How do I set up A2000-HC+8 SCSI Card

[barney]

Hello everybody, I am having problems setting up this particular SCSI Card: GVP A2000-HC+8 SCSI Card with newest firmware (4.15).  I have an Amiga 2000 w 2630 68030 accelerator.  The only time the drive is even remotely visible is when I boot it into 68000 mode.  When I run the drive prep program it shows the drive but when I attempt to install WB3.1, the drive isn't even visible.

Even worse, if I boot into 68030 mode, the drive isn't visible no matter what I do, so installing WB3.1 is also impossible.  I must say that this SCSI card is way more complicated to set up than a simple 2091.  Does anybody have any suggestions?  I have the jumper in place for autoboot also.

Barney

[Matt_H]

First, verify your cabling and termination.

Next, how are you prepping the drive? Commodore's prep scripts expect scsi.device, and that board's using gvpscsi.device. Do you have a GVP install disk? Try using that instead. Alternatively, force HDToolbox to use gvpscsi.device (change the SCSI_DEVICE_NAME tooltype).

[barney]

I attempted to use the GVP install disk.  When I boot my 2630 accelerator into 6800 mode, I am able to see the Hard Drive using the GVP install disk.  Only problem is that it doesn't seem to make any changes that stick.  The drive is still unaccessable and I am unable to create more than 1 partiton.  

I also tried to use HDtoolbox but that didn't work either.  Everything was grayed out and unaccessable.  I think it may be jumper setting that need to be tweaked but I cannot find the manual download anywhere on the internet and the information on the Amiga Hardware sites do not provide enough details.

Could there be a compatibility problem between the Commodore 2630 Accelerator and the GVP Scsi Card?

[Matt_H]

Is this your board? Is there any RAM installed? You can only have 4MB installed, since the 4MB on the 2630 will suck up the rest of your Zorro II address space. That might explain why it kinda-sorta works when you disabled the accelerator.

[barney]

My 2630 board only has 2 mbytes installed.  I have 6mb installed on the SCSI card.   Very strange but it only sees the drive in 6800 mode.

[cha05e90]

I use a GVP SCSI card without RAM expansion, this works well with a A2630. Try to de-populate the RAM on your GVP - I strongly suspect a clash of ZorroII address space. *If* the GVP is visible with no RAM, then try to populate it again in 2 MB steps. AutoConfig normally deactivates all Zorro cards it can't fit in the ZorroII adress space.

BTW1: It might be that the simple calculation "2MB 2630 + 6MB GVP = 8MB" won't work, you often have to to this kind of magic in 4MB steps (i.e. only 4MB on the GVP).

BTW2: You do not switch between "68000" and "68030" but you switch the whole accelerator board on/off (incl. RAM!).

[skforty]

You have to change the tooltype on the HDtoolbox...Change it to GVPSCSI.DEVICE.  But that still doesnt explain why you arent seeing it in 68020 mode at all...

[barney]

The Ram shows up fine with the 2630 engaged or not.  The problem I am having is that I flat out cannot get the hard drive set up.  With the 2630 engaged, I cannot get the hard drive to be recognized at all.  When running the GVP setup disk, everything is grayed out.  The only visible drive is the floppy.  If I disengage the 2630 on startup, all the memory on the GVP still works fine and when running the GVP setup disk, it does see the hard drive.  This still doesn't really do me any good because when I attempt to set up the partitions, I still have no luck.
It looks to me that there is a compatibility problem with the 2630.  I will try skforty's idea and change the tooltype on the HDtoolbox to GVPSCSI.DEVICE and see if that works.

Thanks.

[Matt_H]

Try taking 2MB off the GVP card. Even though the 2630 has only 2MB installed, it might be allocating the full 4MB of address space.

Don't change it to GVPSCSI.DEVICE, but gvpscsi.device. Device names are one of the few things that are case-sensitive with the Amiga.

[barney]

Ok, I will give it a try.  Just one more question.  Is it possible to transfer my hard drive my my 2091 to the GVP A2000-HC+8 without losing data or partitions?  If I can do this, it would save me alot of work by not having to install WB, install programs, etc.

Barney

[nutyamiga]

Ckeck the Eary Startup Control under Expansion Broard Diagnostic look for the following Manufacturer & Product IDs.

2017 / 11 for the SCSI & 2017 / 10 for the RAM

If Status for both show as Working is your hard drive Working?
Try another hard drive if you can.

Have you checked the SCSI ID Nos of all the drives on the card?

Hope this helps Steve

[Nostalgiac]

Try taking 2MB off the GVP card. Even though the 2630 has only 2MB installed, it might be allocating the full 4MB of address space.

No - I had a similar setup - the 2630 only allocates the actual memory it has.

Can you explain what exactly you have hooked up to the SCSI cable ?
So literally starting from the GVP SCSI internal connector.. and if the drive has termination set or not... and the final terminator (drive or actual cable connected terminator) + what SCSI id's you have set of course

I do assume you have no external devices connected for now.

Also: any other zorro cards in there ? If so... which ones ? take them out.

Tom UK

[Matt_H]

No - I had a similar setup - the 2630 only allocates the actual memory it has.

Good to know, thanks.

[barney]

Thanks.  I am using the same type of drive that I had hooled up to my 2091.  It is a 2.1 gb IBM SCSI 50 pin drive.  On the SCSI Cable from the card, I have it going into my HD then into my CD Rom Drive.  I have no external devices on the Card.  The little termination pads or chips (whatever they are called) are all still intact on the SCSI card itself and the external 25 pin connection shows no wear so I assume that no external terminator needs to be used.  
The drive shows up when the 2630 is deactivated on startup I just am having no luck getting it configured.  
If the 2630 is running, the memory is present on the SCSI card but the HD is not detected.  When I run Sysinfo in 6800 mode, both the GVP Memory board shows (board address $0060000) and Series 2 SCSI controller GVP (Board address $00EA0000)