External CD -ROM R.I.P.

[MiAmigo]

My external CD-ROM drive for my Amiga 2000 died recently, and I've been having a bit of trouble getting a working replacement for it. I've tried several internal SCSI CD-ROM drives, including an old Apple drive, and a couple of old IBMs. I'm using AmiCDFS, but can't get any of the drives to show up on the Workbench (3.1) start up screen. Are there drives specifically meant to be used with the A2000, or is it just a config problem? (Note: I've gone over my installation routine several times, and I don't think I missed anything, even down to editing the CD0 file, and setting the Mount and Unit number so that it matches the device ID # as it its jumpered on the back of the drive.) What am I doing wrong, or, what am I missing?

[CLS2086]

Maybe : 2048, Parity and Terminaison ON ?

[Ilwrath]

I've never had a problem with any old internal 50 pin SCSI CD-ROMs I've found.  I've used quite a few including several common Apple models with no problems.

As stated...  Termination and Unit ID are important.  Check out a SCSI tutorial somewhere.  You need termination on both ends of the chain.  If you had an external CD-ROM that supplied termination, you may have lost that termination when you unplugged it.  It's not a given that a SCSI card will auto-terminate the external side of the chain when nothing is plugged into it.

Also, make sure you have no unit # conflicts.  I tend to shy away from using unit ID 0 and 7, as it's easy to forget that the SCSI controller needs a unit number, too.  ;-)

Dealing with the old SCSI-1 is one of those pain-in-the-ass things that I really don't miss...