SCSI HDD not seen unless IDE HDD connected

[motorollin]

I have just got my SCSI hard drive set up on my Blizzard 1230, and have migrated all my files from my IDE drive to the SCSI drive.

If I power the system on with the IDE hard drive connected then it starts up fine and boots from the SCSI drive. If I disconnect the IDE cable from the A1200 motherboard then none of the partitions on the SCSI drive show up in the early startup screen.

For now I have turned off the bootable flag on all of the partitions on the IDE drive and hidden them from Workbench, but I would like to remove the IDE drive totally. Any ideas why this is happening?

Thanks

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moto

[Flashlab]

That's weird! Does the SCSI part of the Blizzard have a ROM which you can update? I had problems too with my SCSI; an update did the trick.

[motorollin]

No I don't think so. I believe it has the latest version (8.5). Even so, you have to use a patch called SoftSCSI to update on the fly if it's not the latest version, so I don't think the firmware is flashable.

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moto

[tonyvdb]

There is a hack made called NoIDE on Aminet but I am not sure if it will work on an A1200 as it was writen for an A4000. That may solve your problem. The problem is that the rom searches the IDE first and looks for another bootable device Floppy or other device. The SCSI controler takes longer to start up and thus misses the search. Have you tried doing a soft reset after booting?

[Piru]

You forgot to put the filesystems to SCSI drive's RDB.

They're currently only on the IDE drive, and thus the SCSI drive can only mount the partitions if the used filesystem is in memory already (from the IDE drive).

Just add the same filesystems with same DOSTypes to the SCSI drive and you'll be able to remove the IDE drive permanently.

[amigagr]

motorollin wrote:
I have just got my SCSI hard drive set up on my Blizzard 1230, and have migrated all my files from my IDE drive to the SCSI drive.

Piru wrote:
You forgot to put the filesystems to SCSI drive's RDB.

but how can you format a disk/partition and move the files in if the disk has not got the rdb? everytime i use hdtoolbox to setup a new disk after the installation of disk hdtoolbox put by it's self the ffs on the rdb. only if you go manualy can change the setup of partitions and rdb to something else.

[motorollin]

@Piru
I did install SFS in the RDB, but I think I may have forgotten to change the DOS type. I guess when I formatted the partition when booted from my IDE disk it was using the SFS DOS type setting from the IDE drive's RDB, but the one on the SCSI disk is different which is why it can't see the partition without the IDE drive connected :crazy:

I tried booting from a floppy with the SCSI tools on it, with no IDE drive connected, and sure enough, the drive did actually show up in unitcontrol, or the other one, forget which... but it was there anyway. Too tired to think about this now... tomorrow I'll reinstall the RDB and install SFS properly.

Thanks :-)

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moto

[amigagr]

and reformat and put files once again :lol:

[Piru]

There is no need to reformat anything. Just put the filesystem in the RDB with correct DOSType and it will work just fine.

[amigagr]

hmmm, let's hope.

[motorollin]

Too late - I decided to reinstall the RDB to get a fresh start, just in case something goes wrong later on.

Unfortunately when I installed the RDB it only say 1.7GB on the whole drive  :-?  I'm booting from my 3.9 Emergency Disk. If I use the SCSI tool rather than HDToolBox to partition it then I get an error that reading the geometry failed.

I'm trying a low level format to wipe everything out, then I'll try again. Otherwise, am I stuck now with a 1.7GB disk  :-?  :-?  :-?

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moto

[adolescent]

Just enter the correct geometry in HDToolbox.  No need to low level format anything.

[motorollin]

Well you were right, low level formatting made no difference. I'm trying to find the correct geometry (Quantam Atlas, 18.3GB, part no. XC18L011 rev 02-C) but not having much luck.

Is it safe to increase the number of cylinders without knowing what the actuall value is, as long as I don't go over the actual size of the disk?

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moto

[Thomas]

You can enter anything you like into HDToolbox, as long as the total size fits into the real size of the HDD.

You can also use other programs like HDInstTool or HDToolbox from BB2 so that the geometry is read correctly.

Bye,
Thomas

[motorollin]

Thanks Thomas. I did experiment with the number of cylinders so that the overall size of the disk was just below 18.3GB, and was able to create and format partitions. I have emailed Quantum to get the actual values just in case.

I've learned a lesson - write down the geometry before doing anything :-)

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moto