Powerflyer (FastATAcontroller) does not detect CDrewriter

[Effy]

I am one of those people that have been using a pc for the past two years but remained Amiga minded all the time. I recently purchased a bare A1200 with kick 3.0 and a flashing fast Seagate 120 Mb 2,5" hd, motherboard dates from 1992. It has been a long while since I used any Amiga so it was very exiting to restart. First I added a Microbotics 1230 XA with 32 Mb. Then I added a Powerflyer ATA controller with kickstart 3.1 and connected the big Seagate 2,5" hd. It worked just fine, really. I installed the FastATA´99 software from an orginal Elbox floppy. Still no problem. Then I added a 5,25" Aopen 52x CDrewriter to the 2nd IDE port ... and that´s where my problem started. I can not detect that thing. The software has an utility that searches for connected IDE devices at the beginning of the startup-sequence but it only detects the Seagate at port 1. I tried to replace the CDrewriter by a 3,5" 1 Gb Quantum hd and it was immediately detected as Pio4. So I tried to add to the startup-sequence ´Setpatch SKIPROMUPDATES´ but that resulted in a crashed bootup because it did not understand the ´SKIPROMUPDATES´ ... something tells me that there is a gap in my memory, a place where the answer is but is not impossible to find (because of age or too many hours behind a pc) ... can somebody with a clear mind (or infected with the correct beer) inform me what I forgot to do
I still have 3 A4000´s and a PPC A1200 that scream to be used again, and I have absolutely no intention of buying a Pegasos or AmigaOne !!!

[lorddef]

Hmm, it should show up in the ata4 drive utility before you boot up (the one where you hold down the right mouse button I think, I'm not sure my memory is also fuzzy).

You got the cd-rom set as master/slave as appropriate haven't you?

[lempkee]

do u mean that HDTOOLBOX doesnt see the ID on the cdrom? , i have all 4 units taken at most times and i never had a single problem.

which version of the sw do u use?



C:CheckLMB
IF WARN
SYS:Prefs/ATA3Prefs
ENDIF
c:ATA3.driver QUIET

       
cheers

[lempkee]

                                                      ;Starting FastATA

C:CheckLMB
IF WARN
SYS:Prefs/ATA3Prefs
ENDIF
c:ATA3.driver QUIET

                                                          ;Ending FastATA

;PsdLoadModule DEVS:input.device QUIET                     ;Poseidon-Installing Wheelmouse etc UPD!


Blizkick * EXTRESBUF=99943 QUIET MODULE SpeedyChip shell romfixes NoClick romupdate.idtag filesystem.resource FixGetMsg console.device ram-handler exec.library fusionreserve BPPCFix

                                                          ;Ending ColdStart Boot
;*************************************************


resident run remove
resident c:run ADD PURE

C:SetPatch QUIET NOROMUPDATE                              ;No RomUpdate needed since Blizkick Fix This

CyReq                                                     ;Important For Powericons/Vp/Birdie

assign envarc: sys:prefs/env-archive/                         ;HappyENV Force me to add this line.



a small tip is in here... also remeber to use RESIDENT in the ata3 menu.

[JaXanim]

I think this may be a Mountlist problem. The PowerFlyer will automatically detect hard drives, but ATAPI devices should have a Mountlist located in Devs/DOSdrivers.

For the Rewriter, you can use the CD0 mountlist, which comes with OS3.1 (in the Storage drawer). Copy this into Devs/DOSdrivers.

Also make sure that the CD0 icon contains the correct Unit Number for the CDrewriter device. Check in Workbench's Icon/Information menu. Type in and save the correct setting.

Also the device driver (where required) should always be device=scsi.device

If you have only one HD on the Primary Channel, this is Unit 0. If there is only the Master CDrewriter on Channel 2, this is Unit 1. If you have any Slave units on either channel, adjust the Unit number accordingly. That is:

Channel1 Master Unit 0
Channel1 Slave Unit 1
Channel2 Master Unit 2
Channel 2 Slave Unit 3

Cheers,

JaX

[Effy]

Nope, still won´t do the trick. My Setpatch does not accept NOROMUPDATE ..
The CDRW has been tried as master, slave, and cable select.None of these worked. I do know that when I boot that the ATA3 menu spends at least 5 secs on searching, meaning that it does have a kind of problem.
HDtoolbox only sees the primary 2,5" hd ...
After the ATA3 menu the CDRW freezes, I can not even get the tray open ...
The Setpatch command, does it come before the ATA3 stuff in the startup sequence or after There was a Setpatch before and I deleted it but no better result. Now there is only a Setpatch QUIET after the ATA3 lines in the startup sequence.

[Colmiga]

Out of curiousity, what AmigaOS software version are you running on this A1200? If I remember correctly, setpatch options like SKIPROMUPDATES only came in with AmigaOS 3.5 and above.

Have you tried the CDRW on another computers IDE interface? If you haven't, it would be best to try that first to determine if it's the IDE interface or the CDRW thats causing the trouble.

[x56h34]

@Effy:

Some 2.5" hard drives do not play along nicely if they have a device connected to the same IDE channel. So if your 2.5" hard drive is master on the Primary port, leave it like that, without connecting a slave drive to the Primary port.

On the Secondary port, do as you wish. Connect both master and slave drives. See if this helps.

[Effy]

This CDrewriter is a spare one that I use for my pc´s in case of trouble. It works 100%. On the Amiga´s Powerflyer it is connected to the secondary port as I can only connect one device to the primary port with that 2,5" cable that connects to the Seagate 2,5" hd. If I use SCSI Inquire of AsimCDFS then only the hd shows up, so it is certainly not a matter of mounting CD0 problems, that would be easy to solve. I have now reformatted the hd and put OS 3.1 on it, the one that was on the hd was OS 3.0 ... don´t know if it makes any difference ...

[Brian]

My FastATA4000 didn't find my CDRom if I didn't also have a harddrive on the controller (weird and not as it should be but it was like that).

So I think you could try to connect a HD as secondary master and set the CD to secondary slave and see if it finds it now?

[Effy]

Brain : that doesn´t really make sense, but I sometimes have the same problem on pc´s so I shall give it a try ...

[Brian]

It was like this... I had my Bootdrive on the FastATA4000 as primary master and the CD as secondary master with at the time an empty IDE HD rack as secondary slave and nothing else. Installed the software and got the CD to work right away. As there is (was cause I now have instlaled the fix) a delay without a HD on the internal IDE controller I thought I just move over the HD and get ridd of the delay (and thought the small IDE disk I had for system could stay there and bigger drives that I didn't have just then aimed for storage of files, work, games etc could go on the faster controller). Moved the IDE cable from the FastATA4000 controller to the Internal controller. Booted her up and as predicted the delay was gone, however so was the CDrom (got error message that the device couldn't be found). Weird I thought.. and tried different things to locate the CDRom but all attempts failed, nothing found it. I thought "what did I do before this happened? move the HD", so I moved the HD back onto the FastATA controller and the CD popped up right from boot.

Weird but it's a fact that it happened so I thought I just have to live with that and so I kept the boot device on the FastATA controller and installed the "anti delay hack" onto the internal controller to get rid of the delay.

System works pritty darn fine now but my IDE HD rack is secondary slave and it will not show the harddrive installed before I make a reset. (sigh... Mediator reset, OS3.9 reset, manual reset and presto *cough*)

[Effy]

The thing is that I have a small 2,5" hd inside the desktop A1200 and I wanna put the CDRW outside by using a long IDE cable.If this were inside tower then there would probably be no problem but now I am limited to space so I have only the option to put the CDRW master on the 2nd IDE port ...

[Brian]

Did you get it to work?

[Effy]

Not yet Brian, I would like to have three or four extra hours a day to do the things I like most ... but I shall surely let you know if it works or not !!!