) (11/29/89)
Anyone got 1 of the Rodime HD's that were advertised recently on the net working on their AMIGA with a 2090A controller? Mark Kaye | | | Box 172, Munster Hamlet | 613-838-3580 | kaye@fscore.dec.com | Ontario, Canada K0A 3P0 | | DEC fscore::kaye or kaye @kao |
ricks@eagle.iscs.com (Rick Schaeffer 99) (12/04/89)
In article <499@shodha.dec.com> kaye@FSCORE.dec.com (Mark Kaye - He who dies with the most toys - is dead!) writes: > >Anyone got 1 of the Rodime HD's that were advertised recently on the >net working on their AMIGA with a 2090A controller? I have a Rodime RO5180S (150 MB 5 1/4 HH) and have never been able to get it to auto-boot on the 2090A. I have, however, been able to boot it from floppy by removing the boot roms(see below). I do have access to a SCSI Analyzer and have hooked up the Amiga and 2090A to it. There appear to be a couple of problems ... one with the boot roms and one with the Rodime drive: First of all, the Rodime drives seem to LIE about Unit Ready. When issued the first "Test Unit Ready", the drive responds with "Check Condition". The 2090A then correctly reads the condition codes but it only asks for 4 bytes of status. The rodime reports "Drive Reset" and the A2090 then issues "Test Unit Ready" again. At this point the drive reports "OK" ...when it's really not ready. Rodime claims that the Test Unit Ready is for the on-drive CONTROLLER and that it is, indeed, ready even though the drive hasn't finished spinning up and/or loading the rigid disk blocks. Anyway, the 2090A then tries to read the first block and the read fails with a "Check Condition" status. This is the second problem...the 2090A apparently ignores the status at this point in it's boot sequence and keeps issuing reads to successive blocks. The rodime won't return a good completion until the Condition Codes are read and so off to gumby land we go! Since the 2090A always does a SCSI reset (even on a warm boot) and that causes the rodime to re-read the rigid disk blocks and otherwise re-initialize...you can never get a successful boot. There *is* some hope, however. First of all I have been told that you could build a SCSI Interface cable that doesn't pass thru the RESET line. This would mean that a cold boot probably would fail but that warm boots would work. I haven't done this so I don't know if it would work. What I *HAVE* done is to remove the boot roms from the 2090A (making it, in effect, a 2090). If you have copied the hddisk AND hddisk.info files from the PREP disk to the expansion drawer of whatever floppy you want to boot from then the Rodime drive and Commodore controller are happy together!! The time taken between when Binddrivers runs (this is when the SCSI RESET is issued) and the first attempt to access the drive is sufficient for the Rodime to finish initializing. Anyway...this works but, of course, it means that you can't Auto boot from the Rodime drive. However, it does let you boot from floppy (or RAD:) and transfer control to the Rodime. Until Commodore and/or Rodime fix the problems outlined above you can at least get some use out of the Rodime drive! If you are fortunate enough to have a second SCSI drive I believe that it would also be possible to access the Rodime by making it's SCSI unit number greater than 2. I believe that the 2090A only Auto mounts the first two SCSI units (someone can correct me if I'm wrong!) and if this is true you should be able to Auto boot from the other drive and then Mount the Rodime in your startup sequence. The critical factor is time...you have to give the Rodime drives sufficient time to finish initializing before first accessing them. -- Rick Schaeffer UUCP: uunet!isc-br.isc-br.com!ricks ISC-Bunker Ramo ricks@isc-br.isc-br.com Box TAF-C8 Phone: (509)927-5114 Spokane, WA 99220
%udacsvm.bitnet@clsepf51.bitnet, (12/07/89)
Anyone got 1 of the Rodime HD's that were advertised recently on the net working on their AMIGA with a 2090A controller? Mark Kaye | | | Box 172, Munster Hamlet | 613-838-3580 | kaye@fscore.dec.com | Ontario, Canada K0A 3P0 | | DEC fscore::kaye or kaye @kao |
lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) (12/14/89)
In <2667@isc-br.ISCS.COM>, ricks@eagle.iscs.com (Rick Schaeffer 99) writes: >If you are fortunate enough to have a second SCSI drive I believe that >it would also be possible to access the Rodime by making it's SCSI unit >number greater than 2. I believe that the 2090A only Auto mounts the >first two SCSI units (someone can correct me if I'm wrong!) and if >this is true you should be able to Auto boot from the other drive and >then Mount the Rodime in your startup sequence. The critical factor >is time...you have to give the Rodime drives sufficient time to finish >initializing before first accessing them. That might work. If it does, it will be because of the extra time taken to 'get to' that drive. The 2090 does automount all drives attached if they have valid information in RESn: -larry -- " All I ask of my body is that it carry around my head." - Thomas Alva Edison - +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | // Larry Phillips | | \X/ lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca -or- uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips | | COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322 -or- 76703.4322@compuserve.com | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+