#Disaster – HELP !
16 messages in this thread
Just got a new Amiga 4000/040 – after years with our good old 2000. One reason
was to use the extra stuff on the 45 program disks which we could not do with
the 2000.
We are in a real MESS ! We got a GVP 4008 control card direct from GVP. We use
a very big SCSI disk (from the 2000),
Tried to load the 45 software disks on to a large cleared partition of the HD.
Got to the 40th disk – when it crashed. Repeated the process several times.
Sometimes it gets to the 10th, the 17th, the 30th and everywhere in between,
but never gets the whole program on to our hard disk.
We have post work coming up….. and my hair has turned even whiter. Starting
to wish I had my old 2000 back.
Any ideas or suggestion which may lighten my dark hours!
Regards, Hilary.
Hilary, I'm not sure exacltly which disks this falls on, but every 8 disks or
so the computer has to stop to unarchive, and arrange the files, then delete
files it no longer needs. It sounds like you may have a RAM problem. Regards,
Gary
Thanks Gary for suggestions.
Yep… I know the routine by now. The failure sometimes occurs when reading
the compressed files, and sometimes during the de-compress process…. no
established point of failure.
Re RAM…. have got 10 Megs of SIMM's in there. Folk tell me that this is
adequate.
Will continue to tear my hair out if I just bought a 4000/040 just to finf the
darn thing will not accept the Toaster 3.0 software!
All the best, Hilary.
Hilary, Do you have a program to actually test that your RAM chips are
functioning properly? Gary
Yes Gary. It is on a disk supplied by GVP called "FAAASTPREP". It does a nice
clean job. The latest edition of the program was part of the package GVP
supplied me with the 4008 SCSI control card.
All the best, Hilary
Hilary,
The 4000 is moving to fast, turn off the CPU cache.
Type from shell "CPU NoCache".
Joe Maulucci >>> Accadia Electronic Arts
DTV & DTP BBS 1-716-882-1774 CNet
Joe…. excellent suggestion. Will most certainly try it out.
I am very poor at software manipulation, therefore PLEASE educate me. Is this
what I do……?
1). Boot up the hard disk – Workbench screen.
2). Go to SHELL… type in "CPU NoCache".
3). Leave shell – return to Workbench.
4). Pop in Disk 1. of the Toaster 3.0 software… and proceed.
Hope that this is correct ?
Again thanks… and all the best. Hilary
Hilary,
Yes, that is how you do it.
After the install is done, to turn things back on;
either go back to a shell and type "CPU Cache",
or just do a warm re-boot (Ctrl-Amiga-Amiga).
Joe Maulucci >>> Accadia Electronic Arts
DTV & DTP BBS 1-716-882-1774 CNet
Thanks for the coaching Joe…..
Will give it a try – when down in the studio Tuesday/Wednesday. Will report
the results.
Once again thanks for your patience…. All the best, Hilary
Hilary,
I had the exact same problem. It turned out to be a bad power supply. It's
voltage would fluctuate and cause the hard drive to spin down. Then when it
went to write to the drive it would stall. It took three months to get a
replacement. If you're having the same problem good luck!
Chad Liddell
Thanks for your reply Chad. Makes me shudder a bit!
For some reason all goes well in putting Workbench 3.0 on to the hard disk, or
for that matter any small program. It is when I attempt to load the 40 odd
disks of the Toaster 3.0 that things go wrong. There is just no exact pattern.
Sometimes it quits after 9 or 10 disks…. sometimes after 20. Sometimes it
quits when the floppy is reading the compressed data…. and sometimes when the
computer is trying to un-archive the stuff. It is in the studio control room,
where we keep the temp' at about 70 F.
Does anyone make more hefty power supplies for the Amiga 4000 ? Is there
anything special about them? Which of the voltages tend to be "queer" and
cause the problem…. the 5 volt or 12 volt supplies. Maybe I can hang another
supply on the back!…. or a small seperate supply for just the hard disk ?
If you or anyone know more….. rescue me!
Again thanks and all the best, Hilary.
I had the same problem when I recently had to re-install the 3.1 update. I
eventually gave up and reformatted the hard drive…found a bunch of errors
using Quarterback Tools and decided to not try to fix them.
After reformatting, 3.1 installed just fine.
Grady
Hilary,
This isn't a very elegant solution, but if you can find another Toaster
4000 owner, what about connecting your machines with a parnet cable and
using that to transfer all the Toaster files? Since the individual files
are not that big and you'll get an error message if one fails to transfer
properly you could just redo the ones that fail (if any do) rather than
starting over. Parnet shouldn't be much slower than the proper install
since you don't have to change disks or wait for archives to de-compress.
Once the software is installed BACK UP YOUR HARD DRIVE.
While this doesn't solve your problem for the next Toaster upgrade it does
get you working and gives you some time to figure out what the problem is.
Your dealer shoud be willing to help you with the transfer in the
interests of customer service, or if you bought it mail order you should
be able to bribe a local Toaster owner into giving up his time.
One other possible problem you might want to look into would be the
alignment of your floppy drive. If your drive is slightly out of alignment
in one direction and the duplicating house's drive was slightly out of
alignment in the other direction you'll have problems. I've gotten a
number of programs that seem to have bad install disks. If I duplicate
disks on another Amiga the copies work fine.
Obviously I need a new floppy drive in my machine, but I WILL NOT spend
$100 for an 880k drive when 1.44mb drives only cost $50! :^(
Hope this helps get you up and running.
Jeff H…
Jeff: That floppy problem you mentioned pops up on my machines one in a while
too. Phanton disk errors on installing. It's intermittent, but over the last
few months any external floppies I connect to either machine won't work. The
floppies work connected to my roommates 2000, and I've replace the CIA's but no
go. Wierd?
Trent/ReAnimators
Does your SCSI drive and controller work properly!!! I have had loads of
trouble with a GVP A4008. Even what slot it occupied in my A4000 made a
difference. Make sure the drive/card arrangement works properly first.
If this works fine, check for CPU and RAM trouble…Your system could be
crashing when it fills up that last (bad?) SIMM module…
Grant Boucher – Amblin Imaging
"It's hard to believe grown-ups do this for a living."
I had a similar problem– the Toaster 3.0 software would get through the first
ten disks and then crash with a useless error message. It was quite
repeatable. I was trying to install the software on an Amiga 3000, onto a
brand new SCSI disk. The Newtek support folks had me reformat it to change
some parameter they didn't like; this had no effect on the problem. Eventually,
they were kind enough to offer to load the software for me, if I would send in
the disk drive. They paid for overnight shipping both ways and I had the disk
back quickly, and loaded properly.
I certainly can't complain about their excellent service! But I was a bit
taken aback that PCs and Macs are able to get floppies to work correcty while
the Amiga, with Newtek's installation software, cannot, and can't provide an
escape hatch for manual installation when the automatic software fails (and
fails to give a useful error message, to boot.)
So you might contact Newtek technical support and point out that if they can't
get their software installed on your machine, you will book Tim Jennison on the
Letterman show, under the name "Bonzo and His Amazing Flea Circus." This
probably won't get any better result for you, but it may lower your stress
level… as you look for a new job. 🙂
— David Schachter