Installing Amiga os 4.1

[DarrenHD]

Originally Posted by Viserion

fryguy: Chose to go for English when installing,just to minimize what could go wrong. So that is onew of the issues I haven't had.


Have been busy with other stuff, so haven't been able to do more.

Definately get a graphics card if you can - BVision or a PCI card (if you have a Mediator). Radeon 9250 from Elbox works nicely and with hardware compositing BVision has fastest write speeds though as it's directly connected to the accelerator and doesn't have to go through Zorro (which is slower).

[Viserion]

I do have a mediator. I also have a Radeon 9xxx card bought from some Chinese place on Ebay.

Will try it a bit later.

[Viserion]

Well, it has been a while later than expected.

I sent it off to Stacu100(great job by the way ) to have it upgraded, and he found that it had been over clocked, and one oscillator pin had almost no contact, and broke under desoldering, and a resistor had bad contact.

Still had problems as the 4 port ide has somehow gotten broken, and I had the hardest time getting the FastATA IV to sit properly.

Did manage it in the end.

And still it keeps fighting me.

So how many Atari STs has to be sacrificed for this to work

I did manage to install os 3.9, and was almost finished when I ran into PSF3 errors claiming it was trying to read outside the partition DH0 and others.

As this was a while ago, I can't remember exactly the wording.

Shifted focus to OS 4.1, and I get farther than before, but with the cheap Radeon mentioned in earlier post, I get a picture through the Radeon as shown in picture amigaos41_radeon.jpg(See link).

Now I have tested it in a pc, and it works there. Fearing that it will screw my system up, I haven't booted to any os, but just played around in bios.

Didn't have any issues., and what is seen in picture

Removed the Radeon, and got the error seen in amigaos41_aga.jpg(same link).

https://app.box.com/s/skr4yv3iqfiud7wcdgog

So where to go now, to get this finally up and running.

[bdb]

Not all Radeon 9xxx cards have a compatible ROM with OS4.1, but those from ELBOX and Amigakit are guaranteed to work. Refer to the extensive posts on installing OS4.1 and optimization of OS4.1 in the Hyperion Classic forum for help. The Voodoo PCI cards work well in the 2000 & 3000 series.

[voyager_1701e]

Hi viserion
I feel your frustration and annoyance. I bought a fast ata iv and after many many hours of software install reinstall ....change hardware ...plug unplug....etc etc etc I still can't get it to work properly !

My 4000 ppc system likewise....so many instability issues...and I've tried 4x to install os4.1 with the last time finally installing and booting....but then crashing on selecting prefs .

I tell you this....because I agree with your comments. I am fairly technically minded....all the way from networking systems peer to peer under dos to now. And yet...regretfully the number of Amiga systems I've rebuilt and sold....plus the ones I'm keeping (all except a1k and cdtv) have shown a frustrating lack of the same issues being repeated .....frequently different issues with the same hardware

But then again....it is incredible...when working correctly...what we can do with almost 30 year old hardware.

Sorry I can't add anything useful to your efforts...I can only add moral support :-)

Good luck !

[Viserion]

bdb: Ah, so that explains it.

I managed to get one of those that doesn't work.

Well one mystery solved.

voyager_1701e: Thanks for sharing this with me even if it is "only" moral support.

When you are struggling like this you start to question if you are an idiot or not.

I don't have much formal training, but have had this as a hobby for many years I reckon myself as a person with knowledge above average.

As these are machines from late 80s early 90s stability wasn't the best at the time, due mostly to cost shortcuts, and adding 30 years hasn't improved the situation.

If you still haven't gotten the Fast ATA to work, here is how I got it to work:

Remove the A1200 motherboard from it casing.

Take off the roms, and put them in similar sockets on the FastATA.

Put one strips through/under each rom socket, and one from the hole close to the keyboard is attached, and under the MB, and through a similar hole close to the rom sockets. This needs to be narrow is it will go through a hole in the FastATA, and this is rather small. It has to maximum be 2.5mm wide.

As I couldn't find any stips that was long and narrow enough, I used 3 strips, and connected them together to make this work.

Place the lock side of it in a similar position you can see in Elbox installation guide with rather small pictures.

Attach the strips, but only loosely for the moment.

And this is the critical bit.

Lift the motherboard, and place one hand over the strips on the rom sockets, and place the thumb under it for support.

Press down firmly so you can see that the FastATA is properly got into the sockets, and then tightening as hard as you can.

Take the keyboard strips and thighed this as well, but here no force is necessary. Make sure it is in place, but don't over tighten, as you probably will ruin something.

I know I've explained this in too much detail, but just in case someone at a later date with less experience stumbles across this, I always felt it's better to explain too much than too little.

Hopefully this is use full.

[voyager_1701e]

Thanks mate, but Im waiting for Amigakit to sort it out with Elbox. Ive tried 3 different mainboards (all on the "bench"), 1 with new machine pin IC ROM sockets, 1 with resoldered extended ROM sockets (to work with Indivision), and 1 with standard sockets....all to no avail. It works in PIO mode 0 no problems, but anything above this....block errors and lock ups. I installed my ATA MK1 in 2 of the boards, and it works within minutes and up to PIO 4!

I did use long pin sockets or 3 standard sockets to raise the height above the Indi with the MkI no problems too (all machine pin variety)

But thanks for the tips anyway

[Viserion]

Ok, I thought you had difficulty connecting it to the MB.

From the sound of it it's probably a defective FastATA

[voyager_1701e]

After the effort I've put in to get it working...I have to agree with you!