A500 and CD reader

[apsturk]

Well I am still new at all this. I have a CD rom reader with the terminator pulled in and nothing. 3.1 + BetterWB 4, 8megs fast and 2 Chip. I can not figure for the life of me what to do to get it to work. I have checked on line and I have not seen anything that explains it. I am a Mac guy from way back and things just work when you plug them in. Can anyone give a guy a hand

[mechy]

copy the cd0: icon from storage:dosdrivers to devs:dosdrivers.
Edit its CD0 icon information for the proper unit number and scsi device.
Unit number is what you have the cdrom jumpered to.
Save it and reboot and it should read cd's if you got everything right.
Try a factory pressed cd like aminet.  this works under os3.1 and any scsi cdrom.

If it doesn't work:

Check that cdfilesystem is in L: directory
make sure you editied cd0 with the proper scsi.device name.
make sure the unit number is right on the cdrom and not conflicting with your hard drive.

[apsturk]

Wow that is great thanks, does not sound to bad I will give it a try asap

Thanks

[apsturk]

Well not so fast. What do I put and where do I find info on this.

other then DONOTWAIT & the default tool is C:Mount

its empty what do I put!! & why do NONE of the AmigaDOS books have anything about this all printed in 91 & 93

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

This topic drives me CRAZY.  It comes up CONSTANTLY and is frequently confusing.  There was a recent thread on one of the Amiga Facebook groups over 100 comments long.  I gave up on it after a while, so many different people spouting off nonsense, lol.  

If you right-click on CD0 from your Workbench you can edit a few of the properties.  Device name, device number, and that's usually about all I ever see there.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't but it almost always leaves people more confused because that's not giving them the full information.

Instead, drop down to a shell prompt and type:

Ed SYS: Devs/DOSDrivers/CD0

(without the space, amiga.org keeps trying to change what I'm typing into smilies)

This is where you can see the full properties of the file.  You need to review parameters like FileSystem, Device, and Unit, and make sure they match your specific configuration.  There's no "one size fits all" config, since everyone's setup is different.  But once you match the config to your system, you should be good to go (and won't need to have anything specified in your tooltypes, unless they're parameters you want to access easily or change frequently).

See attached screenshot for an example of mine:

[mechy]

Mike, you are possibly confused i think .. he is using 3.1 which the cd0 icon file is a binary file. tooltypes should only be in icon info and you cannot load it into a text editor-dont believe me? grab it off a original workbench storage disk and try and load it into a ed... I just tried this to verify i was right a second ago.

I don't claim to be a expert,but i have been doing this for nearly 20 years on scsi systems(many people argued with me also,until i showed them this works fine).

If the tooltypes are missing in the icon then you either have a modded workbench/disks or something or are not using wb3.1 cd drivers(mikes case). grab the files from the original floppies.
Mike,The example you give is for cache cdfs(not original to workbench 3.1 cdfs). It is a mountlist text file,different from stock cd0 in workbench 3.0 and 3.1.

Mech

P.S.  for trivia sake, you can do this also on 3.0.... but the cdfilesystem in L: and cd0: icons are broken,just use them from a 3.1 disk to fix it.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Mike, you are possibly confused i think .. he is using 3.1 which the cd0 icon file is a binary file. tooltypes should only be in icon info and you cannot load it into a text editor-dont believe me? grab it off a original workbench storage disk and try and load it into a ed... I just tried this to verify i was right a second ago.

I love you bud, but I just did, and it works exactly as I suggest.  Here's a couple photos, official 3.1 disks from AmigaKit and everything.  

The text file even mentions that a couple of the parameters can be edited from the tooltypes.  Me being me, I prefer to do everything manually, but to each their own, I suppose.  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Of course, all of the above assumes the device is terminated correctly, etc.  I know you've posted about this in other places but off-hand I can't recall your entire config.  On my A500 I'm using a DVD drive in an external chassis, connected to a GVP sidecar, with the termination jumper directly on the DVD drive itself.  If you're using one of those big terminators that goes on the SCSI chain, maybe try removing it and jumpering on your drive instead?  

[mechy]

Of course, all of the above assumes the device is terminated correctly, etc.  I know you've posted about this in other places but off-hand I can't recall your entire config.  On my A500 I'm using a DVD drive in an external chassis, connected to a GVP sidecar, with the termination jumper directly on the DVD drive itself.  If you're using one of those big terminators that goes on the SCSI chain, maybe try removing it and jumpering on your drive, instead?  

Those are cloanto disks,not identical to the original commodore disks, also their roms have changes too ;/  in any case, i see why it worked for you. i prob. should of been more specific. in anycase he could use the one off the cloanto disk and edit it, i assume it will work.

scsi termination should be easy, terminate last drive on the chain ends and make sure no middle drives are terminated.. passive or active term will usually work.
                                                                                        
                                                                                                                .

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Those are cloanto disks,not identical to the original commodore disks,

I grabbed a decade-old DMS copy of an original 3.1 disk and wrote it out to a floppy.  It was identical to the Cloanto one.

Then I wrote out a copy of a 2.1 disk.  Obviously 2.1 doesn't have a CD0 driver, but it does have a PC0, and a PC1, and a RAD, etc.  In all cases they were exactly the same, structurally.  You can edit a couple options through the icon tooltypes, but the majority of configuration options are edited through the text file itself.

*shrug*

Screenshots of original 3.1 & 2.1, attached.

Bums me out that we no longer have any user groups around.  If all of us grumpy old men could stop bickering for five minutes, I'm sure that any of us could fix this guy's problem within a few minutes of laying hands on the system.  So much easier to troubleshoot things in person.  

[mechy]

I grabbed a decade-old DMS copy of an original 3.1 disk and wrote it out to a floppy.  It was identical to the Cloanto one.

Then I wrote out a copy of a 2.1 disk.  Obviously 2.1 doesn't have a CD0 driver, but it does have a PC0, and a PC1, and a RAD, etc.  In all cases they were exactly the same, structurally.  You can edit a couple options through the icon tooltypes, but the majority of configuration options are edited through the text file itself.

*shrug*

Screenshots of original 3.1 & 2.1, attached.

Most puzzling, i have 5 sets of commodore originals that came with 4kt to other sets i bought over the years, i just went through them and they work the way i mentioned. go figure.

sure the dms wasnt of a cloanto one? lol  I believe you have what you have,ican't explain it though.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

sure the dms wasnt of a cloanto one? lol  I believe you have what you have,ican't explain it though.

LOL.  The DMS was from back before Cloanto existed as a company, I think.  

I can't believe you can't just open a shell window and type

Ed SYS: DEVS/DOSDrivers/CD0

(without the space)

and not get the exact same configurable, editable text file as I'm getting.  Because this is the same way I've been doing it since the early 1990's.  :lol:

What happens when you try that?  Now I'm curious, can you post a screenshot?  If I understand you correctly, you say you're getting some kind of binary error?

[Matt_H]

Checked my own 3.1 set from 1994 and it's as Mike describes

So, things to check are:
-CD drive properly installed/terminated
-CD0 in Devs: DOSDrivers
-Tooltypes of CD0 set to the correct device name and unit number

Things we haven't gone over yet:
-Commodore's CDFS is terrible. It may simply be failing to read the disc correctly. Try another disc.
-Does BetterWB have a different CDFS pre-installed? If so, its CD0 and/or CD1 will be a bit different, but the core principle is the same: make sure the correct device name and unit number are set. You may need to make those edits by opening CD0 in a text editor instead of in the icon information window.

[Ral-Clan]

Well I am still new at all this. I have a CD rom reader with the terminator pulled in and nothing. 3.1 + BetterWB 4, 8megs fast and 2 Chip. I can not figure for the life of me what to do to get it to work. I have checked on line and I have not seen anything that explains it. I am a Mac guy from way back and things just work when you plug them in. Can anyone give a guy a hand

Hold on. You're getting a lot of information in this thread but no one has asked some basic questions.

- what SCSI interface are you using with your A500?
- what model CD drive are you using?
- what else is on the SCSI chain?
- if not a Commodore SCSI interface, have you changed the SCSI driver name  in the CD0 dosdriver icon to the proper one? I.e. from scsi.device to gvpscsi.device? This is in tooltypes.
- have you set the SCSI device ID jumper on the CD drive so it's not conflicting with that of any other device on the chain?
- is there actually a disc in the drive?

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

LOL. Yeah, sorry we kind of got off on a tangent there. More information would certainly help.