Can I Step Thru?

[MiAmigo]

Having trouble getting one of my A2000s to successfully mount anything other than my HD partitions. CD ROM says its mounted (if I try mounting it manually), but its not visible on WB.

Same goes for my Catweasel driven floppy drives. They're either mounted at boot-up (I think!) or manually mounted by me from the CLI. However they're mounted, they don't show up on the WB screen, nor can I successfully issue any commands to them from the command line interface.

Another issue which may be related: I think there might be a failure of some sort in my Startup-Sequence file, and would like to know if I can 'step thru' it one line at a time to see where the failure is happening - if there is one.

The reason I think there may be a problem with it is because on any initial boot-up, I get a steady green drive light and a black screen on the monitor.

If I give the 3-finger salute, I get my WB screen, my HD partitions, but no CD ROM and no floppy drives other than the Amiga floppy, which always works. (Cross-Dos even works on that drive just fine, so I know its functioning in the system at boot up.)

So, something may be going wrong in my Startup-Sequence. Another possible culprit is multidisk, which crashes the machine with cryptic error messages or does nothing when I've tried to enable it.

What I need is a troubleshooting checklist, and some fresh insight!

By the by, I'm using a G-Force accelerator card, which seems to be at least mounting my HD partitions correctly. :angry:

[MiAmigo]

Spent some time going thru my startup-sequence. I think my boot-up issues and mounting issues are two separate problems. It looks like the steady green drive light before which forces me to do a soft-reset (before I can successfully bootup to WB) is something that's occurring before the start-up sequence even begins. So, it may be a hardware or config issue with the accelerator card, or maybe even the mobo itself. More research is required!

[Thomas]

I've seen the floppy drive lit constantly when the cable is connected in the wrong direction (i.e. upside down). Before you reply "no, that's not possible, the cable has a tooth and the drive has a notch so that it fits only one way", please check the drive again. I have drives which have notches on both sides so that the cable fits either way even if it has a tooth as reverse protection.

Regarding the CD drive, where is it connected to? If it is connected to the Catweasel, then it might not work because the CW has shut down because of the short circuit.

In order to debug startup-sequence you can do this:

- add

set echo on

as the very first command at the top of the file. Then every command will be printed to the shell window before it is executed. You can stop the output by entering any character and continue by deleting what you've entered.

- insert

ask continue

between loadwb and endcli. Then the shell window will remain open until you press return. This way you can read error messages which appear before Workbench is loaded.

If the CD drive is not connected to the Catweasel, check Devs/DosDrivers/CD0 if it is configured correctly. First check the icon tooltypes. Make sure there are none. Then load the file into a text editor and check that Device= and Unit= point to the place the drive is connected to.

[MiAmigo]

Oh I've done that before! I've cabled the floppy drive wrong enough times that I know to always be on the look out for it, special notch or no. (And the constantly 'on' drive light is a dead give-away.) So no, that's not it - this time.

I actually wasn't aware that a CD could be connected to a Catweasel III, so that's not it, either. My CD is on a scuzzy chain with my HD, connected to a G-Force 68030 controller card.

My latest theory is that it may be the card itself. On initial boot-up, I either get nothing - as in playing possum, or, I get a steady green drive light, and a black screen. (The playing dead usually comes after several days/hours of sitting idle.)

Usually, I have to reboot, or do a soft reboot (CTRL-Commodore-Amiga). Then my partitions mount, and my native Amiga floppy drive, but not my Catweasel floppy, nor my CD (which, again, is on a scuzzy chain with the HD and the G-Force controller.)

I have a new theory: I don't think my machine is even making it to startup-sequence. I think its failing at the card, which I think has, for lack of a better term, been displaying all the symptoms of digital insanity. :insane:

Is it possible for the G-Force card to manage the hard drive partitions, and also have a faulty processor? I'm starting to think so. (I've been down the nightmarish road of jumper terminations, and thought I had worked that all out. If it meant checking those again, rather than considering my card its nutz, I'd begrudgingly RE-review those settings.)

The G-Force card came with a few utilities that directly address the accelerator's processor. When I invoke them, they either crash themselves, bring down the entire system, or do nothing whatsoever. When I try to call them from startup-sequence, I get the message that the command and/or device does not exist.

The accelerator's processor still gets hot - at least it did that one time I touched it. But I'm starting to think more and more that its either failing, or, maybe even has a misplaced or missing jumper.
:furious:

[MiAmigo]

Note on the Catweasel: These mounting issues (pun intended!) are most likely separate, the only common components being the mobo and WB, of course.

The 'weasel is really sensitive and particular about which drives it uses. So, I took the recommendation of the documentation, and got a nice set of TEACs from eBay.

They work just fine - in part. As soon as I hooked one up to the device, and re-installed the software, the drives literally clicked and hummed.

I manually mounted the floppy drive, and it responded immediately instead of just laying there like an unhappy spouse on a honeymoon!

The drive light came on, and the steady incessant 'feed me' clicking began - only...it doesn't appear on WB. If I try to re-mount it, I get a message that the floppy is already mounted.

Whenever I try t invoke or install multi-disk, I get fatal errors and crashes. (Could it be a version issue?)

Meanwhile, back  on the G-Force scuzzy chain...
The hard drives and its partitions mount, usually after a soft-reset.

The CD, on that same chain, does not, even though it is present in G-Force's configuration apps, FastPrep and ExpertPrep.

[mechy]

Note on the Catweasel: These mounting issues (pun intended!) are most likely separate, the only common components being the mobo and WB, of course.

The 'weasel is really sensitive and particular about which drives it uses. So, I took the recommendation of the documentation, and got a nice set of TEACs from eBay.

They work just fine - in part. As soon as I hooked one up to the device, and re-installed the software, the drives literally clicked and hummed.

I manually mounted the floppy drive, and it responded immediately instead of just laying there like an unhappy spouse on a honeymoon!

The drive light came on, and the steady incessant 'feed me' clicking began - only...it doesn't appear on WB. If I try to re-mount it, I get a message that the floppy is already mounted.

Whenever I try t invoke or install multi-disk, I get fatal errors and crashes. (Could it be a version issue?)

Meanwhile, back  on the G-Force scuzzy chain...
The hard drives and its partitions mount, usually after a soft-reset.

The CD, on that same chain, does not, even though it is present in G-Force's configuration apps, FastPrep and ExpertPrep.

Do you have the scsi chain set up right? i would recommend using the lower device numbers from 0. set the boot HD's at these and then the cdroms etc later. Make sure ONLY the last device on the scsi cable(irregardless of what scsi ID it is) is terminated. The drives on earlier connectors should not be terminated.

If possible start with a basic HD and get stuff installed and then add in each item on the chain,taking care to keep termination right.Double termination(2 devices on the chain terminated) can cause as much trouble as lack of termination.

You do realize that you must install a cd filesystem of some sort, there is not one active on a default workbench 3.1 install. You can try amicdfs from aminet, asimcdfs,or the original 3.1 cdfs (just make sure the boot disk has cd.filesystem in L: ad copy cd0: from storage to devs/dos drivers. Edit the CD0 icon info for the unit number the cdrom is set to and to use the gvpscsi.device. Or use cachecdfs if you install os3.9.

Mech

[MiAmigo]

Do you have the scsi chain set up right? i would recommend using the lower device numbers from 0. set the boot HD's at these and then the cdroms etc later. Make sure ONLY the last device on the scsi cable(irregardless of what scsi ID it is) is terminated. The drives on earlier connectors should not be terminated.

If possible start with a basic HD and get stuff installed and then add in each item on the chain,taking care to keep termination right.Double termination(2 devices on the chain terminated) can cause as much trouble as lack of termination.

You do realize that you must install a cd filesystem of some sort, there is not one active on a default workbench 3.1 install. You can try amicdfs from aminet, asimcdfs,or the original 3.1 cdfs (just make sure the boot disk has cd.filesystem in L: ad copy cd0: from storage to devs/dos drivers. Edit the CD0 icon info for the unit number the cdrom is set to and to use the gvpscsi.device. Or use cachecdfs if you install os3.9.

Mech

At last check, I was almost 98.7% sure my scuzzy set up was correct. I will of course, check again.

Yes, I'm aware that the CD will need a file system, but its the same old Amiga conundrum: How can you install your (floppy-based) file system for your CD if your floppy isn't working?

I don't have AmiCDFS on a floppy I can read from my Amiga floppy drive, only one one made for the 'weasel drive.

Now, if I could get that on a floppy I actually can read, it would solve one problem.

Why my catweasel drives aren't showing up in WB is another issue. (And yes, I actually do have that software on a Amiga floppy disk my machine can read. I've installed it a few times, but the drives still don't show, even though the system insists they're mounted.)

Finally, I will heed your advice and strip out every non-essential and work from the motherboard up - to see if that makes a diff. :hammer:

[MiAmigo]

I made some small changes to Startup-Sequence to allow it to show me error messages during boot up, and it stops in its tracks right here:

ERROR: Could not find some of the following keywords: Surfaces, BlocksPerTrack, LowCyl, HighCyl, Device.

C:Mount failed returncode 20

Note: At present, I am only able to transcribe these by hand, so I cannot easily upload entire pages of info.

To state the obvious, it seems that one of my mount files is screwed up.

Well, I feel like I'm at least taking a step in the right direction, and maybe even seeing a little prick (!) of light at the end of the tunnel! :juggler:

[MiAmigo]

This is a battle of inches!

I found the offending mount file (CD0) and moved it to a temp folder. I shutdown the machine and went to another part of the house to do battle with my C64 (recalcitrant game cartridge).

Returning about 45 minutes later, I booted up, and voila my WB screen was suddenly proliferated with almost a dozen different mounted floppy types!

Now, if I can just get one of them to read my floppies!

(If I can beat this next step, I can then install Ami-CDFS).

A battle of inches, bitterly fought, bitterly won.

[MiAmigo]

Now that I can finally access most of my mounted floppy formats, I have been able to install AmiCDFS.

But solving old problems almost always bring up new ones. For some reason, my Catweasel drive can not access any MS-DOS formatted floppy drives that are 720k or 1.4 meg. I'm pretty sure I have the correct mountfiles, but there is probably something not quite right with them, so I'll have to look at them with my old buddy 'Ed'. :whack:

As my for CD, its still invisible, and still supposedly mounted. I still have startup-sequence spilling the beans whenever there's an error, and this time I'm getting a 'bad number' message, which more than likely means something is configured wrong, or not loading, like my file system for Ami-CDFS. Also, I don't know if my scsi.device is the latest version.
:hammer::hammer::hammer:

[MiAmigo]

Eureka! FINALLY got my CD to mount! :pint:

The next thing I would like to do BEFORE I install 0S3.9 is figure out why my Catweasel floppy drive can't read MS-DOS 720k and 1.5 meg floppies.

All the mount files are present and accounted for, but something screwy is going on!

Still inching along!

[MiAmigo]

Sometimes its just the hardware.

Finally got the weasel to recognize my 1.44 and 720kb floppies. It wasn't the mount files, or the mount command, or anything else - it was the drive(s) I was using.

Saw some documentation somewhere that said TEAC drives were the best to use with the catweasel. I got some last week, and they lit up and clicked just fine, only, they could not give me access to any floppies I placed in them.

So I went back to some old Panasonics I had, and abracadabra - they worked!

Next step is to replace some REALLY expensive cards I burned out (long story!), install 3.9 and all my other cards, and finally re-assemble the case.

I haven't been this happy on my birthday since I was seven years old! :mickeymouse::mickeymouse: