I should also mentione that there is INT2 fix on the mobo.

[melott]

Well I wish you luck with the drive.
Your's is not the same as mine but in the same
family.

Also .. whats this you're saying about a new SCSI
chip??
I would be interested .

[x56h34]

@melott:

The WD SCSI chip shipped with A3000 was usually of a lower revision, like 04. The updated 08 version supposedly solves a lot of SCSI problems due to better compatibility with newer type devices in your chain. I've never had a chance to test this theory out, but I will soon. :-)

[x56h34]

@Castellen:

Jusy to let you know that your suggestion about using SetBatt worked! :-)

I've played around with its settings and managed to get the IBM drive to work.

Thanks dude! :-)