Amiga 500 HDD Blues

[Everblue]

Ok, I managed to install 3.1 Kickstart in my Amiga500, I have connected my AlfaData hdd enclosure to it. I am having problems getting the HDD to work though...

If I use Workbench 3.1's HDTOOLBOX, it lists no hard disks.

When I used HDINST from Aminet, it recognized my HDD, let me create a partition (I made a 1 gig partition) etc. After setting up the partition, I  let it reboot and when got back in Workbench 3.1 I can see the partition, which needs to be formatted.

When I use workbench's formatting tool it lets me give it a name etc, but after a while, it says not a valid dos disk, or something like that

Any ideas what am I doing wrong?


Thanks!  :-D

[skurk]

Hmm.. Is it a new (or big capacity) hdd inside the AlfaData?  Try setting MaxTransfer to 0x1fe00 in HDToolBox or HDInst and retry.

[Everblue]

Hi, its a 20 gig hard drive... which I just took out from a PC.

Ok I did as you said:

1. In HDToolbox I cannot do it because it doesnt even 'see' the hard disk

2. In HDInstall I created a 750meg partition again and rebooted.

Workbench 'sees' the hard drive as a non dos disk, so I select it and used workbench format utility...

After a while showing "Initialising...." it gives a not a Dos disk error or something likee that

This is driving me mad

Why doesnt HDToolbox see the drive?

[Bazzaq]

I would probably try a much smaller drive...
Does hdinsttools see it as 20gb?

[Everblue]

No it sees at as an 8g drive.

I have noticed that once I create partitions with HDInst and restart, and check the partitions again with HDInst, they are 'gone'.

The drive has no gig limit jumper...

Any ideas? I dont have any other HDDs at my disposal  :getmad:

What if I use another file system -can I get the  drive to be seen as 20gigs? Maybe thats why I cannot format the partition.

[Matt_H]

For plain 3.1 with FFS, look for the TD64 patches on Aminet.

HDToolbox probably isn't seeing the drive because it's scanning scsi.device, and I imagine the AlfaData uses a different device name. Use a Tooltype to change it.

[pyrre]

try a partition smaller than 500 or 250 meg...
Maybe hdinst tools is to old to see new and large disks....

[rkauer]

 For partitions AND hds with more than 4Gb, use SFS (version 1.275 is the last on aminet). But you need to save/use the boot partition under the 4Gb barrier.

 Prefer to use less than 200 Mb to it (It's a SYSTEM partition, remember?;-)).

[Chain]

Dont forget to set device=oktagon.device in HDToolbox tooltypes, otherwise you will not see hdd coz scsi.device is used as default

[Everblue]

Yeah I did that and HDToolbox does see my hard disk now, but only as 163 megs (its a 20gig)...

I created a partition but when I tried to format it, it said not a valid dos disk.

I think I am gonna try and get another hard drive, probably my amiga does not like this one.

[skurk]

I went through the same mess on my A4000 (also kick 3.1).  It detected the disk allright, but the drive started {bleep}ing up, especially when overwriting files (just appended to the file until the partition was full.)

I have no idea if our problems are related at all, but my solution were as follows: I ripped the drive out of the Amiga, did a partition+format on a PC (WinUAE), re-inserted it and everything has worked like a charm ever since.

If you have a SCSI card in your PC, give it a try.  It might just work.