Alfapower A500 oktapussy IDE patch - CF not visible in WINUAE

[oissery77]

Hi,

I have an Alfapower for my A500 like this one:
http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/alfapower

The rom on it is 6.10 and i have a KS 2.04 and classic WB Gaae.
I have a transcend 4gb CF splited in 2 partitions of 2gb because i can't have one partition with 4gb (read errors). Only the first partition can be formated with FFS 37.26, the second partition can't be formated (error message=>NDOS drive). I've tried with PSF3AIO with no succes (PSF3 requestor: can't read block) but PSF3 worked on my previous 2Gb CF on the same alfapower.

I have setted winuae with the expansion alfapower with rom 6.10 and the hardrive is setted on alfapower. All is working great on real A500 and on winuae but i wanted to solve my problem of 2nd partition so i've tried oktapussy ide patch (used to have large drive):
http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/oktapus

I have patched the RDB and it seems to work(4th method in the documentation). As describded in the documentation, the oktagon.device is then renamed to scsi.device. After that, winuae can't see the CF anymore. I've tried to change the properties of the CF to UAE, SCSI(auto) with no success.

If anyone can help me it would be great thanks!

[Arnie]

Doesn't WinUAE need the Alfpower SCSI selected with the rom for the CF to be recognised?

If you use an A590 you have to select the SCSI controller + rom for that so the Alfapower should be the same.

[oissery77]

Thanks Arnie, yes i have alfapower selected with the rom and have changed the property on the hardrive too. So I wanted to reverse the patch on the real amiga (i have patched and revert this patch before on the A500). I precise that this time i've patched the rdb with winuae and now the Cf is not booting anymore /. My fault is certainly to have ptched the rdb in winuae.
if i boot into Workbench 2.1 with floppy i don't see the drive, is there a way to rollback this rdb update or may i format the drive ?

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by oissery77

I have a transcend 4gb CF splited in 2 partitions of 2gb because i can't have one partition with 4gb (read errors).

I think you only hide the error if using 2 partitions "fixes" it..

I've tried with PSF3AIO with no succes (PSF3 requestor: can't read block) but PSF3 worked on my previous 2Gb CF on the same alfapower.

Sounds like driver limit. IDE controllers usually have limited direct scsi emulation support. (Sometimes just enough to make hdtoolbox work)

4th method in the documentation

Documentation does not mention what happens if hardware has ROM scsi.device (IDE).

What do you get if you type "version full scsi.device" in shell?

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by oissery77

if i boot wb with floppy i don't see the drive, i hope i don't have to re format the Cf ...

What was the exact command line you use to install the driver? (#4 method). Can you still use same command to remove the driver?

Not seeing partitions does not mean drive is not detected.

EDIT: You should have created hdf image first and use it to test what happens. In worst case only RDB is corrupted, partitions are 99.9% surely still 100% intact.

[oissery77]

Hello Toni.

Here is the command line:
Driveinit oktagon.device 0 sys:expansion/at
Then the shell's log tells me that all is done.

I have done this test before on my 500 and I have succed to revert this with:
Driveinit scsi.device 0

And after reboot the device is again oktogon.device.

My problem is that i can't boot on the cf in the 500or in winuae now...

[Toni Wilen]

Does the drive appear in hdtoolbox? (if it asks to save changes, don't do it) ("hdtoolbox oktagon.device")

Does it work in WinUAE if you mount it as UAE controller harddrive? If not, log probably shows what is going wrong with RDB parsing.

[oissery77]

i have hdinstool on floppy (the soft which comes with the alfapower) and i see the CF on my A500, i've quited witout saving.
here is a picture:
http://hpics.li/ed4133c

i will see the log in winuae now.

EDIT:
test made with winuae 3.1.0, if the hardrive is set to IDE the CF doesn't boot, here is the winuae log
winuaebootlog.txt

[Arnie]

@ oissery77

Just a quick question:
Is there a HD drive size limit?
I tried to use the adf disk you linked to and it wont read the HDF properly (40mb). HDInstall is all but greyed out except the setup tab. Using the 6.0 rom shows no HD at all.

I used A500+ default config.

[oissery77]

Originally Posted by Arnie

@ oissery77

Just a quick question:
Is there a HD drive size limit?
I tried to use the adf disk you linked to and it wont read the HDF properly (40mb). HDInstall is all but greyed out except the setup tab. Using the 6.0 rom shows no HD at all.

I used A500+ default config.

Normaly there's a drive limit of 4go and 2go for a partition and HDinstallTools does work on the real hardware but i've dont tested it on winuae

[oissery77]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Documentation does not mention what happens if hardware has ROM scsi.device (IDE).

about this, at the end of the documentation there is just :

"1. Once the new driver is installed, the device names are different!

Device names are now scsi.device, 2nd.scsi.device, 3rd.scsi.device, ... This makes the use of HDToolBox much easier!"

[Arnie]

Ah O.K. One for you to check out, Toni.

[oissery77]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

I think you only hide the error if using 2 partitions "fixes" it..



Sounds like driver limit. IDE controllers usually have limited direct scsi emulation support. (Sometimes just enough to make hdtoolbox work)

when you says "hide the error" , it doesn't mean that the first partition will have read error? i don't think so because this partition is nearly full and after several hours of gaming it works great.

About psf3, does it mean that psf3 will work only on 2gb CF with my hardware? it's certainly why it worked on my previous 2gb transcend CF that is broken.

Last thing Toni don't waste too much of your time, on my cf i have whdgames and demos. I have backup of these files on my PC not in an hdf file but in a folder.So i can reformat it...

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by oissery77

test made with winuae 3.1.0, if the hardrive is set to IDE the CF doesn't boot, here is the winuae log

Wrong log, winuaelog.txt is the correct one and it is only created if manually enabled (misc panel -> create winuaelog.txt). Tick it before starting emulation.

Check end of winuaebootlog.txt for winuaelog.txt path if it is not in same directory.

[oissery77]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Wrong log, winuaelog.txt is the correct one and it is only created if manually enabled (misc panel -> create winuaelog.txt). Tick it before starting emulation.

Check end of winuaebootlog.txt for winuaelog.txt path if it is not in same directory.

Ok Toni, i will post the correct log after work.

Can you just answer me for this 2 points please:
1/when you says that partitionning in 2x2Gb "hides the error" , does it mean i will have read errors on the first partition?

2/About psf3, you says that the "PSF3 requestor: can't read block" sounds like driver limit, does it mean that psf3 will work only with 2gb CF using this expansion (I did not have PFS3 error message with my previous 2gb transcend CF) ?

Thanks a lot, you're very helpful.

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by oissery77

Can you just answer me for this 2 points please:
1/when you says that partitionning in 2x2Gb "hides the error" , does it mean i will have read errors on the first partition?

2/About psf3, you says that the "PSF3 requestor: can't read block" sounds like driver limit, does it mean that psf3 will work only with 2gb CF using this expansion (I did not have PFS3 error message with my previous 2gb transcend CF) ?

Yes, it sounds like there is ~2G limit driver limit or bug. (For example 32-bit signed integer overflow)

[oissery77]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Yes, it sounds like there is ~2G limit driver limit or bug. (For example 32-bit signed integer overflow)

excellent thanks, i've just orderd a 2Gb CF to have PFS3AIO on it because even if i restore the RDB of my 4 GB CF, i will be forced to use FFS. It seems that PFS3 is really better in all terms especially in speed so i want to use it . I'll let you know about PFS3 and this new 2Gb CF.

Anyway, i will give you the winuaelog.txt this evening.

[oissery77]

Toni, here is the winuaelog.txt

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by oissery77

Toni, here is the winuaelog.txt

Mount the CF as UAE (not alfapower IDE or any other IDE or SCSI).

Only UAE driver can log more details because it runs host-side, others are pure m68k code, emulation only sees block access, it can't know what the driver does with the data.

[oissery77]

sorry here is the log, mounted as UAE in harddrive tab, expansion rom : alfapower is activated in rom tab