Hi Everyone!

So, I wanted to put a new hard drive in my A1XE with OS 4.1 and Sii0680 card. I bought a Western Digital Cavier Blue 500 Gig PATA hard drive.

I could not get this drive to work. I installed it using mediatoolbox, and when I would set up the first partition, reboot, and when I went to format it, it would freeze the whole computer. I checked cables, correct slave/master settings everything. I also tried it on my Micro A1 and it did the exact same thing. Format then freeze. I have two other western digital drives in this A1Xe and they are fine, but I noticed that the Cavier Blue has a 16mb cache and my older Western digital drives have only 8mb cache. Would that make any difference?

I think I got a lemon on this drive, but not sure. I think my next new hard drive I get will be a Samsung, seem to have better luck with them.

Yogi

P.S. The Cavier Blue froze when formatting no matter what uboot setting Pio or UDMA, no difference. Is Uboot not compatible with the newer drives?

Last edited by Yogi27 on 16-Jan-2009 at 09:06 AM.

@Yogi27

i haven't a sii0680 card in my Aone

but read this,it must help you:


http://www.intuitionbase.com/static.php?section=notes

@Yogi27

be shure to make a quick format

@pvanni

I did use quick format too. When I did that, and installed os 4.1 on it, it would very sparatic. It would boot one time, then another it would say, can't load all kickstart data in uboot and fail out. Then it would load, then fail again. The more I think about it, the more I think the drive is faulty and I need to send it back to Western Digital.

Can you turn cache off on the drive using idetool?

Yogi

@Yogi27

I ... checked cables, correct slave/master settings everything.
Yeh, but what about the driver jumpers. If it it's out -of- the -box, it shouldn't work.

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There shouldn't be a compatibility issue with newer drives - they should all follow the IDE standard, along with all the extensions (ATA, UDMA etc.) It could be a flakey drive, but that does sound like a DMA issue - totally freezing the machine. Is it possible that the drive is persuading the controller to use a DMA mode, even if you specifically set PIO-0 I wonder? Are you using the UDMA cables the correct way around? Master usually has to be on the end of the cable, slave close to it, then a long stretch to the motherboard/controller end.

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@Snuffy

There are 6 jumpers on that drive, but according to the manual only the three first ones are used. Master alone, master w/slave, slave. I did set it up according to the cable order too. Also, this drive supports the max UDMA setting 6 unlike my older western digital drives that support 5 only. But no matter what udma or pio setting same stuff. Either this drive doesn't like the sii0680 chip/Uboot etc or it is flaky. I am thinking about trying to format it with a pc to see if it will take that. I will do that this weekend and report back.

A little bit of a side note, I really want a sam board once they get os 4.1 stable on it. Truth is, this A1 has so many hardware issues, plus it is getting harder and harder to get IDE drives at least at my local stores here in Chicago. Everything is going SATA and I believe the Sam has those ports on it.

And a shout out to the developers of OS 4.1. The USB mass storage device works perfectly now. I have an external usb drive with a western digital 80 Gig hard drive in it, and I can transfer files with absolutely no lock up like under Os 4.0.

Yogi

@Yogi27

Quote:

Yogi27 wrote: @pvanni I did use quick format too. When I did that, and installed os 4.1 on it, it would very sparatic. It would boot one time, then another it would say, can't load all kickstart data in uboot and fail out. Then it would load, then fail again. The more I think about it, the more I think the drive is faulty and I need to send it back to Western Digital. Can you turn cache off on the drive using idetool? Yogi

Yeah, it might indeed just be a faulty drive. I would put the disk into a pc and do some disk diagnostic if i was you.

Thanks for all the feedback!

GUESS WHAT!!!! I just realized I only have uboot V1.1.1 not Uboot V1.1.4. I wonder if that would make a difference. And I cannot get Uboot V1.1.4 since hyperions website is down. Anywhere else I can get it?

Oh boy!

Yogi

@Yogi27

Either this drive doesn't like the sii0680 chip/Uboot etc or it is flaky.
Or, the user isn't too bright. Please show us your Uboot settings; i.e. the
sii0680 config and xfer ? The drives have to set via software settings in Uboot. If have read the sii0680ide docs then suffer!

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@Yogi27

Quote:

GUESS WHAT!!!! I just realized I only have uboot V1.1.1 not Uboot V1.1.4. I wonder if that would make a difference. And I cannot get Uboot V1.1.4 since hyperions website is down. Anywhere else I can get it?

afaik, V1.1.1 of March, 2005 is still the most recent "official" version for owners of A1 hardware.
Everything else mentioned on this site applies to either SAM or versions being tested over the course of time.

#6

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@Yogi27

UBoot v1.1.1 is the latest public release, 1.1.4 was never released to the public & wouldn't help anyway.

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@Yogi

I hate to say it, but it could also be that with another device loaded up and buffers allocated, you are using parts of memory that you never used before and memory errors are crashing the system.

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cheers
tony

Hyperion Support Forum: http://forum.hyperion-entertainment.biz/index.php

Update!

I took the western digital IDE 500G back and they exchanged it for another western digital 500G SATA drive, so I picked up an sii3512 card and going to try this. I have been reading alot about the western digital drives lately, and it appears they are faulty. I have a backup seagate SATA drive I got from a dead HP Pavilion if this western digital drive doesn't work.

My advice would be to avoid western digital drives period. I personally am not sure why I bought one since I have the best luck with Samsung myself. I will post an update if I can get the sii3512 to work!

Yogi

@number6

Quote:

Everything else mentioned on this site applies to either SAM or versions being tested over the course of time.

Or leaked versions, I recon those versions must be illegal

Last edited by tomazkid on 02-Feb-2009 at 05:04 AM.

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Update!

I installed the Silicon Image 3512 card and the western digital 500gb SATA drive and I happy to say it is working great! So the whole ordeal wasn't a total loss. Thanks to everyone for the feedback.

I am not sure if it is being an Amiga user from way back (1988) and having the classic Amigas only able to have so much hard drive space, but I am obsessed with hard drive space. This AmigaOne is maxed out in the case with hard drives.

My drive capacity is (from Media Toolbox):

Silicon Image 0680:

Western Digital 149 Gb IDE
Western Digital 298 Gb IDE
Pioneer DVD-RW
Samsung 232 Gb IDE (This drive has been with me since my A1200)

Silicon Image 3512:

Western Digital 465 Gb SATA

For A Grand Total of 1.114 Terabytes

Thanks again everyone for the feedback.

Oh yeah, I have a Micro AmigaOne that I run my bbs on. Feel free to check it out! Y.C. Cafe BBS - Telnet://yccafe.org - Cnet BBS!

Yogi

Last edited by Yogi27 on 06-Feb-2009 at 02:15 AM.

@Yogi27

Great! I am glad to hear about the good outcome.

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Moxee
AmigaOne X1000
AmigaOne XE G4
I'd agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong.

@Yogi27

I have also bought a PATA 500GB Western Digital drive and I am experiencing the same problems you described. Another user has described the same issues here, although an user on Iksnet has posted that he's successfully using a PATA WD 500GB drive in his A1XE. I hope that the next OS4.1 update will fix this problem, in the meanwhile I'm also thinking to replace my drive unless I manage to find out how to make it work.

Varthall

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AmigaOne XE - AmigaOS 4.1 - Freescale 7457 1GHz - 1GB ram

@Yogi27

I'm glad you managed to finally sort out your HDD woes.

TrevorD

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