FastATA4000 Problems!

[preacher]

lo all

Got some problems with my FastATA4000. If I connect an IDE drive to the internal IDE port of the A4000D, it's working just fine. And it's fairly quick too.
However, if I remove the internal drive and put it on the primary channel, as master, it just refuses to boot.
If I go to the early boot menu, I can see that it can find the drive but it just won't boot!

The system is an Amiga 4000D w. Apollo 3040@40Mhz + 64Mb RAM. The FastATA controller is Rev 1.2.

Btw, to be on the safe side I used a 500MB drive when testing...

[Thomas]

If there is nothing connected to the internal IDE bus, it needs up to 30 seconds before it starts to boot. Perhaps you simply didn't wait long enough ?

Bye,
Thomas

[preacher]

The longest I've waited so far is 15 minutes...

[Thomas]

Which settings did you make in FastATAPrefs ? If you set the bus to a too high PIO mode it will fail to read from the HDD.

What happens if you choose "Boot without startup-sequence" from the Early-Startup menu ?

Bye,
Thomas

[keropi]

What drivers are u using? The latest set is version 8.1 ... register with elbox and ask them to send them to you... 8.1 were the only drivers that worked 100% with my system...

[preacher]

On Elbox' site, it says v2.5? That's what I use anyway (v25a33)

I've made some progress. I created a new bootdisk with the driver on it and set the PIO-mode to 0. Mode 3 was also working, but I can tweak more when the system is up and running. Thanks for the tip! :-D

Now I only have one problem left. Getting access to the CDROM. AllegroCDFS is located in the L: drawer and I've also copied the CDx mountlist from the FastATA floppy. The CDROM doesn't show up when I do a manual mount. I have a feeling I'm forgetting something...  :-?

[keropi]

perhaps fastata4000 has different drivers, I really don't know... as for the cd, what os are u running? All I needed do, was putting ata3.driver on SS , the cd got recognised automatically by os3.9 ...

[Thomas]

preacher wrote:
Now I only have one problem left. Getting access to the CDROM. AllegroCDFS is located in the L: drawer and I've also copied the CDx mountlist from the FastATA floppy. The CDROM doesn't show up when I do a manual mount. I have a feeling I'm forgetting something...  :-?

Depending on how many IDE/SCSI buses you have in your Amiga, the device driver of the CD-ROM is either scsi.device, 2nd.scsi.device or 3rd.scsi.device.

Best way to check is to download IDEfix97 archive from Aminet, unpack it (don't install) and run the program FindDevice. It lets you detect the CD drive and will give you the device name and unit number. Then edit the CDx icon to match these values.

Bye,
Thomas

[preacher]

I've done that with FastATAPrefs. The CD is master on second channel, so the mountlist should be CD2 on 2nd.scsi.device.
I'm not running any OS yet. That's what I'm trying to install. The boot floppy is OS3.1 though.
I recon I need to create an OS3.9 boot floppy to be able to partition the drive anyway. I'll let you know how it goes  :-)

[Thomas]

The CD is master on second channel, so the mountlist should be CD2 on 2nd.scsi.device.

Erm, I am not exactly sure now but I think this is not true. I think the device is always the same for both channels and the unit numbers are like this:

first master = 0
first slave = 1
second master = 2
second slave = 3

So if you have only the FastATA controller it is scsi.device unit 2. If you have a drive on the internal IDE bus (which is scsi.device, too), the FastATA becomes 2nd.scsi.device and the second master is still unit 2.

And if you have both a Commodore SCSI controller and an IDE device, the FastATA might become 3rd.scsi.device.

This is the reason why I told you to use FindDevice. It does not only tell you the unit number but also the driver name. It's the best way to be sure.

Bye,
Thomas