Why is the 1200's internal IDE so Flakey?

[XDelusion]

So I bought a 1200 off a guy about a month ago. When I first plugged it in, it fired right up, booted off the internal hard drive and all was well!!!

After tinkering with it a bit I decided that the 200Mb Internal Hard Drive just would not do. I then put in a CF2IDE adapter with a 4Gb card, but it would not see it. I tried a different CF card, still no go.
Used a different adapter with 4Gb card. No go.

Different adapter with 8Gb card. Detected!!!!

I formatted this puppy and was ready to go, only having to softboot at boot time once in a blue moon to keep it from trying to boot from floppy instead.

Since then I ordered a 20Gb 2.5" Hard Drive. I could not get it to detect for nothing, but I expected as much considering that the Amiga has a it's size limitations.

I then formatted it in OS 3.9 under WinUAE detecting it as a UAE scsi device, then installed WorkBench 3.1 on it as well as PFS for all but the boot patition.

I put it back on my 1200 and it booted!!! But only after a few million attempts.

(I've noticed that when you boot and hold down both mouse buttons to choose your boot options that the Hard Drive does not always show as an option, so it's like the Amiga does not always acknowledge the hard drive at all!!!)

Anyhow, I booted off the drive and all was well except that my 8Gb partition was not being recognized as a readable partition.
I went into Hard Drive Tools, and was about to fix the drive partition, but I noticed that it only recognized the drive as being 8Gb total, not just the partition.

I figured that this had to do with WB3.1's size limitation, but was confused...

ain't that supposed to be capped off at 4Gb?

Anyhow, what I had to do what create a 3.9 boot disc that looked on my CF card fro OS3.9 rather than the Cd-Rom since I have no CD-ROM installed on this computer.

Booting off the Disc and getting the Amiga to detect both the CF Card in the PCMCIA slot as well as the Hard Drive at the same time was a major pain in the ass, but once I finally got it to do so, I re-formatted and partitioned the drive, once again using PFS on all partitions except for the boot partition.

Having installed OS 3.9 this time everything seemed fine, till I installed Boing Bag 2 (after Boing Bag 1 of course) which now causes my system to give me an error screen with either the red or yellow text at boot time.

I then decided once again that I had no use fro 3.9, especially if an official update was going to screw up my system.

I went back to my 8Gb CF using the CF2IDE adapter. I installed PFS to all but the boot partition and went back to 3.1.

Now my Amiga has to be rebooted a million times just to detect the card. Sometimes I sit there and reset my Amiga for like an hour before it detects.

I tried the 200Mb HD that came with the system, but now it even has issues detecting. Same goes for my 20Gb Hard Drive which is now problematic as well.

BTW I also cut the Pin 1 wire which I've been told helps the Amiga detect the Hard Drive in time, or allows the Hard Drive extra time to spin up or something.


Annoying...

Maybe the 1200's were really built as cheaply as some people say.


P.S. I presume that you can't boot off one of these either?

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1052

[Cammy]

Why are you not installing PFS3 on the boot partitions of your drives? It seems crazy to leave them with the slow-as-mud FFS.

Are you using LoadModule to load in a newer SCSI.device so your system can handle partitions over 4GB?

[fishy_fiz]

Youre lucky to have had the 200gig drive boot at all. Usually larger drives require more power than the internal controller can provide. This may have something to do with why its so temperamental.
That aside, its not unusual to have to shape the drives geometry manually for larger drives. HDToolbox only saw my 400gig drive as 32gig no matter what I did. Thankfully manually editting drive geometry seems to work nicely.

[TCMSLP]

Cammy: I didn't realise PFS could be installed on a boot drive.  Wouldn't this require modified ROMs to read/boot?  *confusion*

[bbond007]

P.S. I presume that you can't boot off one of these either?

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1052

I am booting off of the FastATA, however I have a 4GB disk-on-module as the boot drive.

[Dwyloc]

Cammy: I didn't realise PFS could be installed on a boot drive.  Wouldn't this require modified ROMs to read/boot?  *confusion*

No the amiga supports storing the hard disk file system used on a special area of the disk (rdb) and loading it in at run time like Linux or windows on the PC and has done so since kickstart 1.3.

[Thorham]

Cammy: I didn't realise PFS could be installed on a boot drive.  Wouldn't this require modified ROMs to read/boot?  *confusion*

File systems such as PFS and SFS are installed in the rigid disk block (RDB) of the hard drive and read at boot time.

[Dwyloc]

Annoying...

Maybe the 1200's were really built as cheaply as some people say.
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1052

Try using a modern harddisk on a PC or MAC of the same age they all have the same problems, in fact a lot of them just can use disk bigger than 8GB's on the built in IDE controller and can't use a lot CF disks on the internal IDE controller, as many CF cards don't comply fully with the IDE standard.

[XDelusion]

Why are you not installing PFS3 on the boot partitions of your drives? It seems crazy to leave them with the slow-as-mud FFS.

Are you using LoadModule to load in a newer SCSI.device so your system can handle partitions over 4GB?

Loadmodule? Hmm downloaded and will see what this does.

So I can boot off PFS without any fancy tricks?


Oh and a typo, I have an old 200mb drive not 200gb

[Tension]

never had a problem with IDE on an A600/A1200/A4000.
SCSI, on the other hand, was a right cnut.

[fishy_fiz]

Loadmodule? Hmm downloaded and will see what this does.

So I can boot off PFS without any fancy tricks?


Oh and a typo, I have an old 200mb drive not 200gb

Actually my mistake, you actually had written 200mb. The 200gb I mentioned was me misreading 20gb  

[Dwyloc]

Loadmodule? Hmm downloaded and will see what this does.

So I can boot off PFS without any fancy tricks?


Oh and a typo, I have an old 200mb drive not 200gb

Yes or SFS all you need to do is install it to the hard disk with HDToolbox, but you may as well use PFS now its free.

[XDelusion]

Well the docs on LoadModule just confused the hell outta me...

Um, here's the feedback I'm getting elsewhere...

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=61718


BTW my A600 and PAL 1200 are not near this flakey when it comes to hard drives.

[T3000]

The problem with most complete working Amigas when sold is, the new owner decides that the unit isn't enough and needs to be tinkered with and modified.
Original HD setup was sufficiant to operate the unit (like it did for several years).
The external scsi header would have been the route to go when adding more HD space (like it had for years).

If it works, don't f*ck with it....

Now where's that screwdriver?

[marcfrick2112]

The problem with most complete working Amigas when sold is, the new owner decides that the unit isn't enough and needs to be tinkered with and modified.
Original HD setup was sufficiant to operate the unit (like it did for several years).
The external scsi header would have been the route to go when adding more HD space (like it had for years).

If it works, don't f*ck with it....

Now where's that screwdriver?

I really have to agree with this. I hate to say it, but if I had left my A4KT alone, or gotten (somehow) someone to help to troubleshoot/fix it, it might be working today...
I mean basically, if you tinker with something, make sure you have an option if it all goes wrong... Example, I take AWFUL risks with my very pretty, and very stable OS3.9 setup... any unknown patch, edit to the S-S ... no big whoop! *Cuz, I have a CD backup, with an special emergency boot floppy that enables CD0: and runs DirWork...! I have my disks RDB backed up.... PLUS, a bootable Zip disk (Hallelujah, for the DCE SCSI module!) with a 'not-really-minimal' WB setup... tho... my FULL OS3.9+hacks WB is  only 133 Megs! .... Hmm...

Sorry, I LOL @ 'modern' PC's ... yup... yers can render 20,000x faster than my Amiga, makes coffee, a little AnimGIF of Bill Gates says hello to you every morning by name (!), you can say, pretty much that the drab PC's rule the world.....
but, what if the worst happens on a Wintel box today.... I dunno, can you restore a WinXP or Win7 PC from just a single floppy??? Assuming that PC even HAS a floppy drive... *Ugh, actually had to buy a USB floppy for my crummy Compaq PC..* assuming, of course, you actually GOT a Win CD with yer PC... I haven't last 2 times I had to buy a PC...

Ohh! to the subject... Well, maybe I am just very LUCKY with my A1200 Power Tower... i have had IDE issues only twice in maybe 9 years or more... BOTH issues were due to dust, and corrosion on the IDE header and cable... In most cases, I would just re-seat the cable a few times.... no issues...
Truth is, I was using an 8.5GB hard drive even under OS 3.1, with NSDPatch, I had a few issues, until I learned of the limits of that hack....but was using even THAT kludge quite sucessfully under OS3.1, with 3.5, (yea, I have both) I had some troubles with installation, and CD-ROM handling.... but, never any issues under OS3.9...remember tho, can't use most disk optimizers, and if you think a HD partition got wiped, no hope left.... try doing a quick format, wait 3 secs. after disk act., then reboot...... really, has saved me Gigs of data....
The big disk handling in 3.1-3.9 IS a bit flaky...but, well, it's workable.... I have my most stable ever Amiga system now in my A1200 Power Tower, loaded with all the silly hacks and kludges that people tell me not to run... still totally stable...



It's not perfect..I hate to say this, but I did a catastrophic failure of the big disk handling of OS3.9... Once, I lost a 2GB SCSI drive... just went corrupt...I am totally broke, so I try to re-cycle any HDD's I can....maybe it was on it's last legs, so to speak...  I had read Joanne Dow's info about the big HD patch in OS3.5+ , but can't find much info now...



Um, I am sure the OP thought of this, but the boot partition IS in the first 2GB of the drive, and no bigger than 2GB, right?