Hi

This is an odd one. I have set up a 3.5" hard drive on a ribbon and power from an Escom based Amiga with the 3.1 ROM. The drive sits outside the A1200 to the rear.

I have a base set of disks that I use all the time for installing OS3.0 plus Dopus and CED and Parnet and the like including my standard user-startup. I have used the disks on numerous times and even tested the disks today on two other 3.5" drives off the same machine.

However I have two 1GB SeaGate 3.5" drives, one of which was used on an Amiga as it has old files on it.

I formatted both fully and by quick and they appeared to be functioning. I installed OS3 and copied all my files over and even set up Star Trek the PD game which needs assigns and it works.

However DOPUS will not work. I have the very same file structure and assign and volume names. It is all identical to numerous working versions of the same set up and yet it just fire up with the comment that it cannot open the DirectoryOpus tool. If I run Dopus from the floppy that I just copied it runs Dopus no problem.

If I check the ASSIGNS the DOPUS folder is assigned and I can save to it using the DOPUS on the menu from the assign. Also I cannot delete the folder cus its assigned. The computer knows it is there but will not run the TOOL. I tried changing the drive name to its volume register of DH1 but that didn't work.

I have never had this problem. And its the same on the SeaGate drive of the exact same type. However if I use a different type of drive, albeit 3.5" and off the same ribbon, the exact same files and set up work without fault. I then tried another Western D 3.5" and that worked no problem. Its not like I'm changing anything cus they are copied direct from the disk drive including the folders and user-startup.

I have been having an issue with another Escom A1200 I have cus the drive will not see formatted HD disks when formatted as Amiga DD capacity. I have to use an external drive to copy the files. Dunno.

The machine is an Amiga Technologies and running on an unexpanded 3.1 ROM 1200. There is a 10" ribbon connected to the normal Amiga interface that is wired to the 3.5" connector to the IDE. And the power comes off the floppy power supply connector to the mobo. All other 3.5" drives work. These drives work and boot into the OS.

One last thing SnoopDOS is not picking up any activity from the Dopus failure. Normally you get the old change directory but I get nothing.

Been at this for three hours today and a good hour yesterday.

Sorry, one final final thing. I did manage to get Dopus to work last night but decided to format the drive as I was troubled with the actual file structure of the drive. I renamed Dopus to Dopus 2. I then created a second Dopus folder and copied Dopus to there. That didn't work but then the Dopus on Dopus 2 worked. Well did the once. I couldn't have a failed process workaround cus its not going to help when loading loads onto a drive and then finding that the drive is busted. So I formatted. Cus it should work.

Rambling... Any ideas ?

Why is DirectoryOpus Tool not running from its assigned folder.

scuzz

Last edited by scuzz on 29-Aug-2018 at 12:08 PM.
Last edited by scuzz on 29-Aug-2018 at 12:04 PM.

@scuzz

Protection bits? All libraries installed?

_________________
BroadBlues On Blues BroadBlues On Amiga Walker Broad

@scuzz

Maybe the tool is compressed with PowerPacker and the system cannot uncompress it for some reason so it cannot run it.
I would try using the original files from Aminet.

I can't follow all format you did but maybe there is something wrong with the values you used to prepare your partitions. I remember the mask and maxtransfer values can have an impact. Doucle-check them.

You can copy the files in RAM and try to run it from there so that you can rule out a problem with the disk.

Quote:

the drive will not see formatted HD disks when formatted as Amiga DD capacity

Some drives look for the HD hole on the floppy. You can close the hole with a small piece of tape so that the drive doesn't see it's an HD floppy.

Last edited by elwood on 29-Aug-2018 at 12:32 PM.
Last edited by elwood on 29-Aug-2018 at 12:32 PM.
Last edited by elwood on 29-Aug-2018 at 12:30 PM.

_________________
Philippe 'Elwood' Ferrucci
Sam460 1.10 Ghz
AmigaOS 4 betatester
Amiga Translator Organisation

@elwood

It has to be the hard drives. I used an external floppy drive to copy the files over and now I get a software failure but SnoopDOS picks up the disk change.

I moved the whole installation to another Amiga 1200 made by Commodore with the 3.0 ROM and its doing the same thing.

It's probably to do with the hard drives so I'll have another look at reading the disk information using HDToolBox and see if that throws any light on matters. It is only these two drives causing the problem.

@broadblues

Quote:

broadblues wrote: @scuzz Protection bits? All libraries installed?

Interesting that. I'll have to check I guess. They are as far as I can tell.

@scuzz

UPDATE

The drive will not retain any knowledge of the ASSIGN set by User-Startup. I installed DPaint and I get the same issue.

To rule out the OS I did a fresh install of 3.1 and tried that. And each of the programs that I have placed in drawers and created ASSIGNS for fail to launch the Tool in that drawer. I have found this totally baffling. The same set up works on other 3.5" hard drives but not these two Seagates. They are only 1GB and they take the full install of the OS no problem and also any files I copy to the drive. But when I edit the User-Startup and reboot and fire up the respective tool it refuses to launch the Tool. SnoopDOS also does not recognise that a change of directory has occured.. which is where the fault lies I believe. Weird.

scuzz

@scuzz

I am guessing you have some assign lacking the important keyword "ADD" to it, so that instead of assigning an additional libs directory somewhere, your assign replaces it alltogether. However, without seeing your startup-sequence and user-startup, there is little to go with.

I take it for granted that
* disk not larger than 4GB
* or if it is, that you have patched scsi.device and filesystem accordingly
* max transfer for the filesystem is set to 0x1FE00 or so

Last edited by kolla on 29-Aug-2018 at 07:15 PM.

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B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC

@kolla

The startup-sequence is the one installed by the OS.

The User-Startup has but one line

Assign Dopus: Work:Dopus

I have also added the line

Assign DPaint: Work:Dpaint

You can add ;BEGIN and ;END but that is just a comment there is nothing else this is a new hard drive fresh install.

The drive is a 1 GB Seagate ST51080A and has been set and read by HDToolBox. I have also fully validated the drive and have it set it up in four number 250MB partitions.

I have two identical drives and both perform the same way.

I have a set of setup floppy disks that I use for all my 1200s and I have in the last month set up four 2.5" drives using the very same without issue. I installed Dopus on a spare 3.5" Western Digital I had on the same computer using the same ribbon and Dopus was seen.

These Seagate drives must have an additional zone on the drive that for some reason is not being recognised. I have ruled out computer failure, software failure and now believe the drives will never see the ASSIGN. As to why.... I have no idea. It installs the software and files etc. But just wont recognise an ASSIGN its bonkers cus DOpus will run from the original floppy that I copy but not from an assigned drawer. By the way if you check the ASSIGNS from say a load menu DOPUS: and DPAINT are listed as assigned drawers and you can even save to them from a menu. But the computer won't open the tool.

Never mind I have put the drives away cus they don't work. I have now iused another 3.5" hard drive that I have on the same set up and I have that working with DOpus using my install disks. So I'm good to go.

scuzz

@scuzz

Quote:

the way if you check the ASSIGNS from say a load menu DOPUS: and DPAINT are listed as assigned drawers and you can even save to them from a menu.

That indicates that the assigns are not the problem.

Quote:

But the computer won't open the tool.

This suggests that something is wrong with the actual binaries.

Which suggests that MaxTransfer setting is the problem. Small binaries (and the OS itself is mostly very small binaries) are not affected, but when you copy over large binaries, they easily get corrupted.

Last edited by kolla on 30-Aug-2018 at 06:40 AM.

_________________
B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC

@kolla

Quote:

kolla wrote: @scuzz Quote: the way if you check the ASSIGNS from say a load menu DOPUS: and DPAINT are listed as assigned drawers and you can even save to them from a menu. That indicates that the assigns are not the problem. Quote: But the computer won't open the tool. This suggests that something is wrong with the actual binaries. Which suggests that MaxTransfer setting is the problem. Small binaries (and the OS itself is mostly very small binaries) are not affected, but when you copy over large binaries, they easily get corrupted.

Well done. I was on this till three this morning and even had buffered interfaces mounted on the A1200 and used larger power supplies with no luck. I had changed the max transfer in the format to the setting you suggested but that didn't work.

This morning I read your post and so I formatted a blank floppy DD as DOPUS and copied over the files from the hard drive expecting it to work and when I clicked the tool on the floppy it wouldn't open the tool either.

So I got my DOPUS disk that I use and copied 'ONLY' the DOPUS tool. Interestingly when I clicked the TOOL on the hard drive it actually ran DOPUS from the floppy. So after it launched I pulled the disk and clicked the TOOL again. This time it worked. I rebooted the computer and then fired up DOPUS and it worked.

You know I said that this was an ESCOM machine I have always been suspiscious of the floppy drives. I know they used a hack to get PC drives to work on the 1200. I can't be sure but this may actually be a floppy drive issue. The files are reading as exactly the same size but then I'm not an expert in this field.

I am going to do the same with DPaint and see if I can get that working.

Thanks.

I have DOPUS working now.

scuzz

@scuzz

And finally finally....

I have discovered the problem. I don't know what is causing it but I now know what the problem is and how I worked around it.

IF I copy a whole floppy disk as was DOPUS and DPAINT then the files, albeit exactly the same size , will actually be corrupt. It matters not if I use the internal DF0 or the external DF1. However if I copy the files over one at a time then the files will be fine and the software will work.

I have experimented with the ART 1 disk of DPAINT and if I copy the ART 1 disk from its icon on the Workbench it will result in the higher file size images being corrupt, or worse locking the machine up. I have even had a yellow lock up from simply copying over the disk icon. If I try to run the files from DOPUS they are busted or the computer freezes.

However, place the disk in either internal or external drive and use DOPUS to replace those broken files one at a time then they will work. Every single time. It only happens when I copy the whole disk. And only on this Seagate drive. I have plugged in other 3.5" hard drives and I just don't get any of these problems which rules out the floppy drives.

Whole disks are the problem. And as to why ... no idea.

scuzz

@scuzz

What does HDToolbox show as max transfer for Seagate ST51080A ?

@zipper

Quote:

zipper wrote: @scuzz What does HDToolbox show as max transfer for Seagate ST51080A ?

Identifier=0x444f5383
Mask=0x7ffffffe
MaxTransfer=0xffffff

One other thing and that is I have a ribbon that has been doctored to take the pins from a HD connector to the pin connector on the A1200 motherboard. Basically what that means is the last four pins are not being used on the A1200. I tried a buffered interface but I probably need to fire up IDEFix to get it working. The drive was struggling to activate which may mean a faulty interface. By that time I'd kinda given up really.

I am aware that the pin numbers vary from a 2.5" to a 3.5".

scuzz

@scuzz

Check this, http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=45491 You can test with http://thomas-rapp.homepage.t-online.de/downloads/maxtranstest.lha

"try 0x1FE00 and if that doesnt work try 0xFE00" by alexh.

@zipper

Quote:

zipper wrote: @scuzz Check this, http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=45491 You can test with http://thomas-rapp.homepage.t-online.de/downloads/maxtranstest.lha "try 0x1FE00 and if that doesnt work try 0xFE00" by alexh.

I will try the 0xfe00 however I have one little issue that I can never quite resolve. When you want to change the MaxTransfer you have to click the CHANGE button. That opens that extra window where you see the MaxTransfer option. However being who I am I always like to go back and check its actually changed. So I click the CHANGE button again and it has gone back to the old number. I guess I expect it to be the new figure cus that was the last CHANGE. Just that I can never be sure its actually changed the number.

I'm sure I did save as the new figure and then had to format the drive again. Dunno. I'll have to undo all that I have done to go back to basics as I'm sure it loses the settings for the hard drive. I'll let you know how I get on.

scuzz

So the problem was exactly what you've been told all along. This is so 1996

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B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC

@kolla

Quote:

kolla wrote: So the problem was exactly what you've been told all along. This is so 1996

Sorry... I did what you suggested and that was to change to 0x1FE00 and that didn't work. And I just attempted the later number and that hasn't worked either. So have you any other numbers you would like to throw at me. Maybe I'll stick in 1996 and see if that works.

I'm back to square one. Anybody else got any ideas.

scuzz

@scuzz

In HDToolbox after entering a number, you have to hit Enter in that field for it to accept the new value.

It doesn't warn about unaccepted changes either.

It's a horrible UI design.

@zipper

Quote:

zipper wrote: @scuzz Check this, http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=45491 You can test with http://thomas-rapp.homepage.t-online.de/downloads/maxtranstest.lha "try 0x1FE00 and if that doesnt work try 0xFE00" by alexh.

What I discovered is that HDToolBox in 3.1 does not retain the changes of the MaxTransfer when you edit it. I was kinda sure that when I went back the numbers hadn't changed. Anyway I did some more digging around and found a thread about the issue and a link to HDInstall by Elaborite Bytes off Aminet. And that allows you to change the MaxTransfer. I just tested Dopus and Dpaint and they seemed to work. So we may have solved the problem.

scuzz

@kolla

Quote:

kolla wrote: So the problem was exactly what you've been told all along. This is so 1996

OK Humble Pie and I'm big enough to accept when I'm wrong. I'll give you that one. Thanks.

scuzz