[comp.sys.amiga.tech] 2.0 ignores my Hardframe! Help

drtiller@uokmax.uucp (Donald Richard Tillery Jr) (08/10/90)

HELP!  I finally got the "release" version of 2.0 for the GVP accelerator (the
f0 file) but I have a problem.  I have a hard drive on the accelerator as well
as on a Hardframe 2000.  When I boot in 2.0 the hardframe is configured
(according to "config") but cannot be mounted.  I called Microbotics and they
said 2.0 works fine with the Hardframe w/o the accelerator.  GVP says that 2.0
works fine with the accelerator and their own controller or the Commodore one.
This leads me to believe that the problem is not with the Hardframe, 2.0 or
the accelerator but with the combination.  Has anyone had this problem with
the Hardframe or any other controller and the GVP accelerator?  If so (or even
if not) any suggestions would be GREATLY apprecated.  If this is the code to be
burned in the ROM, this combo obviously is one that won't work...that's not so
good (obviously) for me....PLEASE HELP!
 
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  _/____) '  __  /_/       /  '  /  / __  _      "N.I.N.J.A.J.I.S."-Me
  /  \___/__/___/ |_      /__/__/__/_/_-_/__/_/  The Displaced Razorback.
  ___________________________________________/   Founder:  IDGAFF Ltd.
The Amiga Computer - "...a more fiendish disputant than the Great
Hyperbolic Omni-Cognate Neutron Wrangler of Ciceronicus Twelve..."
-D.Adams;  Well, almost.

dac@runxtsa.runx.oz.au (Andrew Clayton) (08/14/90)

More on the weird activity of a Hard drive in darkest Canberra.

Firstly, to Darren New: [I don't know how to use MAIL yet to
other systems - thanx for the message though!]

> Sounds like you have a hardware problem.  I don't have a
> miniscribe, but most SCSI controllers I've seen do some sort of
> self test and use the busy light to indicate what failed.

It's an ST506 interfaced drive. It was a hardware problem.
Emphasis on 'was'. :-)

> You should probably look through your manual to see what two
> shorts and a long mean.  (Or did you pirate that hard drive and
> forget to copy the manual?  :-)

Sore point:  I got NO documentation with the drive.  I had no
idea of #heads, #cylinders, or anything.  I had to work on
hearsay.  The information I got was correct though.  When I
purchased the drive, it cost me $A1250 (~$US$1000).  I would have
thought a couple of sheets of paper, explaining a few salient
details about the drive, would have been a simple enough gesture
on the part of Miniscribe [a now-defunct company!].

Anyway, the problem got _really bad_ on Friday, and the drive
went into failure mode, and wouldn't come out of it.  This
occurred whilst I was backing up the drive [including all the
USEnet data I'd downloaded from RUNX in Sydney!].

I called around [finding out that Miniscribe are defunct], and
that the 'flashing' of the activity LED was indeed a fault
indication.

I resignedly opened up my A2500/20, and had a poke around - it's
only eight weeks old, and I must have had the cover off in the
first three weeks at least a dozen times.

The front of the metal chassis was quite dusty, and lots of dust
was on the exposed underside electronics of the Miniscribe. I
cleared away what I could, and blew out a bit of dust from the
circuitry.  I reseated all the HD connectors (even though they
didn't seem loose), and then tried a power on.  The drive came
back to life. [implied 'yay team!']

I ran a small script:

[Ram:redo]
Copy fh3: null: all quiet
echo "Got through again"
execute ram:redo

And that ran fine about a dozen times [on 30megs worth of data/
programs], before I decided that it wasn't going to fail again.

Since then (it's now 12.30am, Sunday morning), I've had no
reoccurence of the drive failure, and I can only surmise that it
was either the dust [caused by the fan sucking in air, causing
some short circuit?] or a faulty connector [6 weeks of constant
twin HD vibration?].

Of course, my 'theory' that MSH was doing something weird was
completely without merit, and I feel foolish for posting such a
hypothesis.

Hope that was of some use to you bemused net.readers

   _l _  _  Andrew Clayton.      I post .
  (_](_l(_  Canberra. Australia.       . . I am.