IDE drives for the DPS PAR Board.

[DGB]

Some time ago I inquired on this forum about what drives would work on the PAR board.  I was told any of the newer IDE drives would work but the PAR board would not see more than 8 GB per drive.  With that in mind I bought two Western Digital 10 GB IDE drives.  I have hooked them up and when I start the Par software on my 2000 I get a little window that comes up and tells my the drive is not an approved drive.  When I bought the PAR Board ten years ago I got a Micropolis 1+ GB drive that was recommended by DPS.  It has always worked well but it will only hold a total of 18 minutes of video or animation.  I am at this time assuming that DPS has a rom with a list of approved drives on a ROM chip on the PAR board and it is comparing it to the drive.  I even tried a 4.5 GB IDE drive I have and I got the same result.  Is it possible that there is a way around this I am not aware of?  Could it be that since these drives are used that the format used on them is not compatible with the PAR?  If so how do I wipe them clean?  Any ideas on this problem would really help.  Thanks.

[kd7ota]

I am not too sure on how the whole entire hard drive deals work, but even though the 4.5gb limit appears, i would not make a partition that is RIGHT on the barrier line, just to be safe..... I would make the partition 3.9gb or so in sizes.  I am not sure how to go about if you want bigger partitions then 3.9gb really, but all I  know is that OS 3.9 does the first paritition 4gigs, and the rest can be whatever sizes you want them to be.

Hope someone can help better then I can.  :-)

[T3000]

Some info I found on the leitch site concerning multiple drives and drive size:


Summary: PAR (Amiga): Problems adding 2nd drive
Details: Errors when adding a second IDE drive to an Amiga PAR.

Solution: Dual-drive support for the Amiga PAR requires an IDE interface chip, designated AU8, revision B. The chip will have a marking of either "AU8 rev B" or "PAC-A8B". All but the earliest boards have this revision.

Solution for older boards: DPS can send the customer or the dealer a replacement chip, or the customer can send the board in for the upgrade.



Summary: Maximum capacity of IDE drive that PAR system will recognize.
Details: I installed new hard drives in my system with PAR and PAR recognizes only 8 GB. I was not able to find what is actual limit for PAR BIOS or if there is a limit at all.

Solution: The maximum size IDE drive the PAR will recognize is 8GB. Any drive larger than that will show as an 8GB drive.


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[DGB]

If it's not too much trouble send me the URL to the site you are refering to.  My DPS PAR was purchased new in mid 94.  The manual indicates that using two drives in the Master/Slave configuration without adding any components.  The software also indicates that it accomodates a Master/Slave drive arrangement.  I still need to know if the drive format is different than that of IDE drives in PC service running under MS OS's.  If not I need to know what to do and how to remove the incompatible format from the drives I have.  I don't care if the PAR can see the whole drive.  A total of 16 GB will give me hours of space as opposed to minutes.  Thanks.