remco@tnoibbc.UUCP (Remco Bruyne) (09/06/88)
Hello ATARI-lovers: I can help you and meybe you can help me - THIS IS NOT A COMMERCIAL - I connected a CMI 5619 harddisk (16MB) to my 1040ST via a XEBEC S1410 controller and an ATARI host adapter board. The software I used is: icdfmt.prg from ICD (a *VERY* nice program which may be distributed freely) and icdboot.prg as a diskdriver. The problem is: when I try to format a second hard disk (logical unit number = 1 instead of 0, which is the first HD), the disk starts formatting but when the last track is done, the formatting process starts all over again, so partitioning is not done. I *can* format the second disk when I strap it to be LUN=0, but I still cannot access the disk as a second hard disk from the desktop. Question ? Is this a software problem or does it have something to do with the ATARI host adapter board ? Finally: anyone who is interested in how I got the first HD to work (I also got a RODIME 204E (44MB) and a seagate ... (40MB) running) please let me know and I can see if I can help. Thanks in advance for your (hopefully numerous) answers.
bms@bdt.UUCP (Chris Rhodin) (09/14/88)
The problem that you are having might be caused by the Xebec 1410
controller. The 1410 only handles two drives with the same parameters, i.e.
heads, cylinders, seek rate, and etc.. This is not the case with the Adaptec
ACB-4000 controller which will handle two different hard drives. Also I might
add the Adaptec is faster with its 1:1 interleave than the Xebec's 1:3.
The Atari host adapter could also be your problem. Atari host
adapters do not pass back SCSI/SASI status(error) codes properly. This causes
hard disk boot software to install "phantom" drives on the system. To get
around this problem ICD's software only installs one hard drive on Atari host
adpaters. I hope this helps you and other people on the net.
We have received numerous Usenet letters to us in the last months, but
do to one thing or another I seem to get most of my mail sent back. If you
need some information from us please send us a postcard. Do to our move
(yeah!!) we have a P.O. box for correspondence.
Vance Chin Berkeley Microsystems
P.O. Box 20119
Oakland, CA 94620 bro@titan.rice.edu (Douglas Monk) (09/19/88)
In article <382@bdt.UUCP> bms@bdt.UUCP writes: > > ... Atari host adapters do not pass back SCSI/SASI status(error) codes > properly. This causes hard disk boot software to install "phantom" drives > on the system. ... > >Vance Chin Berkeley Microsystems > P.O. Box 20119 > Oakland, CA 94620 As a result of this "phantom drive" phenomenon, you can't install ram disks since all the drive letters are spuriously taken. For this reason I wrote a little program that goes in the AUTO folder (after your hard disk driver) that reads a file to determine what YOU want the active drive mask set to. Thus, you set the active drives before running the ram disk program which can then install itself correctly. The only trouble with this scheme is that I have trouble with reset-surviving ram disks, though I am not sure why. Does a warm reset leave the drive bits alone, including the surviving ram disk? If that is the case, all I need to add is a check to see if the program is being run after a cold or a warm reset. The way I currently use it is to set the drive bits every time and use a non-surviving ram disk, so I haven't been motivated to fix it up any more. If there is an interest in the program (which can either be run from desktop, shell, or auto folder, and uses command-line arguments or a file if no arguments are found to LIST current active drives, SET the desired active drives, CLEAR the undesired active drives, print a MESSAGE, and HOLD the resulting printout until a key is pressed) I can post it to the sources and binary lists. If someone can make suggestions on how to deal better with reset-surviving ram disks, I will incorporate those changes first. Suggestions welcome. Thanks, Doug Monk (bro@rice.edu)