A4000 IDE Woes

[gertsy]

Hi Peoples.
      I have an A4000 with and alpha data IDE adaptor / breakout / Splitter.  (See pic)
I was thinking that this 2 port IDE card allows you to have 4 IDE devices : 2 x Master / Slave.
I'm starting to doubt that now.  
The card is basically a circuit board with 3 Ide headers 1 marked IN and 2 marked OUT. (Out 1 and Out 2). There are 2 diodes on the board and tracks from IN to the 2 OUTS.  That's it.
It works fine with my CDROM on Out 2 as Slave and My CFCard on Out 1 as Master.

Anyway today I thought I'd set up my second IDE-CF Card adaptor which I can mount in the out the back of the A4000. And disconnect the CDRom as I hardly use it anymore and it just basically makes noise.

Simple, quick task I thought.  Well.. This is an Amiga and simple, quick is not the norm.
Problem : I cannot get either IDE/CF Card to work on OUT 2.  As Master or slave.
Either one will work on OUT 1 as master fine.
Looking in HD Toolbox on 3.9 I only see one device on Address 0 Lun 0 of scsi.device. The one that is plugged into Out 1 of the IDE adaptor.
Early boot menu will only see a master on OUT1, Regardless of which IDE/CF Card it is. (This could be the expected result if it expects a master IDE device for booting, I can't remember.)
I have swapped IDE cables around so its not those.
Yes of course I am using the Card Jumpers to select a card as Master/slave.

Anyway anyone have any hints?  help.....  ***** Solved now ****

I haven't even gotten onto stage 2.

**** Ive since solved this issue so follow the posts for a workaround *****

[gertsy]

Okay.  Ive since figured out it is a 2 port device. Exactly the same as the one AmigaKit sell.  But that I need to use IDEFIX to access the 2nd port.  (Hmmm worked fine for the CDRom)
Anyways, Install the latest version of IDEFIX (V3.5) from Aminet.  A4000 crashes on boot : DH0  Error #80000004.
More reading shows that IDEFIX doesn't like CF Cards and I need to patch the IDEFix object with spatch and use Doobreys patch for it.  After some scary reading I can't get spatch to work..... (invalid arguments)  sigh... I'm using the exact example syntax... Head drops to chest... life...

[gertsy]

Okay got another version of spatch from Aminet to work.

Next problem is I get the error :
"Incorrect version of the original file.
This patch can not be applied to it..."

Hmm IDEFix excutable in the version on Aminet is not the one IDEFix.pch requires.
Apparently it needs version 119.17 (8/12/2000) according to Doobrey.
IDEFIX97 on Aminet is V3.5 dated 30/10/99 and has IDEfix 119.16 )

Starts searching....

[gertsy]

According to Doobrey the latest (final) version of IDEFix was at ICOMP but that link is now dead.  Luckly there was a link on EAB posted by Thomas. (The number of times Thomas has solved my Amiga problems is uncountable.)

So to close this off. Hopefully for posterity.

Suggest you first have a Workbench 3.1 floppy(I always do) so you can boot from it if your Amiga freezes from the IDEFix97 install. Which it will if you have an IDE/SD Card on port 2 (Out 2).
This is so you can boot from floppy and ed your HardDisk:S/Startup-Sequence, to comment ";" out IDEFix. Until it's replaced with a patched version. Then you can go back in and uncomment it.

Sequence:
If you install the Aminet version of IDEFix97 (with IDEFix 119.16): http://aminet.net/driver/media/IDEfix97.lha

You need to use the Doobrey patch from Aminet: http://aminet.net/driver/media/IDEFix_patches.lha

Use the version of spatch from this Gui Version of spatch (worked for me): http://aminet.net/util/wb/Spatcher1_0.lha

And patch this version of the IDEFix executable (119.17): http://web.archive.org/web/20140405173451/http://icomp.de/t/bin/eb_final.lha
IDEFix is in the "expansion" directory of the archive.
With the patched IDEFix executable in the expected directory (usually c) everything should work.
Check your Startup-Sequence to see where its executing from.

Or PM me and I'll send you the patched IDEFix executable file.  (To be sure have v 3.5 of IDEFix97 installed)  
I'm tempted to post it back to Aminet but I'm sure if I did that I guess I'd be slaughtered and cremated twice over.

Of course this is only relevant if you have an IDE Breakout/Splitter like the one in the pic above.  Although I believe from reading this is also a problem with the Buddha driver too.
Unpatched, IDEFix will probably(likely) crash on a machine with this type of IDE splitter with an IDE/CF Card adaptor on Port 2 (Out 2).
Once you have the patched version executed it sees the IDE/CF Card fine on the 2nd IDE Port.

Cool.  But something that I though would take an hour takes the whole afternoon and I still haven't cut and drilled and mounted the IDE/CF Card holder in the back of the A4000....  Sigh...

[gertsy]

Finally some testing led me to post this FYI:
Once Patched IDEFix shows the following IDE config for scsi.device in HDToolBox on 3.9.
Drive on Master of Out1 = Address 0.  LUN 0
Drive on Slave of Out1 =   Address 1.  LUN 0
Drive on Master of Out2 = Address 2.  LUN 0
Drive on Slave of Out2 =   Address 3.  LUN 0.

Cheers

[LoadWB]

Your pain is greatly appreciated.  Thank you.