Another big CF issue

[broken]

Hi again:
 
As it's been a long time I will resume the thing:
 
As you know I'm using my 32GB Transcend CF as HD, and I get a problem when I make a cold boot, as the Amiga asks for a floppy to start. Thomas said it hasn't solution, and the only I can do is pressing A+A+Ctrl, start from a warm boot.
 
That works right and that's what I was using. I have to say I only had installed a Hawk Ramboard.
 
The thing is that today I've received a fantastic Blizzard 1260 from Stachu and the first thing I see is that when I make the cold boot it starts right, no floppy demand and all perfect.
 
Thomas can you please tell me why, what has happened? I thought it didn't have any soluti:confused:n...
 
 
EDIT: I have to say I'm happy because I've seen a new Tron movie will be on Cinemas by december

I have seen this same behavior before.

Couple years ago I had a stock, unaccelerated A1200 with 4 gig Kingston Elite Pro CF card in it. Booted up fine every time. Added in a Paravision 030 accelerator and I would get the same issue as you. I would have to press Control-A-A and then it would boot up fine off the CF card.


I replaced the Kingston card with an 8 gig Sandisk Ultra card and everything was perfect. Would boot up straight away each time.


Bottom line is that results may vary depending on whether the Amiga has an accelerator, brand of CF card, adaptor used, standard ide port or buffered and etc.


But, I really think the CF card is going to be the difference. The English Amiga board has a large thread about using CF cards on the ide bus in the A600 and A1200. You can see folks vary greatly depending on the brand of CF card.

[Retrofan]

Thanks, @broken. I didn't have idea of it .
 

I wonder how much magic you interpret into this partition thing. Partitions is a DOS feature. DOS is not even born when hard drives are recognised or not.
 
The first hard disk related OS part which jumps in after a reset is the hardware driver (scsi.device). It initialises the controller and checks which drives are connected. If your HDD is not recognised at this stage, it is completely ignored in all of the following steps. That's what happens in your Amiga.
The next step is that all recognised harddrives are checked for a valid partition table and a list of possible parttions is created.
Only now it is time for DOS to wake up. If no floppy disk is in the drives and if there are partitions in the list, then dos.library is initialised and the partitions are mounted, i.e. they are copied from the list created before in to the list of devices known to DOS.
 
You see, if the hardware driver does not recognise the HDD, then there is nothing in DOS or partitons or files which could change this.

That's what Thomas explained, which I find very interesting. What I don't understand is how the booting process can recognize or not the HD depending on the accelerator

[broken]

Dunno.

I think its just a compatibility issue. Generally the Sandisk cards have probably been the most compatible across the board for Amiga users. Granted, other models from other brands can work too...some with limited success and others not at all.

[Thomas]

I'd vote for the completely different timing.

- although the 68060 is much faster than the 68020, its access to the motherboard is slower which makes the entire initialisation process a bit slower
- the accelerator is an expansion card which needs to be initialised before it is used (autoconfig)
- the accelerator has a firmware ROM which is executed before the IDE driver
- perhaps the firmware has some programmed delays, for example to wait for a key press to disable the accelerator

The sum of all these delays is probably just long enough for the CF card to wake up before the IDE driver searches for connected devices.

[Retrofan]

That's more or less what I thought too. When I turn the Amiga on with the Blizzard some colors like a rainbow appear before it turns on, and takes a second or two more to start. By the way, is it normal?
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvrVf4mD4KI

[Jose]

With a Blizzard 1230 you can also add the scsi kit and use a scsi->ide adapter. With this combination if you don't have anything connected to the motherboard ide, the scsi kit will wait around 30 seconds or more before booting. I had this combination once, though the delay might have been due to me putting memory on the scsi kit only.

[Retrofan]

I'm thinking about the scsi kit I've go too. I already have a 128mb ram module atached, but would like to put some more.
The fan in the Blizzard seems a good idea (not sure of how much hot it disipates in that side), but I can't use the SCSI kit with it.
I believe I will use a fan at the other side with a heatsink. I've bought this thin one (42mm (L) x 42mm (W) x 10mm (H))


and I have the Amiga over white rubber feets, 1cm up.

 
I think I will make a cut on the trapdoor to stick the fan over the CPU.

[stachu100]

@Retrofan,
I'm happy that card arrived safe and working fine :-)
 
With regards to SCSI KIT used in desktop:
As said it makes sense with SCSI-IDE converter and installing CF card.
Using real 3,5" SCSI drive inside desktop it's also possible, but required some modification inside and unfortunately SCSI HDD are usually louder than IDE.
 
And to use SCSI KIT you have to remove the fan and install this fan somewhere else (cutting trapdoor and installing fan here seems to be good idea).
 
With regards to 30 seconds delay during booting from SCSI:
These 30 seconds delays were introduced in KS3.1 to give some time to IDE devices to start after power-on.
And these 30 second occurs ONLY if there is no device connected to A1200 onboard IDE.
 
If you will connect onboard A1200 IDE to any IDE device or IDE-CF adapter and put small CF card in it and connect power; you will notice that these 30 seconds delay are gone.
 
So in short:
To decrease boot time with SCSI KIT please connect any IDE device to A1200 onboard IDE.

[Cosmos Amiga]

Try with this last version of IDEfix : http://aminet.net/driver/media/IDEFix_patches.lha

[Retrofan]

I have those patches alredy installed (wasn't easy) because I got the Amiga crashing with the big HD CF and the internal CD rom after installed the normal Idefix. After I installed the patches everything runs ok. Still haven't tried the SCSI kit, and what I'm hearing about those 30 seconds delay for booting is new for me.
 
I wasn't planning to put or use the scsi cable because I'm planning to use the small plastic trapdoor hole for the Indivision Aga output (BTW, has any one for sale? I've been told they will be for sale again in september) and a USB connection from a Subway USB connector I'm waiting to arrive from AmigaKit...; both in the same place. In fact, yesterday I did a metal plaque for them (photos).
 
I'm thinking to put only one USB port of the 4 it has. Do you believe it's necessary more than one?

[TheGoose]

That looks nice Retro .

:drink:

[Retrofan]

I taked the idea from this:
 

 
This was done by Amigakit at their "upgrade service", but mine is made in metal...