#controller failure
12 messages in this thread
Steve,
I could use some help getting these new drives to work. They are in an
external case with its own power supply. Unfortunately, I keep getting a
controller failure. The controller is EMC's multi-function card. I
closed position 1 on JP4 to enable the IDE controller. (BTW, I removed
one of the jumpers on the IDE drives to make one of them the slave.) I
had to get another ribbon cable since the one sent was too short. The red
strip should be correctly positioned by pin 1. The 386 BB has 8 Meg.
The Amiga 2000HD has a GVP G-Force 030 (25MHZ w MMU). Three banks are
filled but mapped as extended to avoid BB conflict. There is a A2232
multi-serial card. and a GVP ram card with 4 Meg of 16-bit memory. The
A2091 controller is maxed out with 16-bit memory. (If the G-Force weren't
active, there would be a total of 7 Meg. The system still uses only 1 Meg
for chip.) So 9 Meg is 32-bit.
Thanks for your help!
Sincerely,
(Mr.) Gayle Lee Fairless
'Perfessor Fearless' from the Rocket City!
via AutoPilot 1.03a
Gayle,
Sorry about the cable, but the ones I had that came with one of the
drives and the other with one of the multi i/o cards are all the same length,
too short! That is one reason I only have one drive in my box.
If you are getting a controller failure it could be due to one of two
possibilities. First, you need to set up the drive parameters in the
bridgeboard's CMOS setup. When you boot the PC, boot from a floppy. Then run
the BBSETUP program which will bring up the CMOS control program. Move down to
Hard Disk 0 and press the right arrow key to bring up the drive tables. You
want to set Hard Disk 0 to User 40 and then set the paramteter table for the
number of cylinders, heads, and sectors. There are five parameters to set, but
only the first two and the last one are altered. The other two are set to 0.
Use the Maxtor manual that I sent to get the parameters and fill them in. Hard
Disk 1 is set as User 41 and would have its parameters set the same. Try at
least the master drive first with the other disconnected. If you get the first
drive working, then the second will be a snap.
Now, if you have already done all this, but still get the controller
failure, then the problem is likely with the multi i/o card. Some of those
cards have a chip which will not work with some IDE drives. I have two multi
i/o boards from EMC and those drives worked with both of my boards, but Dave
has had numerous reports of problems with the multi i/o board and some IDE
drives. You may need to talk with him about yours.
As a possible solution, I could swap multi i/o cards with you, since I
know the drives work with both of mine because I've used them with both of my
cards.
However, before you pull the plug be sure you have the drives set up
correctly in the CMOS setup. If you continue to have a problem, let me know
and I can send you my other combo card to try. If it works with that one,
which it should, then you can send me yours in trade.
Steve
Steve,
That sounds like a good solution. I plan to take the drives, cable,
and card to a local shop for checkout so I may be able to resolve the
problem here. I tried the 40 and 42 selections with 936 cylinders, 42
sectors, and zeroes for W-pc and L-zone. It did not work, but I'll check
my connections since the DOS 7 install utility did not find the drives.
We have 'more fun' setting up IBM clones and boards than with setting
up our Amigas! %-} (<– going wacko!)
I'll let you know if we need to trade. Thanks for the backup!
Sincerely,
(Mr.) Gayle Lee Fairless
'Perfessor Fearless' from the Rocket City!
via AutoPilot 1.03a
Gayle,
Well, right off I can tell what you did won't work because you would
have configured the drive for nearly 3 times its capacity! With 936 cylinders
and 16 heads, you can't have more than about 16 or 17 sectors per track. If
you check the manual you should use 936 cylinders, 16 heads, and 17 secotrs per
track. That results in a format of about 103.3 meg. If you used 42 spt you
did it wrong. Look at the table on the bottom right of the inside charts of
the manual. The default config for the 7120A is listed there. Use that
configuration and ONLY that or the drive won't work, as jumpered unless you
changed jumper J13, which should be jumpered unless you removed the jumper or
it fell off. If you don't use that configuration, the drive will not work,
guaranteed.
Steve
Steven,
I did use 936 cylinders, 16 head, and 17 SPT for 130.3 meg. I even
disconnected the second or slave drive. You must have been using Oak
Technology for your VGA display. That came up in purple when I had HD0
configured for 1024 cyl, etc. It only happened once. (must have been
some fluke timing!) I think I went right down the list and retried the
one that the technician and you said were correct. No good!
The technician checked the jumpers so I should have those set
correctly. Checking out hardware in pieces including alternative cards
seems to be the best route now.
Thanks!
Sincerely,
(Mr.) Gayle Lee Fairless
'Perfessor Fearless' from the Rocket City!
via AutoPilot 1.03a
Gayle,
Oh, be sure the cable is connected properly at both ends. Red stripe
is Pin 1. On the drive the red stripe should be nearest to the power
connector. On the Oak card it should be at the top of the card.
Steven,
Well, I did get Oak Technology to come up one time. Apparently, it is
a timing problem. Quite a few combinations have been tried. I think I
tried about all of the Maxtor table entries and a few that came close.
The technician at the local shop just checked the parameters today. I may
try to get them to test the hardware.
Right now, I'm ready to try another card. I'll send my address and
phone numbers by E-Mail.
Thanks for your help! I hope to whip this puppy yet!
Sincerely,
(Mr.) Gayle Lee Fairless
'Perfessor Fearless' from the Rocket City!
via AutoPilot 1.03a
Gayle,
Try this, in the startup-sequence right after you run Binddrivers,
insert the following two lines:
run sys:pc/pcreset
run sys:pc/pcreset
I've found that sometimes you need to do this in order to get the card
properly recognize the drives. I did this on my system with the drives and it
seemed to work OK.
As for the drive parms, they are: 936 cyl, 16 heads, 17 spt. Nothing
else will work!!
Steve
Steven,
Funny you should suggest that! Cinege suggested the same thing when I
talked to him on the phone. (He's active on GEnie.)
I have a local shop checking out the drive subsystem just to make
everything is working. It may be as late as Tuesday before I can test
that idea.
Thanks!
Sincerely,
(Mr.) Gayle Lee Fairless
'Perfessor Fearless' from the Rocket City!
via AutoPilot 1.03a
Gayle,
I seems that some drives, even from the same mfgr., don't come up to
speed quickly enough. I feel studpid for not remembering this sooner. The
7120A doesn't power up until the bridgbeboard begins to boot up. That means the
drive doesn't come up to speed by the time the BB starts looking for the hard
drive controller, so the controller error pops up because as far as the BB is
concerned the controller isn't on line. In fact it isn't, but it soon will be.
Unfortunately, that's too late for the boot sequence. The two PCResets
actually force a wait on the BB so the boot sequence is delayed just long
enough for the drive to come up to speed. My Maxtor 240, on the other hand,
powers up as soon as the computer ist turned on.
Although I have never tried this with that drive, note that jumper J11
is labeled I/O channel Ready. It is defaulted to OFF. You might try putting a
jumper on J11, which turns the I/O channel ON. That may cause the drive to
power up earlier and not have to wait until the BB boots. You will be able to
tell easily. With the drive exposed to where you can hear it, note that
normally the drive will turn on when the BB starts up. You will hear the motor
start to come up to speed. If you jumper J11 and the drive comes on immediately
after the computer is turned on, then you may not need the PCResets to insert
the delays.
Steve
Steven,
Yes, I had noticed that jumper, and I also noticed that the drives
suddenly get louder during the BB bootup. B & B Data Systems should have
gotten to my harddrive subsystem by Tuesday.
Hope you have a happy 4th!
Sincerely,
(Mr.) Gayle Lee Fairless
'Perfessor Fearless' from the Rocket City!
via AutoPilot 1.03a
Gayle,
If you leave that jumper in the default position, then I believe the
two PCResets just after Binddrivers will do the trick. Without those, I got
the controller error, too. I suspect that's the secret unless your combo board
just won't work with those drives.