A4000/030 IDE Problems

[nyteschayde]

I just purchased an A4000/030 from a regular Amiga.org user but I am trying to replace the internal ~130MB hard drive with a 3GB IDE hard drive (also tried a 1.2GB IDE hard drive) and they don't seem to get recognized by the HDToolBox. Additionally I have an IDE CD-Rom drive that I want to add and I can't get the system recognize it with the working 130MB hard drive or the other larger drives.

All of these larger drives and the CD-ROM drive came from working PCs.  What am I missing. I have had lots of Amiga's A500s, A3000s but this is my first AGA/IDE Amiga. Is there something I should know?

[duesi]

Yeah don't worry the built-in IDE of the 4000 is
some kind of "oldschool" Interface...

I recommend to use a SCSI-Adapter A4091 like...
otherwise if you wanna use IDE get a Controller
which can handle modern HDDs and ATAPI Drives

[nyteschayde]

Are you saying it's not possible to get it to work? I don't have access to a lot of money right now nor do I have access to Amiga IDE or SCSI adapters. Unless it's possible to use a Dataflyer 500 in one of the zorro slots.

Let me know.

[csirac_]

Hi,

I have a 3.2GB Quantum fireball in my A4000/ec030 and it works fine... but it doesn't start on cold boot, you have to ctrl-A-A and warm boot it when you first turn it on (apparently most IDE drives stay "not ready" for too long and the A4k just assumes it's not there).

- Paul

[nyteschayde]

It still doesn't explain why the CD-ROM drive wont get detected. It's really frustrating. Can anybody help?

[Ilwrath]

It still doesn't explain why the CD-ROM drive wont get detected. It's really frustrating. Can anybody help?

Hmm....  seems like there's a patch or something you're supposed to do to run ATAPI CD devices.  Plus I don't think they're supported very well.  I remember trying it on my 4000 way back ages ago, and was less than satisfied.  SCSI is the way to go for everything on it, really.  

[nyteschayde]

Do you remember which patch it was? I agree that scsi is definitely the way to go but I don't really have a good scsi controller for the A4000.

I actually got my dataflyer 500 working in the A4000 zorro slot. But it doesn't autoboot.  And it's somewhat buggy having been designed for 1.3

[seer]

Been a long time since I used an A4000. I guess you need "IDEFix97"... IIRC it's a commercial program that comes with 4way/buffered IDE splitters... You could try to see if Aminet has something for ya ?

[Damion]

Hi nyteshade,

I had some very similar problems with the internal IDE
of the A1200, which from what I understand is somewhat
similar to the A4000 IDE.

Do you get any info at all if you 'query' (can't remember
right now exactly what it's called) the device within
HD toolbox? As far as the CD - ROM goes, I agree with
the others OS 3.0/3.1 has crappy support for CD drives.
The 4 - way adapters are a cheap fix for this, and they
also add a 'buffer' to protect the port. There may be a CD
filesystem or something on aminet to help in the interim
but I'm not sure.

[nyteschayde]

I get no information at all for the IDE drives other than the ~130MB drive. Can't figure that out. Managed to get my A500's Dataflyer SCSI card working in the Zorro slot.

Hooked up my old SCSI CD-R 4x drive up as well as a 2GB Quantum Fireball SCSI hard disk. They have to be mounted manually (including the HDD) as the card doesn't support autoboot under 3.x OSes.

I have a new problem. This machine, the A4000/030, is to replace my now problematic A3000D and A3000T machines. I moved my PicassoIV from the A3000T and this is also where I salvaged the 2GB drive from but the A4000 only has 3.0 roms and my A3000T has the legally purchased 3.1 roms. When I tried to install 3.9 it says that 3.1 roms are required. Does anybody have a 3.1 ROM image that I can SKick until I can purchase 3.1 ROMs for the A4000? I am really strapped. I already bought the ROMs once but now I need them again. Sigh. Please email me at nyteschayde@yahoo.com if you have these ROMs on software.

By the way I was able to run the CacheCDFS from the OS3.9 CD under 3.0 to get the CD-ROM working. How did I get the drivers from the CD you ask? A combination of the HD floppy drive, UAE, and a wintel machine. Sigh. This has been a two day project to get this machine up and running thus far.

If anybody is interested in offering me some cash for the A3000s let me know. They are as follows:

A3000D
~6MB RAM (2MB Chip)
2.x ROMs
Problem: Stopped showing screen when I moved ROMs to A3000T. Perhaps I messed something up. It was working fine. Also battery has begun to leak.

A3000T
18MB RAM (incl. 2MB Chip)
3.1 ROMs
PP&S 68040/28MHz
Problem: Unknown. The motherboard is very clean, looks new. The machine displays a flashing yellow screen on boot. All the RAM was working in the A3000D as well as the ROMs.

Make an offer for one or both. I am in San Francisco, CA so unless you want to pay a bucket full of cash to have it shipped you'd better be close by to pick them up.

Also have some A500s if you want those. Email for details.

[Quixote]

:-? I hate to suggest the obvious, but since your previous experience is mostly with SCSI, it’s possible that you’ve missed the simple things.  IDE devices need to be set as Master and Slave, with the CD-ROM set as Slave.  Also, I’ve heard it said that sometimes the actual position of the devices on the ribbon cable has an effect.  Haven’t experienced this myself, though.

Also, older hardware sometimes develops eccentricities as it ages. (Just like its owner!)  I used to have a IDE HD that enjoyed being Slave, but couldn’t work as Master.  I suspect one of the circuits needed only for Master mode had burned out, due to a bit of static, or something.

;-) Try running your bigger drive, which hasn’t worked yet, as a slave to the smaller one.  If it will work as slave, but not as master, you may need to replace it, as you won’t be able to use it with the CD.  IDE Drives are (relatively) cheap, these days.  If you’re on a budget, try your local computer recycling center.  They should have plenty of last year’s hard drives dirt cheap.

[Madgun68]

Also, I've heard it said that sometimes the actual position of the devices on the ribbon cable has an effect. Haven't experienced this myself, though.

That's cable select. I seem to recall that this requires a different cable, but I'm not positive.. I've never used that mode myself.

I haven't worked with the 4000's IDE much myself, but I did hook my 8GB maxtor drive up to it, and it was recognised.

Cable select cables usually tell you where devices need to go on the chain.  It's written on the cable itself (Systemboard, Drive 0, Drive 1).  If your cable says this, then it's a cable select cable and you need to jumper drives and position accordingly.  Not that this is of much help, but on my 4000t, I am using the built in controller with a 6?gig IDE and a 32x CDROM (master/slave) and am having no problems.  This is with 3.1 ROMs.  

In reference to a suggestion above, should I use my Buhda IDE controller instead?  I assumed the built in controller was the way to go, but if the Buhda is faster then I can go that route too.

Thanks,
Gonz

[Lando]

I had a 40GB drive in my A4000.  No problems at all.  Any IDE drive should work in the A4000, maybe not to it's maximum potential speed-wise, but it whould work.