Boot from CD

[alexh]

http://phase5.a1k.org/

[motorollin]

Thanks Alex. Is it advisable to use the "private" release, version 44.69 dated 09.04.2000, or should I stick to the last official one 44.67 released 30.03.1999?

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moto

[alexh]

No idea. I've never used any of these.

The latest one is 44.71 dated 2002.

HOWEVER if you read the flashbios readme from 44.68 (the last official phase5)it mentions mounting of CD-ROM.

So why not try 44.68 and go from there?

[motorollin]

Oh I didn't see that one. I'll download it and try flashing the firmware. I'm scared! :nervous:

What happens if it goes wrong? Is my MK3 a brick, or is it fixable?

--
moto

[alexh]

No idea, personally I am a follower of the "If it aint broken dont fix it" philosophy.

Is having the ability to boot from CD that important?

I would recommend that if it is possible to use the tools to DUMP your current flash ALWAYS do that first.

[motorollin]

It's not important. But part of the fun of the Amiga is getting it to do new things, and I think it would be fun to get it booting from CD. It would also be useful to have a bootable backup.

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moto

[A4000_Mad]

motorollin wrote:
part of the fun of the Amiga is getting it to do new things

I certainly agree with that but like you I'm too nervous to mess about with my CSPPC settings :nervous:

However, your thread made me curious as to whether my A4000 running OS3.9 could boot into a CD containing OS3.1. The answer was yes :-)

For those remotely interested......................

The great program 'CD-Boot' that I use for booting into CD32 games gets my A4000 to check whether a bootable CD is in the drive at a very early stage in booting up (a bootable CD is one containing an S drawer with a startup-sequence of course). If one is found a screen is displayed where you can choose to either continue the boot into OS3.9 or into the bootable CD. For the experiment I copied the contents of the OS3.1 floppy disk set onto the CD-R as if it had been properly installed into it. After choosing to boot into the CD-R i proceeded to boot into OS3.1 instead of OS3.9 and all the partitions of the hard drive were available.

I guess this would be useful for someone using OS3.5 or OS3.9 who wanted to use OS3.1 for a change :-D

[motorollin]

A4000_Mad wrote:
The great program 'CD-Boot' that I use for booting into CD32 games gets my A4000 to check whether a bootable CD is in the drive at a very early stage in booting up

The advantage of the MK3/CSPPC/BPPC is that its SCSI controller supports booting from CD, so you don't need any software to get it to work.

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moto

[pyrre]

It would also be useful to have a bootable backup

I have a bootable backup on my zip disks.
It is not a cd-rom, but at least it boots on itself....
And it boots even not having any HD in the system.

[motorollin]

Well the MK3 firmware flash worked, thank goodness :banana:

I now have the CD Boot option, and CD0 is listed as a drive in early startup, even from cold boot. And even booting from HDD with no startup-sequence gives access to CD0 without even mounting anything which is quite cool.

However, CD0 is not listed as a bootable device in early startup. Does it depend on the type of CD inserted at the time? I did try with a CD32 game which I assume would be detected as bootable but it still wasn't selectable as a boot device.

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moto

[Matt_H]

@ Moto

Looks like you might have mistyped something - your post says that CD0 does show up in Early Startup and then that it doesn't. Which do you mean? :-)

And did you use .67, .69, or .71?

EDIT: Wait, nevermind, I know what you mean...
In the CSPPC menu, did you set the device to CD Mount or CD Boot? What's its boot priority?

[motorollin]

To clarify, CD0 shows in the "Control Active Devices" section but not in the "Select Boot Device" section. It shows up as follows:

"Enabled - CD0     not bootable  CDFS  cybppc-4"

The settings in the firmware are as follows:

8 Luns
15 Transfer Offset
20 MHz Sync Period
Async/Synchron
Auto Buswidth
Auto Reselection
Auto Mount
Auto Removable
CDRom Boot
CD Boot Priority 0
CD Device Name CD0

I don't know why the boot priority would make a difference if it isn't even reported as bootable :-?

I used version 44.71 of the firmware.

--
moto

[Matt_H]

Don't know if it'll help, but drop that LUNs setting down to 1. It should still work; anything higher than that might get the system confused.

[motorollin]

Just set the LUNs setting to 1 and also set the boot priority to 1. The drive still shows up as an active device, but is not bootable. Is anyone else using the same firmware version who can confirm that CD Booting definitely works? Or could it be my drive?

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moto

[AndrewBell]

I've tried several versions of the firmware on my CSPPC, up to the latest G-Rex/OpenPCI compatible version, and I have been unable to boot from a CD.
________
NEW JERSEY MARIJUANA DISPENSARIES

[motorollin]

Does anyone know which type of CD it should boot? CD32 games (whether or not they work)? ISO9660 with s/startup-sequence? Or some other format?

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moto