weird booting issues

[crazyc]

I currently have 2 cf adapters set up on my a1200 - one via an IDE-FIX Express and the other via an SCSI-IDE Bridge connected to the Blizzard SCSI Kit.
I have CWB 3.9 installed on a 8gb CF card.
If I put my boot card in the IDE adapter it boots fine, with or without another card in the SCSI adapter.
If I put my boot card in the SCSI adapter, with nothing else in the IDE one, it boots fine, albeit with the IDE Wait delay.
If I have another card, even one with no bootable partitions, in the IDE adapter then the a1200 will not boot from the SCSI adapter. It starts but then just stops at a grey screen.

Really not quite sure what is going on. Everything is packed in quite tightly - I might have to reopen the case and see if something has come loose/got squashed, but was hoping not to.

[Toni Wilen]

"Other" card has different filesystems (or versions) stored on RDB?

[crazyc]

I have tried several cards - I tend to use PFS3AIO for all mine.
What is also confusing me is that I had another small CF card (128mb) that I had formatted etc and showed up as a disk labelled EMPTY when it was in the SCSI adapter and I booted from the IDE, but when I did it they other way round it would not mount the card, even though HD toolbox seemed to see it, I could never get it to show on the desktop.
Mind you, even that doesnt seem to work now so I am not sure what I have done along the way.

[crazyc]

What impact would having other file systems on the RDB have?

[crazyc]

OK - I got a previously unused 8gb Transcend 133 card from amazon (not marketplace). The label looks slightly different to the older ones I have but it has been a while and all the amazon ones seem to have the new label on their pics.
I imaged the fully working card onto this one.

Original card will boot from either IDE or SCSI. If booting from IDE it can tolerate my empty 120mb card on the SCSI, and shows it up as a normal empty drive. Doesn't boot if other way round.
Cloned card will boot from SCSI but hangs on grey screen from IDE.

Am confused and lost now. I don't mind booting from SCSI, I just want to get rid of the IDE Wait if I do.

[Pat the Cat]

Sounds to me like the IDE card adaptor isn't quite compliant - if it detects a card, it assumes that it's the master boot record and you want to start from there, even if there's a perfectly good system to boot from the SCSI side.

Or it might just do that with one of the IDE ports, but not the other.

[Pat the Cat]

Originally Posted by crazyc

What impact would having other file systems on the RDB have?

If they are set to have a higher boot priority than the SCSI, that would explain it.

Or it could be the IDE SD card adaptor isn't quite compliant - if it detects a card, it assumes that it's the master boot record and you want to start from there, even if there's a perfectly good system to boot from the SCSI side.

Or it might just be where it's plugged in, and it's the IDE-FIX doing it with one of the IDE channels, but not the other. I guess if you could set the device to be "Slave", that might resolve it. I thought IDEFIX 97 had been updated... meh, don't ask me about that, never used it.

Grey screen means CPU tested OK, system trying to boot, but it's looking at the wrong place. For some reason.

I guess one way around it would just be NOT to boot from the SCSI side.

[crazyc]

I think I need to have a look at the IDE adapter (Sigh)
As this means opening up the case again I may just park this for a while due to work and the fact that my miggy was in pieces for the last month or two whilst I tried to fit everything inside.

The whole aim of my recent project with the miggy was to move to SCSI for the CF adapter, its just getting rid of the wait.

Although thinking about it, I have 3.0 roms that are being overwritten by a custom rom being blizzkicked. I seem to remember there is a patch that can much reduce the delay on my custom rom.
Also just saw a thread about not automounting the DVD drive.

Just need to find some time to play.
Cheers for the suggestions by the way.

[Pat the Cat]

Well, in my opinion, you are doing the SMART thing,

Hard drives with moving parts are going to wear out, sooner or later.

Solid State Storage is the way to go. Less power consumption, longer life span, faster access times.

Pioneers always have a rough time. They also get the benefits of moving first.

I plan something not too different, but using SD cards rather than CF. God only know when I'll get around to it though.

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by crazyc

What impact would having other file systems on the RDB have?

Controller may still load them, possibly overriding filesystems on other drive's RDB (depending on dostypes and version numbers)

I don't think filesystem loading behavior has been fully specced by Commodore and because this code is in controller boot rom (KS ROM never had any helper routines for this), there can be major differences between controllers.

[crazyc]

Ok not sure how I have resolved this as I did a few things. I removed and unused cf device from my device folder, and raised the boot priority of the main cf. I then reinstalled the smaller card that I am using as an Ide terminator and marked the partition as non boot able. Now it shows up and can be formatted and used.

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