IDE woes on 4000t

[amesie2]

I am having problems with IDE drives on a 4000t, I didn't get any manuals with the tower system and am wondering if there is a jumper or something I need to change?

I have tried a few different drives from 1.2GB to 4.3GB with no luck, I just sit and stare at a black screen.

I set the drives to Master and nothing, I set the drives to Slave and system will then boot from floppy but HD_Toolbox doesn't find the drive.

I have had similar issues with my dad's 4000t but to get his to read IDE drives I just hit CTRL + leftA + rightA and reboot then the system works fine but mine will not do this. I would appreciate any help on this as I would like to use IDE rather than SCSI.

[X-ray]

Take the drive out of your dad's machine and test it with your machine. It is also a good idea to swap the IDE cables and test that too.

(By the way it is MUCH better to go with SCSI on the A4000T)

[amesie2]

X-ray


Thanx for the response!!

I tried what you said and still no go, are the 4000's picky when it comes to IDE?

I also have a CSMKIII/060 for my system with 128mb ram, is the SCSI on the CS better than the 4000t's built in?

[X-ray]

@ Amesie

Yes, the SCSI on that CS MKIII is better than the SCSI onboard the A4000T. If I was in your position I would not investigate this IDE angle anymore and instead I would find an ultrawide SCSI hard disk for that Cyberstorm. You'll get way better performance.

As a matter of interest, did the IDE drives that didn't work on your Amiga, work on your dad's Amiga?
What happened when you put your dad's IDE drive on your Amiga: did you get the same black screen?

And which machine has the CSMKIII, yours or your dad's?
You should post both configs. I don't know if a CSMKIII has an early config menu like the PPC version, but if it has (try pressing esc on boot) perhaps you can tell us what settings you have in there.

[X-ray]

Okay I googled it and your CSMKIII can indeed disable onboard IDE. Check this thread:

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?p=211061

Thomas explains there how you can check if it is disabled or not.
Thanks Thomas!!

Edit: but that alone doesn't explain why you got a black screen.

[amigakit]

Welcome.

You may find that the A4000 IDE Interface adapter makes your on-board IDE more flexible.

[amesie2]

My dad's system is a standard 040 25mhz 4000t with 16mb fast and 2mb chip. He has a segate 2.5GB ide drive and a sony SCSI cd-rom drive.

I still can't figure why his machine has to be soft booted to make the IDE work. I did try the other drives on his system and they all came up just fine, mine still remained black with dad's drive on my system.

My system has the CSMKIII with 128mb ram and a sony slot loading SCSI cd-rom drive. I will have to check and see if I have the early config menu later this week as I am heading out of town until 11-17-06. I will follow up when I return.

Thanx for the help

[SHADES]

"I still can't figure why his machine has to be soft booted to make the IDE work."

The AMIGA startup cycle that allows the drive to spin up and become ready is too quick for the drive and that's why it is not registering for boot the first time. I have a Toshiba Laptop drive that is the same in my 1200. It's no biggie, resetting the AMI sends the reset/ready signals again to the drive and by that time, it has done it's self check and ready to recieve/send data so it boots.

Conner HDD were also renown for this slow sipin/check cycle.

[amesie2]

I think my IDE port is probably bad so I will just have to use either the onboard SCSI or the SCSI_II on the CSMKIII.

Thanx for all the input and suggetions.