#CDROM Questions
14 messages in this thread
All,
I need a couple of questions answered about a Toshiba 3401 CDROM drive that I
have hooked to a A4000. I am using a 2091, can't seem to locate a 4091.
The drive has a parity jumper that I don't know if I need to have set or not???
So much for question #1.
2) If I don't have a CD in the drive, the machine will not boot until I insert
one. I have tried moving the jumper on the 2091 from BOOT to DIS, but that
doesn't seem to do anything except the drive isn't then avail at all. I
suppose that there is some trick with a scsi.device file or something, but I
don't have one, because id gets loaded from ROM. So any takers on this one?
Thanks,
Alan Adamson
[72370,613]
Alan…
I have a A4000 with a Toshiba 3401 CDROM drive connected to a A2091. It
will not boot without a CD in the drive, if I have a music CD in the drive
at boot up it will take about a minute or so to come on line, its as if
the the machine is looking for something.
Another thing is that its best to use a master switch to start both the
computer and the CDROM drive at the same time. Why this is I don't have a
clue, my Floptical drive is the same, but the tape drive could care less.
(scsi black magic)
I can't help you about the parity jumper, to be honest I didn't even know
there was one..
What I would like to find out about is termination, my unit is internally
terminated and I have heard that the the 3401 has a dip switch to change
this to pass through. I'm not about to open the case until I have a better
idea of what I'm looking for.
I am using the CDROM filesystem from Asimware Innnovations and it works
fine. The only problem has been that they cashed my check over a month ago
for a upgrade to V2.0 and their still not shipping…
Eddie.Ski
Does the Toshiba unit fit correctly in an A4000?
-mark=
Otto Pilot Engaged..
Mark,
If fits perfectly, I had another toshiba before this and it wouldn't fit at
all, but the 3401 fits like it was made for it.
Alan
Excellent!
Then all we need is a company (GVP?) that will package this drive with a
filesystem and a few CD titles and they would have a multimedia upgrade
kit for the A4000.
It would sell. 🙂
-mark=
Otto Pilot Engaged..
Eddie,
I think I can shed some light on your comments as well as I have a couple of
questions.
First of all, my 3401 is mounted internal to the 4000, looks great and works as
you have noted. So I don't have to worry about power on issues. Second.
There is a jumper on the 3401 that will allow pass thru on the termination. I
will look in my manual and get back to you with the number so you can change if
you need to.
I also have a floptical, an Iomega unit. (I work for a IBM s/w company and got
it from them for nothing, I just had to test with it). I have a problem with
it in that it wont recongnize a disk change, any ideas about this. It will
notice the first diskette inserted and then when I eject it the diskette icon
stays on the screen and if I put another diskette in it doesn't put an icon up,
but instead uses the same one that is already on the screen.
I am also using the ASIM s/w, I didn't know there was a 2.0 version out, but I
am planning on going to the WOC show this weekend and if they are there I will
check about that.
As you probably know, the 3401 is capable of reading music cd's as data and you
can copy from the cd to hd and if there were s/w you could cut and paste and if
you had a recordable cd you could create your own music. Lots of if's, but
have you heard of any s/w that supports any of this?
Also, what about Photocd support? I don't think the ASIM stuff does as I put a
disk in and it doesn't recognize it at all..
Stay in touch, and thanks for the comments.
Alan Adamson
[72370,613]
Alan..
My floptical is out for repairs and I'm waiting on its return someday.
Diskchange can be a adventure, most times it will mount the new disk and
then there are times I have use the diskchange command. I even made a file
named dc and put it the c: dir so all I had to was tpye dc in the cli to
mount the new disk..
My understanding its not the drives but a prob with the Amiga OS. You
might want to check out which version of the rom you have on the 2091, I'm
not sure but I think early versions didn't support diskchanges.
ASIM v2.0 will support Photocd, Xetec's s/w already does and will convert
the pictures to IFF-24 images. I haven't tried the Xetec s/w as of yet
also getting a roll of film processed for PhotoCD is rather expensive.
Eddie.Ski
Eddie;
While it's true that the Amiga OS does not always handle diskchanges
properly, it is appearently much more complicated than one would think at
first.
With mulitiple removeable media HDs on the bus, some do and some don't.
It's pretty hard (for me) to blame the OS and controller ROM. "Somebody
ain't doing sumpin right" and it doesn't sound like it's C=.
-bill
Bill…
When I purchased the 2091 for the 4000 last year I was advd to check the
rom version as there could be a problem with anything lower then 6.6 with
removeable media. A problen did show up, the drives would not function at
all, the first question I was asked was about the rom version.
It wasn't until a few weeks later that we found out about 2nd.scsi.decice
and that didn't come from C= or my dealer, according to both I needed to
change the mask value..
More then likely the only engineers that knew about the scsi prob were
already down at the employment office signing up for their checks…
Eddie.Ski
Eddie;
"2nd.scsi.device"? Hum, me thinks that I need to ask you more about
that!
-bill
Alan;
Parity will normally not be used (off).
The machine should boot eventually. The A2091 is looking and waiting for
a bootable device to show up. If there is no CD in the drive then the
A2091 knows that there is a drive present but it is reporting "not ready".
Eventually (possibly after several minutes) the controller will give up.
The A4000 is a bit of a mystery to me in some of its details but possibly
there is an equivalent to the A3000's battmen. If so, then there are some
parameters that can be changed. For instance, you do not want the
controller to try every LUN (eight checks and attendent waits at each of
seven scsi addresses). There is also a long and short wait but you
probably should have the long wait as CDROMs are relatively slow drives.
Another possible option (probably the best if it can be done) is to set
the controller for "DISable boot" and use something like "scsimounter" to
mount the drive. The instruction to do this could be placed in your
s:User-Startup with the command itself in c: or some other location on
your IDE drive.
-bill
Bill,
Great comments, I don't know anything about a Battmen program. Any help here
would be greatly apperciated.
Thanks,
Alan
Alan;
I think that the program may be available here in the libraries. It is by
Doug Keller. I do not know if it works on the A4000 however.
-bill
I'm using an identical configuration (Xetec driver), and alas, I have the
same problem. (It will _eventually_ boot, but it takes a long while.)
My only solution is to put the CD0 icon into storage, and 'Leave Out' the
icon. When I want to boot the CD ROM, I just double click on the icon.
Another option is to turn off the power to your CD-ROM until you need it.
(Though the Xetec driver seems to choke on this.)
Good Luck. I hope someone else has a better solution.
Erik Flom