A1000 + ComSpec SA-1000 won't boot

[durniplot]

Hello

I'm trying to get an A1000 with ram+hd running. The components are:
- A1000 PAL + 256KB chip ram expansion
- CLtd. aMEGA 1MB fast ram expansion
- ComSpec SA-1000 SCSI Interface
- SCSI Cabinet with a 5 1/4 half-height drive and a free slot

The A1000 runs fine on its own, boots kickstart, then asks for workbench, which loads as it should, everything works fine.

With the aMEGA in the expansion slot, everything still works, and I get 1MB more RAM according to Workbench (as expected).

The SCSI, however, doesn't work. According to the previous owner, it was working just fine when he shipped it (I've also seen pics of the system running, so I have no reason to doubt this), but just I can't get it to run. I've set it up like he did, with the SCSI interface connected to the A1000, then the aMEGA slotted into the SCSI (also tried without the aMEGA connected).

I've done several cold boot test, these are all without the aMEGA, so just the A1000 + the ComSpec SA-1000. The ComSpec has a power switch on it.

1. ComSpec powered OFF, no drive connected
a. Asks for Kickstart
b. Loads Kickstart from floppy
c. Enters loop: Screen goes grey -> dark grey -> lighter grey -> power led flashes 3 times

2. ComSpec powered ON, no drive connected
Immediately starts a color cycle of the whole screen, from blue to magenta, then the screen "flashes" black/red twice
Video of the color cycling: [ Show youtube player ]

3. ComSpec powered OFF, drive connected and powered OFF -> Like 1

4. ComSpec powered ON, drive connected and powered OFF -> Like 2
Note: Some times a get a different color cycle: Cyan -> Grey -> Red

5. ComSpec powered OFF, drive connected and powered ON -> Like 1
Note: I turned the drive on first and let the disk "spin up", before turning the A1000 on.

6. ComSpec powered ON, drive connected and powered ON
Note: I turned the drive on first and let the disk "spin up", before turning the A1000 on.

Here's a video of the complete boot attempt, starting from disk power up. Turn up the volum to hear the HD: [ Show youtube player ]

a. There's some activity on the HD for a second or so
b. Screen turns yellow
c. Screen flashes black/red 5 times
sometimes b. and c. repeats
d. Screen cycles slowly through many colors Cyan -> Grey -> light red. For each step, there's some activity on the drive. There's sound, and a green activity led for the HD lights up.
e. Screen flashes black/red 3 times
f. repeat from d.


I also tried with the aMEGA connected, nothing changed in the above scenarios.

When the ComSpec is turned on, the internal floppy is dead, no ticking, and nothing happens if I put a disk in.


I've googled a bit, and I haven't found any references to the color cycling I get. I've had no luck finding a manual for the ComSpec either. But from what I've gathered, this thing actually stores a copy of the kickstart, so I guess the first thing it tries to do when connected is to try to load this. However I'd expect there to be some sort of "initializtion" mode, or just a plain boot if the connected drive doesn't work, so you can format/install/transfer kickstart etc.

I suspect there's something with the ComSpec, as it bugs out no matter if the drive is connected or not. I could possibly test the SCSI cabinet + drive on an A1200 with squirrel scsi, but I believe there's no RDB support on this thing, so I don't really know how.

Hoping some wizards here can make some educated guesses as to what's wrong.


Bonus questions:
1. What is the Cltd Boot Disk for? I can load it up in Workbench, and it has some tools / demos on it. When booting from it, I get some text, then everything freezes. Ctrl-A-A produces a Guru message, then it is back to normal.

2. Does anyone have an ADF of the ComSpec floppy? Mine has read-errors.

[mark_k]

SA-1000 manual PDF (large file ~70MB!). Remove ! after pasting URL into your browser.

http://www.media!fire.com/file/hm07an236zn9ahh/Comspec_SA1000_Manual.pdf

Be sure to read it all carefully several times. The 5 flashes indicate it can't read Kickstart from the hard drive. Maybe the previous owner had a modified A1000 with Kickstart in ROM?

It sounds like you need to enable manual boot (see PDF p.14), then load Kickstart from floppy and boot the Compec utilities disk when prompted for Workbench. That might allow you to see any existing partitions on the drive. You could then install Kickstart to the HD using the Comspec program. After that, you should be able to flip the switch to enable auto-booting. Then the Amiga should load Kickstart from HD on cold-booting.

By the way, WinUAE supports emulation of the SA-1000, so you could rehearse all needed steps in emulation before messing around with the real hardware.

[durniplot]

Thanks for the manual! I'll read it carefully.

It's this exact same A1000 it was connected to, I got the whole setup from him, nothing removed.

[mark_k]

You mentioned a "Cltd Boot Disk". C.Ltd were another manufacturer of hard drive controller for the A1000. I wonder if that disk is mis-labelled, or actually for a C.Ltd controller? [If you're able to create an ADF from that disk and upload it, that would be great. Remember to always keep your original disks write-protected btw.]

[durniplot]

Here are some pictures, I’ll try to make adf’s later.

The two floppies I got:


This comes up when booting the CLtd one:


Icon from the ComSpec one:



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[mark_k]

Ah thanks. C Ltd. made the aMEGA RAM board so that's what the C Ltd. disk is for.

[durniplot]

So, a quick scan of the manual reveals:

- The color cycling is normal and a function of the ComSpec and not the regular Amiga self test, it is indicating that the interface is waiting for the drive to become ready, and the loops are retries
- Two red flashes with no drive connected / power on is normal - that means it couldn't find a boot drive ("Could not select boot drive")
- Yellow means it is reading the kickstart from the drive. After this it should turn green, but that doesn't happen
- The five flashes mean that that the kickstart couldn't be loaded from the drive, for some reason ("Could not read Kickstart")

Also, when rewatching the video from my full boot attempt now, I noticed that after the second try of loading kickstart, there are actually 8 red flashed. This means "Mode Sense Failed".

Finally, it gives three red flashes, "Could not get 'Test Unit Ready' OK". According to the manual, "the drive may still be performing its selftest".

So perhaps it is the harddrive that is shot?


I had a look at the manual boot, and isn't this similar to what I tried in my attempt 5?

5. ComSpec powered OFF, drive connected and powered ON -> Like 1
Note: I turned the drive on first and let the disk "spin up", before turning the A1000 on.

The result here was this:

a. Asks for Kickstart
b. Loads Kickstart from floppy
c. Enters loop: Screen goes grey -> dark grey -> lighter grey -> power led flashes 3 times

If I'm reading the manual right, after loading kickstart, I should be prompted (as one usually is) to insert workbench, and at that point load the ComSpec floppy instead, but I never get to this point.

I tried following this post, to decode the screen messages (and I'm kicking my self for not recording this boot attempt, I'll do that the next time):
http://www.lemonamiga.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13978

- There's no color cycle / flashing from the ComSpec here I think, this is the Amiga self test + led flashing. This happens whether the drive is connected or not, no difference.

- I cannot completely match the shades of greys I wrote down and the flashing sequence to anything in the link above

- Loading kickstart works when nothing is connected, or just the aMEGA is connected, it only fails then the ComSpec is connected.



The manual specifically says that I can use "manual boot" to "use a version of Kickstart other than 1.3", so it probably should work, even though my Kickstart disk is v1.2 -- though I suppose I'll need a 1.3 disk set to enable autobooting? The manual isn't perfectly clear, it says "If you are using an Amiga 1000, or an Amiga 500 or Amiga 2000 with Kickstart V1.3, the Amiga system will be able to boot from the hard drive". Observing the commas, I *think* this means that Amiga 1000 should be able to autoboot even with 1.2.


Anyways, would anyone here happen to have a copy of the ComSpec install disk to share as ADF? Mine gives r/w errors.

[durniplot]

I opened the comspec for a quick inspection, and it seemed mostly alright, apart from some fuzz/rust(?). Should I do something about this?

I checked the battery, no leakage, but I will get a replacement anyway.









Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[TjLaZer]

Some A1000's don't play nice with multiple side cards installed, grounding issues. There is a grounding mod you can do. You can also try the SCSi card by itself to test it, but you do need the extra RAM to use it. You can also swap the cards around too, I had to do that with a Supra 4X4 card. Use a 2MB card with it and it works fine. I have the RAM card on the outside and the SCSi card installed first.

[mark_k]

Thanks for the pics.

I'd leave the rusty trimmer capacitor alone. That's used to adjust the RTC clock speed, only adjust if you notice it losing or gaining too much time.

Would you be able to dump the ROMs from your unit? From the labels they seem newer than the version currently available. You need to dump the memory region $F00000 - $F07FFF. I can give further instructions or upload a program that you can run to save the ROMs to a file.

Edit to add: You can use Mon to dump the ROMs. Run mon, then type:
] $F00000 $8000 RAM:SA1000_ROM.bin
x


Does this disk work with your unit?

http://bboah-hardware.de/drivers/SCSI_Controllers/comspec-2000.dms
http://bboah-hardware.de/drivers/SCSI_Controllers/comspec-2000.dms.readme

[r.cade]

Most likely the hard drive failed in shipping. Bummer, but they are rough with packages, especially during the holidays.

Either that or the seller wiped the drive before shipping, so no kickstart?

BTW, 1.2 cannot autoboot. There is a bug in it preventing that, which is why 1.3 exists.

[mark_k]

Which make & model of hard drive do you have? If it's one that doesn't auto-park its heads at power-off, that could explain damage in transit. Comspec supplied a "ParkDrives" program which ideally the sender would have remembered to use before powering off.

[durniplot]

Originally Posted by mark_k

Which make & model of hard drive do you have? If it's one that doesn't auto-park its heads at power-off, that could explain damage in transit. Comspec supplied a "ParkDrives" program which ideally the sender would have remembered to use before powering off.

The drive is marked ST-296N, so a Seagate it seems. Its the 40MB one, according to the seller, and it should autopark, according to the manual (also it makes the autopark "grinding" noises when it is shut down).

[durniplot]

Originally Posted by r.cade

Most likely the hard drive failed in shipping. Bummer, but they are rough with packages, especially during the holidays.

Either that or the seller wiped the drive before shipping, so no kickstart?

BTW, 1.2 cannot autoboot. There is a bug in it preventing that, which is why 1.3 exists.

Yeah, that package did get a bit of a punching, no doubt, as some items were crushed or dented.

The drive wasn't wiped.

About 1.2 - right, but somehow this device manage to autoboot by feeding the A1000 with kickstart (1.3) from the HD first, which is pretty cool :-)

[durniplot]

Originally Posted by mark_k

Thanks for the pics.

I'd leave the rusty trimmer capacitor alone. That's used to adjust the RTC clock speed, only adjust if you notice it losing or gaining too much time.

Would you be able to dump the ROMs from your unit? From the labels they seem newer than the version currently available. You need to dump the memory region $F00000 - $F07FFF. I can give further instructions or upload a program that you can run to save the ROMs to a file.

Edit to add: You can use Mon to dump the ROMs. Run mon, then type:
] $F00000 $8000 RAM:SA1000_ROM.bin
x


Does this disk work with your unit?

http://bboah-hardware.de/drivers/SCSI_Controllers/comspec-2000.dms
http://bboah-hardware.de/drivers/SCSI_Controllers/comspec-2000.dms.readme

I currently don't have any way to transfer adf's from any of my Amigas (or dms images to an Amiga, but I'll get to this later. Anyways I tried the ComSpec floppy in an A1200 and didn't get any read errors there, so perhaps the floppy drive in the A1000 is bad.

I have an A1010 from the same shipment, that got it's plastic broken, the drive inside seems like it could go right into the A1000, so I might try that later.

I'll gladly dump the ROMs, but at the moment I can't get the A1000 running with the ComSpec connected. After loading kickstart, it just flashes the power leds and enters a loop.

Here's a video of that:
[ Show youtube player ]

The screen colors are really hard to see on the video, but I think the sequence is light gray -> dark grey > lighter grey (white?) -> four (?) flashes on the led

Again, this only happens when the ComSpec is connected, and not the aMEGA. Perhaps there's something broken in the A1000 that gets tapped by the ComSpec and not the eMEGA?

[durniplot]

Here are two videos I recorded earlier, one shows the ComSpec repeatedly trying to read the kickstart (yellow screen) then failing (red flashes). Does this hard drive sound healthy? Sometimes it seems to be able to step along, sounds almost like reading from a floppy, but it didn't happen in the video.

[ Show youtube player ]

Here's a video with the cover off, again, trying to assess if it makes healthy or broken sounds.

[ Show youtube player ]


I dug out a couple of old 3,5'' scsi drives + the squirrel scsi and tried two things on my A1200 today:
- Connect the ComSpec drive to the Squirrel SCSI: This had no noticable effect, and the SCSI Automount program that came with Squirrel din't find anything. I didn't really expect that either, as it needs RDB to be able to automount, but I thought it'd atleast show something in the device list.
- Connect the two 3,5'' scsi disks instead of the disk inside the ComSpec cabinet, and look for these with SquirrelSCSI. Didn't find anything this way either.

I'm kinda stuck here, wondering if something is wrong with the A1000 and not the ComSpec / drive, but I don't have any other A1000's to test it with, and no clue about what could be wrong with the A1000 as it seems to work just fine without the ComSpec.

[mark_k]

The Comspec ROM is trying to load Kickstart from the HD but not succeeding. If you set it to "Manual boot", you should be able to boot the A1000 as normal (i.e. load Kickstart from floppy disk, then boot from a bootable floppy). See p.14 of the PDF manual. You need to move the switch on the back of the SA-1000 to the right (as you sit facing the front of the Amiga).

You should be able to boot a disk with Mon on and dump the ROM then, by running Mon and typing:
] $E90000 $8000 RAM:SA1000_ROM.bin
x
Of course you may as well wait until you have some way to transfer files from Amiga disk to PC. (Getting a PCMCIA-CompactFlash adaptor for your A1200 is a cheap way to do that.)

[durniplot]

Originally Posted by mark_k

The Comspec ROM is trying to load Kickstart from the HD but not succeeding. If you set it to "Manual boot", you should be able to boot the A1000 as normal (i.e. load Kickstart from floppy disk, then boot from a bootable floppy). See p.14 of the PDF manual. You need to move the switch on the back of the SA-1000 to the right (as you sit facing the front of the Amiga).

You should be able to boot a disk with Mon on and dump the ROM then, by running Mon and typing:
] $E90000 $8000 RAM:SA1000_ROM.bin
x
Of course you may as well wait until you have some way to transfer files from Amiga disk to PC. (Getting a PCMCIA-CompactFlash adaptor for your A1200 is a cheap way to do that.)

Yeah - that's what I'm doing in this attempt:
[ Show youtube player ]

Problem is, after loading kickstart, gets stuck in some sort of error loop with flashing power leds and alternating grey/white/black screens. Nothing happens when I put a disk in.

Same result with the hd connected or not / powered on or not.

Without the ComSpec conected, I get the regular Workbench prompt.

I have a PCMCIA adapter like that, just no cf card at the moment. I'll get one.

[mark_k]

Do you have a Kickstart 1.2 floppy disk to test? If so is there any difference after loading that? What about if you remove the aMEGA memory expansion?

[durniplot]

The only one I have is 1.2. This is the one that came with the A1000. It works fine with or without the aMEGA connected, but never with the ComSpec connected. Also doesn't work if I only connect the ComSpec.