kim@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Kim DeVaughn) (10/13/88)
[ "All sweet things have one thing in common ... a tendency to make you sick." ] [ --Soolin ] Attached are the initial experiences one of my co-workers has had with the recently released A2090A hard disk controller. I have edited some of Dave's "more critical remarks" [ items in brackets ]. Suffice it to say that he is less than happy with the product, and more than a little bit upset. I'm also concerned, as I have been planning on getting a 2090A, but now I'm not so sure. Any comments from CATS, or any other early owners of the 2090A would be appreciated. /kim > * TOPIC: AMIGA - "Amdahl AMIGA Users Forum" > --> Item 247 from DZL20 on 10/11/88 at 17:33:38 > > Hard Disk News > > I bought a 40 meg Seagate ST251 to connect to my new 2090A disk > controller last weekend and had a number of problems installing > the drive. [Most of the problems can be attributed to inadequate > documentation, and to what appears to be faulty software.] > > Part of the installation process involves running a "Prep" program > to record startup information on the first two cylinders of the > disk. This information is read by the device driver when you > make execute "binddrivers" and make it resident. > > You must Prep the disk before you can format it otherwise > the device driver doesn't know that the device exists. It is only > necessary to do this once at install time. > > There are a number of things you have to do before you can get Prep > to work which are not mentioned in the documentation. If you > don't do them the system will either crash, hang, or make your disk > assume unnatural positions. > > 1. Don't run interlaced Workbench. > 2. Make sure your Workbench has enough room on it for the driver, > its icon, the mountlist, and Prep. > 3. Turn off C00000 memory using nofastmem. (This one I couldn't > believe. I should expect Commodore software to work on a stock > Amiga 2000). DON'T DO FASTMEMFIRST! > 4. Check your mountlist entry carefully. The one generated by the > Install program doesn't seem to work. In particular, the > "Reserved" field should have a value of 2. Also, verify that the > number of heads and blocks per track for your disk is correct. > 5. If all else fails, try using the original Workbench disk (the > one that came with the machine). > > After I got it to work, Prep took only about 1-2 seconds to initialize > the disk. Format was another 25 minutes or so (for 40 megs). > > Does anyone know if the fast file system is implemented at the device > driver level or at the DOS level? The disk access is much faster than > I expected so I'm wondering if I already have it. > > The controller board came with two ROMs to be installed with > Kickstart 1.3 to add autobooting. The documentation said that > Seagate SCSI drives cannot autoboot because of the long latency > in initialization. > > Anyway, 40 Meg HD + 2.5 Meg RAM = Nice! > > Dave Lakritz > > > > * TOPIC: AMIGA - "Amdahl AMIGA Users Forum" > --> Item 248 from DZL20 on 10/12/88 at 11:58:26 > > Disk Controller news continued > > After only 2 days of operation, my new Seagate disk started getting > massive numbers of r/w errors. DOS couldn't even validate it, and the > whole thing became corrupted. > > The problem was not the disk, but the 2090A controller. It seems that > the board has thermal problems, and if I plug it in next to my ASDG > memory board, it wrecks havoc, even with the cover off. The only reliable > mode of operation I've found so far is to separate the two boards as > much as possible, leave the case open, and aim a humongous and noisy > fan at the controller. > > [ statement of opinion about the reliability of Commodore h/w and s/w ] > > Kim, if possible, please post my last two messages on Usenet. Thanks. > > Dave Lakritz One personal comment ... my ASDG 8MI board, populated with 6 Megs, runs very cool. Perhaps Dave's 2090A has a marginal component. If so, it would seem that CBM's Manufacturing QA procedures should have caught it. There *is* a burn-in cycle, isn't there? [ Any thoughts or opinions which may or may not have been expressed ] [ herein are my own. They are not necessarily those of my employer. ] -- UUCP: kim@amdahl.amdahl.com or: {sun,decwrl,hplabs,pyramid,uunet,oliveb,ames}!amdahl!kim DDD: 408-746-8462 USPS: Amdahl Corp. M/S 249, 1250 E. Arques Av, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 BIX: kdevaughn GEnie: K.DEVAUGHN CIS: 76535,25
papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) (10/13/88)
In article <c0.6va0CVf1010TxC9.@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com| kim@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Kim DeVaughn) writes: [lots of details edited out] |Attached are the initial experiences one of my co-workers has had |with the recently released A2090A hard disk controller. I have |edited some of Dave's "more critical remarks" [ items in brackets ]. |Suffice it to say that he is less than happy with the product, and |more than a little bit upset. || || I bought a 40 meg Seagate ST251 to connect to my new 2090A disk || controller last weekend and had a number of problems installing || the drive. [Most of the problems can be attributed to inadequate || documentation, and to what appears to be faulty software.] || || After only 2 days of operation, my new Seagate disk started getting || massive numbers of r/w errors. DOS couldn't even validate it, and the || whole thing became corrupted. || || The problem was not the disk, but the 2090A controller. It seems that || the board has thermal problems, and if I plug it in next to my ASDG || memory board, it wrecks havoc, even with the cover off. The only reliable || mode of operation I've found so far is to separate the two boards as || much as possible, leave the case open, and aim a humongous and noisy || fan at the controller. I have been running the A2090 + Seagate ST251 + ASDG 8MI for almost a year now with ABSOLUTELY no problem, including 100 degrees days here in LA with NO air conditioning on. The A2090 is between the 8MI and a BridgeCard. I thought the ONLY difference between the A2090 and the A2090A was the autoboot ROMS. Is this the case? My "old" prep did not automatically create the mountlist, since I made the drive with two partitions. It wasn't really a big deal to edit the mountlist as the manual explains, though. But you DO have to know the charcteristics of the drive (no. cyl, tracks, etc...) to be able to properly set up the mountlist. -- Marco Papa 'Doc' -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= uucp:...!pollux!papa BIX:papa ARPAnet:pollux!papa@oberon.usc.edu "There's Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Diga!" -- Leo Schwab [quoting Rick Unland] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
andy@cbmvax.UUCP (Andy Finkel) (10/14/88)
In article <c0.6va0CVf1010TxC9.@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> kim@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Kim DeVaughn) writes: >> There are a number of things you have to do before you can get Prep >> to work which are not mentioned in the documentation. If you >> don't do them the system will either crash, hang, or make your disk >> assume unnatural positions. >> >> 1. Don't run interlaced Workbench. Huh ? This doesn't make sense. Interlace Workbench works fine with Prep. Maybe he means *overscan* Workbench. >> 2. Make sure your Workbench has enough room on it for the driver, >> its icon, the mountlist, and Prep. Yes. The Installation script actually has a little program that checks for sufficient room, and, assuming a fairly 'virgin' Workbench 1.2 disk, knows about things it can delete after asking you (like the demos) >> 3. Turn off C00000 memory using nofastmem. (This one I couldn't >> believe. I should expect Commodore software to work on a stock >> Amiga 2000). DON'T DO FASTMEMFIRST! Hmm, it seems to work fine with C00000 memory. FastMemFirst is something you are supposed to do. Since C00000 memory is slower than real Fast memory you want your buffers and drivers in the best memory you have. >> 4. Check your mountlist entry carefully. The one generated by the >> Install program doesn't seem to work. In particular, the >> "Reserved" field should have a value of 2. Also, verify that the >> number of heads and blocks per track for your disk is correct. A common misunderstanding. The reserved field only matters for an AmigaDOS partition. Since you aren't going to use the RES0: or RES2: partition for AmigaDOS, 0 works, 2 works, 5 works, etc. Aside from that, yes if your drive has a configuration other than 4 surfaces, 17 blocks per track, you should check the mountlist created for you. >> 5. If all else fails, try using the original Workbench disk (the >> one that came with the machine). Especially if you've deleted commands and libraries. --- Possibly, he has out of date software ? Find out the version numbers of his hddisk.device, prep, and disk, if you can. (look in the t directory) There was an older version where the Install script didn't create the mountlist correctly. Since I happened to be setting up a new hard disk system, I just ran through the sequence and prep'd a drive. BTW, while it works, we're still not completely happy with the Prep software, and the driver, and are/have been working on another update. I'll keep you informed when its ready; and I'll use the same distribution methods. (ie dealers, usenet, etc) >> After I got it to work, Prep took only about 1-2 seconds to initialize >> the disk. Format was another 25 minutes or so (for 40 megs). Though 1.3 has a new 'QUICK' option (just write the reserved blocks, the root block, and the bitmap blocks, I usually run a full format the first time I bring up a drive, just so I know I can write to each track. >> Does anyone know if the fast file system is implemented at the device >> driver level or at the DOS level? The disk access is much faster than >> I expected so I'm wondering if I already have it. FastFileSystem is implemented at the AmigaDOS level. You don't have it unless you have 1.3. It should speed you up substantially. >> The controller board came with two ROMs to be installed with >> Kickstart 1.3 to add autobooting. The documentation said that >> Seagate SCSI drives cannot autoboot because of the long latency >> in initialization. Well, the new driver should handle this. (no, I don't know how I can email eproms :-) ) >> After only 2 days of operation, my new Seagate disk started getting >> massive numbers of r/w errors. DOS couldn't even validate it, and the >> whole thing became corrupted. >> >> The problem was not the disk, but the 2090A controller. It seems that >> the board has thermal problems, and if I plug it in next to my ASDG Hmmm. Time to visit the dealer, perhaps ? >very cool. Perhaps Dave's 2090A has a marginal component. If so, it >would seem that CBM's Manufacturing QA procedures should have caught it. >There *is* a burn-in cycle, isn't there? Yup, there is a burn in cycle. But since I'm not a system test engineer, I'll leave it to them to comment. -- andy finkel {uunet|rutgers|amiga}!cbmvax!andy Commodore-Amiga, Inc. "People who post news as root probably have other bad habits, too." Any expressed opinions are mine; but feel free to share. I disclaim all responsibilities, all shapes, all sizes, all colors.
barrett@ektools.UUCP (Chris Barrett) (10/14/88)
I don't have a 2090 or 2000, but I found that ALL my initial hard drive problems related to not having the hard drive chassis grounded to the chassis ground in the hard drive cabinet. Might want to try this, the st251 has 3 ground screws on the controller board side that you can ground to. Chris. rochester!kodak!ektools!barrett