WarpEngine 3040 SCSI issues

[x56h34]

Here's a copy & paste of the message which I recently posted on AmigaWorld. Trying to get help from as many sources as possible ;-)

I've installed a WarpEngine 3040 in my A3000D and I am having problems with my IBM DFHS (SP4) Ultrastar XP 4.51GB 50-pin hard drive. Here are some facts from my detup:

- There are no devices connected to the native SCSI, and no termination at all.
- I have 3.1 Roms installed, DMAC-2, Ramsey-4, WD SCSI-08, Buster 11.
- The IBM hard drive is Amiga formatted, and has been working fine on my other setup which was A1200 with B1230-IV w/ SCSI kit, and then later on it worked fine even in the A3000, but on the native SCSI controller.

I have tried 2 different (known to work) SCSI cables for the following chain with no success:

ActiveTerminator ---- WarpEngineSCSI ---- IBMHardDrive ---- ActiveTerminator

I have of course removed the passive termination resistors from the WarpEngine itself in order to get better termination through the Active way.

What happens when I hit the power button on my A3000 is the following. I get the 3.1 insert disk screen after about 2 seconds. If I go to the early boot menu by holding both mouse buttons at boot, I get no bootable hard drive partitions in the list.

I have also manipulated WarpEngine configuration jumpers for SCSI, and I've tried everything from the fastest working mode to the slowest (safe) mode and nothing helped. The results were identical in all cases.

I paid extra attention when connecting the cables and made sure that pin-1 always, on all devices, goes to the appropriate side.

My A3000D was previously Int-2 modded (http://www.vgr.com/int2), so I have no need of using the red clip from the WarpEngine to the pin 21 of the U350 CIA chip.

Should I assume that WarpEngine simply dislikes this IBM drive? Really weird. Any tips?


Thanks.

[matt3k]

One of my 3k's have a 3040 in it.  I have never tried a IBM drive in it however.  I find it highly unlikely that the warp engine can't read it.  

I would try two things...

1.  Boot from a floppy and see if SCSI prefs see's it.  (make sure to change scsi.device to warpdrive.device in the icon settings.)  If you see the drive than run the setup utility that came with the warp engine, this will set the max transfer and such.)  Reboot and see if it is recognized.

2.  If #1 doesn't work, hook up the red clip to confirm that the int hack is working and try another hard disk if possible...

Good luck.

ps, I'm ebaying all my 3k's in the next month.  If you need parts or complete systems.
1.  If you have another SCSI drive try and see if it is recognized

[melott]

I have one of those IBM drives (I think its the same
model). I was never able to get it to work on my
A3k SCSI.device or WarpDrive.device.
Yet it works fine in one of my PC with an Adaptec
SCSI card.
I know this isn't much help other than to say that
I have found IBM drives to be fussy and just may
not work on the WarpDrive. Actually I'm supprised
you got it to work on the SCSI.device.

[x56h34]

@matt3k:

I'll try your suggestions and see what happens, but as Mel practically confirmed it, it seems that my suspicion of IBM not being Warp friendly seems most likely to be the reason for my problem.

@Mel:

Mel, you jump to help out again, regarding my WarpEngine troubles. :-) I managed to get the drive to work with native SCSI by tweaking the NVram settings through the SetBatt utility from Aminet. What I did basically was disable all the fancy stuff like synchronous transfer and made it run as slow and basic as possible.

Blast these IBM drives. Time to look for a Seagate Barracuda! :-)

What do you guys recommend as a good HD with WE3040?

[matt3k]

I've always loved quantum drives, if you can find any atlas drives floating out there or want the Maxtor offering.  You will need an adaptor to convert it to 50 pins.

I have Seagate baracuda and hawk, quantum lps, maverick, viking and atlas, old maxtor ones (slow), fuji (nasty:(), and digital (out of some really old servers...)  All of which work fine in my 3000's...

Have fun!

Matt