Using Furia accelerator with OS 3.1.4

[tlgrooms]

I'm trying to use OS 3.1.4 with my Furia accerlator in my 600.  I have a 3.1.4 ROM installed in the machine and install 3.1.4 with no problems.  When I reboot, the hard drive (sdcard) flashes for quite a long time then goes solid green and the screen never comes up.  Have tried reformatting with smaller partitions for the boot partition and other things but can never get it to boot all the way up.  Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I might try?  I've seen youtube videos of others using 3.1.4 with a Furia so I know it should be possible.

[guest11527]

First, it is usually recommendable to use larger block sizes than 512 bytes if the partition is larger. The FFS requires upon bootstrap once the complete bitmap once in memory, one byte per 8 blocks. Hence, for a 16GB partition, for example, you
need at least:

16GB = 2^(10+10+10+4) Bytes -> 2^(34-9-3) = 2^21 = 2MB continuous memory for 512 byte blocks.

For 4K blocks, only:  2^(34-12-3) = 2^21 = 2MB continuous memory for 512 byte blocks -> 256K memory.

Other than that, please try to reboot without startup-sequence and report what happens then. Also, have you tried a memory test?

[tlgrooms]

I kept fooling with the machine and even though I could format the drives and install the OS, I could never get it to boot from the sdcard.  When I booted from the 3.1 install floppy and tried to run anything on the SDCard drive, the window that would open would freeze up.  Mouse would still work and I could try to open another program but it would freeze up to.

I started from scratch again with different options in hdtoolbox and even using pfs3 but every time I would set up the partitions, and reboot to format, it would never finish the quick format.  I tried several different sdcards and it was always the same thing.  I had a very small compact flash card (16mb) that I tried and it formatted fine, and the os installed fine and it boots fine.  Seems to run everything fine.  I ordered a 16gb Sandisk like others have said they are using with no problems and am awaiting it.  Going to try it and see what happens.
 
When I was using the sdcard, and it would format OK at the beginning, I did try booting without the startup sequence once and I did get a dos prompt.  So something in the startup of 3.1.4 must have been causing it to never come up.  Not sure why it quit formatting the sdcards?  It would start and then never finish on all I tried.  Once I would reboot, the machine would never come back up even with the boot floppy in, like it was trying to validate the hard drive or something.  I could take the sdcard out and put in my pc and format it there fat32 and then i could boot again with the floppy and try to reinstall again but every time it would lock up doing the quick format.  I hope the 16gb sandisk compact flash works and I will just use it.

[guest11527]

Have you or have you not increased the block size of the card? 512 byte blocks on an SD card is bad practise, in particular it is bad practise with a large SD card. It does not make sense to continue talking unless you have attempted this step. I really suggest - rather recommend if not "recommand" - 4096 byte blocks, in the "Advanced settings" of the HDToolBox.

There is nothing in the 3.1.4 startup that freezes your machine. It is just that the FFS needs to validate the freshly formatted disk at least *once* and for a disk this size, it just takes time and memory. Maybe more memory than your machine has, and more time than you wanted to wait. A 64GB drive with 512 byte blocks may take probably around 30 minutes to validate. Yes, really. This is similar to the "fschk" of linux machines.

You can fix both by giving it larger blocks. That is not a change that came into FFS with 3.1.4 - it was always like this. It is just that the V46 FFS can, all at a sudden, work with such disks to begin with.

[kolla]

This sounds exactly how OS 3.1.4 behaved on my Minimig before I _reduced_ blocksize to 512 bytes.
Not saying it is in any way related, just funny to see exactly the same behaviour on very different hardware.

[guest11527]

This sounds exactly how OS 3.1.4 behaved on my Minimig before I _reduced_ blocksize to 512 bytes.
Not saying it is in any way related, just funny to see exactly the same behaviour on very different hardware.

This is a bad advice since the blocksize has absolutely nothing to do with the device interface or device communication - besides, the interface layer of FFS to the device did not change at all. Hence, please - do not follow this advice. Keep the block size large.

Once again to all: There is no change in the FFS corresponding to block size support and in the interface layer to the device. Actually, from the device perspective, the block size cannot be even told apart because these "blocks" are in no relation to any hardware feature.

[kolla]

I gave no advice.

[tlgrooms]

Yes, I tried increasing the block size to 4096 with both FFS and PFS3.  Didn't make any difference.

[guest11527]

I started from scratch again with different options in hdtoolbox and even using pfs3 but every time I would set up the partitions, and reboot to format, it would never finish the quick format.

So, what did it do instead of "finishing"?

I had a very small compact flash card (16mb) that I tried and it formatted fine, and the os installed fine and it boots fine.  Seems to run everything fine.  I ordered a 16gb Sandisk like others have said they are using with no problems and am awaiting it.  Going to try it and see what happens.

Was this any different from 3.1? Because I somehow doubt. If the SD-Card does not speak PIO - which is unfortunately the only protocol the antique amiga hardware is able to speak - then the SD card cannot be used on the system.
 

When I was using the sdcard, and it would format OK at the beginning, I did try booting without the startup sequence once and I did get a dos prompt.

What do you mean by "Format OK at the beginning"? Did it not complete? A "quick format" does not do much - in fact, it does not take long as it only writes the root block to the disk, and that is it. So I fail to see how you can abort that "in the middle".

So something in the startup of 3.1.4 must have been causing it to never come up. 

You can always put "set interactive on" at the beginning of the startup-sequence and then step through it, line by line.

Not sure why it quit formatting the sdcards?  It would start and then never finish on all I tried.

Sorry, but I do not even understand what that means. Quick format does not have "phases". Either it works (the root block is written) or it fails (the root block is not written), and in particular, there is nothing like a "half quick formatted partition". It is either formatted, or it is not. "long format" can abort in the middle, yes, but quick format cannot. If quick format fails, what do you see? In particular, if there is an error code, what is it?

Once I would reboot, the machine would never come back up even with the boot floppy in, like it was trying to validate the hard drive or something.

The "or something" I need to have more precise. In particular, it can take quite a while to come back.

I could take the sdcard out and put in my pc and format it there fat32 and then i could boot again with the floppy and try to reinstall again but every time it would lock up doing the quick format.  I hope the 16gb sandisk compact flash works and I will just use it.

Whether you put any other file system there in first place is irrelevant.

How is the SD card connected to the Amiga, BTW?

[AndyFC]

@tlgrooms Did you have this working before you upgraded to 3.1.4? Or have you introduced the ssd at the same time as the os upgrade?

[tlgrooms]

I started from scratch again with different options in hdtoolbox and even using pfs3 but every time I would set up the partitions, and reboot to format, it would never finish the quick format.

So, what did it do instead of "finishing"?
It comes up and says initializing and does nothing else.  The format never completes.  I've let it sit for hours.  Never changes.

I had a very small compact flash card (16mb) that I tried and it formatted fine, and the os installed fine and it boots fine.  Seems to run everything fine.  I ordered a 16gb Sandisk like others have said they are using with no problems and am awaiting it.  Going to try it and see what happens.

Was this any different from 3.1? Because I somehow doubt. If the SD-Card does not speak PIO - which is unfortunately the only protocol the antique amiga hardware is able to speak - then the SD card cannot be used on the system.
The SDCard worked fine with 2.05 and still does.  I put the 2.05 ROM back in with my sdcard interface and it works perfectly.  The new 16gb Sandisk compact flash I ordered is doing the same thing as the SDcards, it won't finish initializing during the quick format, it just hangs.
 

When I was using the sdcard, and it would format OK at the beginning, I did try booting without the startup sequence once and I did get a dos prompt.

What do you mean by "Format OK at the beginning"? Did it not complete? A "quick format" does not do much - in fact, it does not take long as it only writes the root block to the disk, and that is it. So I fail to see how you can abort that "in the middle".
When I first tried setting up 3.1.4.  It worked once, meaning it did the quick format fine and I was able to install the OS from the floppy images with a GOTek drive.  When I would try to boot from the SDCard it would fail to bring up the screen and the activity light would go solid and never change.  When I would boot from the floppy and try to execute a command or anything that was on the sdcard, it would hang.

So something in the startup of 3.1.4 must have been causing it to never come up. 

You can always put "set interactive on" at the beginning of the startup-sequence and then step through it, line by line.
I would do that if I could get back to that point.  I haven't been able to successfully format an sdcard but that one time in the beginning and I've tried several.  I haven't tried to format it under 2.05 and then switch to the 3.1.4 ROM.  That will be my next step.

Not sure why it quit formatting the sdcards?  It would start and then never finish on all I tried.

Sorry, but I do not even understand what that means. Quick format does not have "phases". Either it works (the root block is written) or it fails (the root block is not written), and in particular, there is nothing like a "half quick formatted partition". It is either formatted, or it is not. "long format" can abort in the middle, yes, but quick format cannot. If quick format fails, what do you see? In particular, if there is an error code, what is it?
Well, it fails.  The requestor comes up and says initializing and never does anything else.  It just hangs until I shut off the machine.  There is no error and no message, just the box saying Initializing.

Once I would reboot, the machine would never come back up even with the boot floppy in, like it was trying to validate the hard drive or something.

The "or something" I need to have more precise. In particular, it can take quite a while to come back.
When I would reboot the machine without the floppy, the activity light would run on the sdcard for a while then go solid.

I could take the sdcard out and put in my pc and format it there fat32 and then i could boot again with the floppy and try to reinstall again but every time it would lock up doing the quick format.  I hope the 16gb sandisk compact flash works and I will just use it.

Whether you put any other file system there in first place is irrelevant.
Well, it obviously makes a difference being reformatted.  If I don't the machine will not boot period, with or without the floppy.  This is after an attempt to format the sdcard.  When I reformat the SDcard as fat32, I can then boot from floppy with the SDCard installed and read it, partition it and try to format it.  If I don't do that it will not boot from floppy or sdcard.

How is the SD card connected to the Amiga, BTW?

With an ide to sdcard interface.  It works fine under 2.05 with the same SDCard.

[tlgrooms]

@tlgrooms Did you have this working before you upgraded to 3.1.4? Or have you introduced the ssd at the same time as the os upgrade?

Worked fine and is still working fine with 2.05 rom and workbench.

[guest11527]

Sorry, I cannot help you if you do not answer my questions.

[tlgrooms]

I thought I did?

The answers are underneath each question above.  Didn't understand how to work the quote feature.

[guest11527]

Sorry, your answers are separate text mingled with mine, which is why I haven't seen them. How did you install the SDCard? How large was the partition?