Okay, I solved it (sort of):
Firstly, there was no way I could get Fat95 to recognise any type of FAT format I could do with WinXP. I changed clusters, I changed partitions I did it all and no luck. The thing was not recogniseable on the Amiga.
In my previous post, you'll recall I left it at the NDOS situation, waiting to see if any tips would surface. Well, I gave up and decided to format the thing and repartition it to Amiga. I went into the file type of the drive, changed it to L:fat95 and made three partitions and saved changes. Only one icon appeared, so I formatted that. It took a long time. Funny thing is after the format I had a single 3gb partition, not three 1gb partitions like I wanted. I copied files onto it, switched off the Amiga and plugged the drive into the PC. Success! There were all the files, visible on PC. I then copied MP3s from the PC onto the SCSI and connected it back to the Amiga. Yes! There they were, in their original PC filenames, long. Trouble is they won't play directly in that long file name, but the files are fine because they play when renamed shorter (25 characters maximum to be precise)
I need help working out how to get them to be useable without renaming. Other issues:
1) I can leave the drive connected to both PC and Amiga, when they are both switched on, provided the PC was booted with the HD powered up.
2) If the drive and Amiga are switched on first, then the PC booted after, if there is a SCSI rescan from the PC side (even if the drive is not being accessed by the Amiga)YOU WILL SUFFER THE MOST TERRIBLE CONSEQUENCES ON ALL YOUR DRIVES ON THE AMIGA SCSI chain. I spent 4 hours last night trying to revalidate and undelete and repair my data on the Amiga side because of this. It was no joke. It was guru city.
3) Safest sequence: scsi on, PC on, wait for PC boot complete, then Amiga on. The drive can then be seen by both computers simultaneously, but not accessed simultaneously. I tried that and the PC folder window did the classic freeze and 'not respond' act.
4) I gotta redo this sometime because I don't fancy pushing my luck with a 3gb partition on the Amiga 3.1.
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Childrens' version:
One day Amy and Percy went on a picnic. They took a small basket with them, with cookies inside. Percy held the left handle and Amy held the right handle. They got hungry and Amy and Percy decided to reach for a cookie at the same time by chance. Feeling Amy's hand already in the basket, Percy backed off and silently sulked at not being able to get at the cookies. Amy remarked that the cookie was too big to bite and Percy suggested that she break a bit off the end first.
When they got home, they set the basket down on the table. Amy let go her handle and Percy thought he would draw the basket over to himself so he could peek inside and see how many cookies Amy had taken. In his usual clumsy manner, he tipped the basket over and it landed on Amy's foot and she did not speak to Percy for 4 hours.
