#SCSI Problems revisited
25 messages in this thread
Here's another SCSI problem for any takers:
I recently added (as in last night:)) a Toshiba CD-Rom drive to my SCSI
chain, currently running on an A2000 with a 33MHz GVP combo card/SCSI
controller card. I have the following on the SCSI chain:
Internal Quantum 52LPS SCSI ID = 0
External Quantum 105HD SCSI ID = 1
External Ricoh Removable 52MB SCSI ID = 2
and the added:
Toshiba CD-ROM drive SCSI ID = 3
Now, the problems I'm having are this: when i cold boot (power on the
machine), the system hangs for about 30 sec with the green HD Disk light
glowing, which then goes off. The screen remains white (or light
gray…nothing unusual) except that it doesn't boot unless I hit
Ctrl-Amiga-Amiga, which then works just fine.
I had initially added a mount Toshiba: command into my user-startup
sequence and thought that might be the culprit, but removing it didn't help
any.
BTW, the Ricoh is the last drive in the chain and is terminated (same as
before).
Also, I've got no disk in the CD-ROM drive at boot-up.
Since several other people use the system, I'd prefer not to require a
cold+warm boot to start the system. Does anyone have any suggestions as to
what's going on here?
Also, once the system is up it recognizes the drive; at least I can play an
audio CD uneventfully and I can access the other Hard Drives without much
problem.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
.. Tim Trompeter…
Tim;
Since you didn't draw any wild speculators……
What is the total length of the SCSI cables? What kind of SCSI cables are
you using? Is there any chance that you could hook everything up with 50
cond. flat cable (just for testing).
Is there a terminator on the internal drive? You might want to try it both
ways if the drive is using the internal connector with the other drives on
the external connector.
I have a GVP SCSI controller in one of my machines and while its
performance has been great, the card shows greater sensitivity to physical
configuration than some other cards that I have used.
-bill/ARS KB7LX
Bill,
Thanks for the reply. In response to your queries:
1) The total length of my SCSI cables is about 3 feet; a shielded cable
about 2' from the SCSI connector on the interface card, and about 1'(maybe
less) of ribbon cable in the external box for the drive connectors. I
think the cable length is OK; at least I've had no problem before adding
the CD-ROM drive, and since the ribbon cable inside the external box is a
loop with 4 notched SCSI connectors ready to plug-n-drive, I added no
cabling to add the drive and the system worked flawlessly prior to adding
this one.
There is a terminator on the internal drive as well as on the last physical
SCSI device on the SCSI chain. I had found by trial and error when I first
got the system set up that I needed that combination to avoid funny Key
errors (I think something like $46/$49…) and don't get these at all
presently.
The technical description/setup sheets that came with the drive describe a
DIP switch for something called arbitration, but I have presently left that
at the default (off?) setting as described in the setup sheet. I wonder
what that might mean…?
I suspect that this will correct itself if and when I get a CD (ISO-9660)
disk to stick in the drive for startup, and at this point will probably
wait until the next release of the FF series from HyperMedia. If you have
any suggestions (ie you gotta get this disk…!) let me know.
Thanks again.
.. Tim Trompeter…
Tim;
It sounds as though there should be no hardware problems… at least not
with the design of the installation. One comment though, ribbon cables can
be very fragile and it is possible that you have damaged one such that a
signal has been lost. I suspect that this is rather unlikely in your case
but……..
Arbitration should probably be off for your setup. Usually, arbitration is
used where they is more than one bus controller or devices capabile of
communicating with each other without using the cpu.
-bill/ARS KB7LX
Tim,
Definitely put a disc in the CD-Rom before boot up or you will have a
very long wait. Do you not yet have a driver for the CD-Rom drive or do you
not yet have a CD-Rom disc? The controller is waiting for the drive to come
ready but unless it has a CD-Rom (not CD Audio) disc in it you will wait
awhile for it to give up.
….Mark Sterling 74335,1677
Mark,
Thanks for the reply. I have a driver, but no CD-ROM disk, other than an
audio CD, which I understand isn't recognized as a "real" disk. I've
inquired about the startup-disk for CDTV at my local Amiga dealer, but they
have said that 1) the disk isn't available unless you purchase a CDTV, and
2) the disk won't work unless you have CDTV hardware…
I suspect that neither of my dealer's statements are actually true, but I'm
stuck for the moment. If you know anything about the CDTV Introductory
disk (ie availability or readibility on a CD-ROM-not-CDTV drive) I'd
appreciate your comments.
Thanks again.
.. Tim Trompeter…
Tim: buy the Fish Collection 1.4 instead. It is a bootable disk, and is
much more useful than the Welcome Disk.
(BTW, the Welcome disk does use the debox.library for decompression, so
wouldn't work correctly on a standard Amiga)
andy
Has anyone produced a pure copy of the Fish disks on disc? I've been
somewhat upset with the HyperMedia Concepts discs because they apparently
copied the entire Fish collection to disk and made all the filenames into
upper-case, then used those files to make the LZH versions of each disk.
Very stupid. Or I'm very stupid and completely miss something obvious…
but I don't think so, I've talked to HM about this. Give me back those
high bits, they're just as much part of the Fish disks as any of the other
bits! I eagerly await the arrival of such a disc. There's tubs of floppies
waiting to become backup sets when I have a real CD version of Fish. BTW,
Xetec's doesn't qualify either. They re-arranged all the files and
destroyed the Fishness.
I don't think so; HM is concerned with producing legal ISO9660 disks,
which doesn't believe in upper case for some reason 🙂
At this point, though, how many of his customers are interested in using a
PC to access the Fish disk ? I bet he could get away with the relaxed
format of ISO9660 that CDTV discs generally use, which allows upper case.
(and lower case)
andy
You missed my point: first he put a copy of every Fish disk on an ISO disc,
or at least made the filenames look that way. Then he used *that* image to
make the LZH versions of each disk, instead of using the real disk image.
You look inside the LZH file and all the filenames are uppercase. It would
be fine with me to have a pure ISO disc with LZH filenames in uppercase.
"FF130.LZH" does not upset me. "READMEFIRST" does. "MAIN.C" does. Makes
me feel like I'm on a PC. They're not really Fish disks in the LZH files,
they're something else.
John,
I think it's time to boot your original A1000 under AmigaDOS 1.0 and play
with Amicus 1-9.
(My the things we can get upset about in 1992. 😉
OK, Denny, I'm going to write a recursive ARexx script that changes every
filename on your hard disk to all upper-case. Will you beta-test it for
me? Thank you. 🙂 After this program is complete, I'll work on one that
makes all filenames compatible with MS-DOS.
John,
not to be a whiner, but I think you should provide him with a script that
does both (upper cases, AND makes 'em MS-DROSS compatible) for his first
best testing experience.
What's happened to your work ethic?
<running away> :^)
–Ben
I guess I did miss your point.
andy
andy,
Thanks for the advice–i picked up the disk today, and it works just fine!
.. Tim Trompeter…
Tim,
I 've seen the disc but not tried it. Why would you want it? I'm pretty
sure your machine would not boot with it. There are quite a few CD-Roms out
there cheap. A bunch of sources are listed in an Amiga World about 2 months
ago. The Fred Fish disc includes up to disk 600 now and is a fabulous
bargain. PC type discs are also usable for the most part. If you don't have
a disc then you might as well unhook it from the SCSI cable until you get
some discs.
I got a bunch of discs from NASA that have images from the Voyager and
Viking probes. Lots of great stuff!
….Mark Sterling 74335,1677
Hey Mark,
Could you give me an address or a phone number to contact in regard to
the NASA disks? Also what software did you use to convert the IBM format
images to IFF format? I have a CD-ROM drive on the way and am very
interested in these disks.
Paul,
Call NSSDC at 301-286-6695. They can even fax you the catalog. The first
disc in each set is $20 and additional ones are $6. They even take Visa and
M/C. There are 12 Voyager probe discs.
Images are not in IBM format. The disc is easily readable but the images
are in FITS format. Currently Imagemaster from Black Belt Systems is the
only Amiga program I know of that will load the images and of course will
convert them. ASDG is reportedly working on something as well. NASA will
send you the IBM or MAC software to work with the images and convert them
to GIF. They do not charge for the software.
Images are 800×800 8bit 256 greyscale. They really look good on a 24bit
display and convert pretty well to 16 color hi-res in most cases. There are
also 200×200 "browse" images on some of the discs that load very fast but
are low resolution. The discs are a fantastic bargain IMHO.
….Mark Sterling 74335,1677
If you send a message to their e-mail account (I believe the Internet
address is included in the catalog) then you can get the catalog in
eletronic form, right here from Compuserve EasyPlex mail… that's how I
got mine back in November!
John,
I do have their internet address but didn't contact them that way. I
should know better than to use lo-tech stuff like the telephone and fax
machine! At least there is a way for anyone to contact them. They EVEN have
a U.S. Mail address!
….Mark Sterling 74335,1677
Mark,
Thanks for the info!
Mark,
I wanted to pick up the disk because there were some comments here a while
back that mentioned a variety of residual programs and comments left on the
disk from C=; I just thought they might be interesting to peruse!
I purchased the Fish CD-ROM 1-600 and it works fine. Now to figure out how
to use the multitude of IBM and Mac disks on the "real side" of the
machine…
.. Tim Trompeter…
Mark,
Where did you get the NASA disks? If you have a phone or address, I'd
appreciate it
.. Tim Trompeter…