Impact A2000-HC+8 Series II: HAVING BIG PROBLEMS

[barney]

I just bought this recently: Impact A2000-HC+8 Series II w 6MB installed. My system sees it fine. My Amiga 2000 also has a A2630 accelerator installed w. 2mb. When I boot my system into 68030 mode, my hard drive is not visible but the GVP A2000-HC+8 card is visible including the 6MB of memory installed on it. When I boot into 68000, everything works fine.

Are there any compatibility problems between the "GVP A2000-HC+8" and the Commodore A2630 accelerator?

Also, does anybody know the largest size Hard Drive the "GVP A2000-HC+8" can recognize?

Thanks.

[Loedown]

Originally Posted by barney

I just bought this recently: Impact A2000-HC+8 Series II w 6MB installed. My system sees it fine. My Amiga 2000 also has a A2630 accelerator installed w. 2mb. When I boot my system into 68030 mode, my hard drive is not visible but the GVP A2000-HC+8 card is visible including the 6MB of memory installed on it. When I boot into 68000, everything works fine.

Are there any compatibility problems between the "GVP A2000-HC+8" and the Commodore A2630 accelerator?

Also, does anybody know the largest size Hard Drive the "GVP A2000-HC+8" can recognize?

Thanks.

I ran a HC+8 with 8Mb ram, ask me if you want two more simms. I also ran a GVP '030 combo, with no issues at all. I would suggest you start by looking at the HDD installed, set it to ID 6, AFAIK, size of HDD is unimportant, as long as the first partition is under 4 Gb and you have IDEFIX etc for the remainder, <--- this aspect I am unclear on.

Many jumpers on the HC +8, I'd check those, reseat all the socketed chips, clean the edge connector, with a pencil eraser. Apart from that, good luck.

http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/impact2000hc8

[Zetr0]

@Barney

fear not!, you are at the best place for help.

As you may know the A2000 only has 8MB of Zorro2 space available, of that the GVP Impact Series 2 is using 6MB.

the Commodore A2630 unlike other CPU accelerator cards ALSO uses Zorro 2 memory space for its RAM.

Disapearing harddisks sounds like the Impact is struggling to get the data to the bus, could well be a Zorro conflict OR a memory conflict

I would suggest the following....

Boot up (with 030 and GVPSCSI) but from disk, specifically with the Impact Series 2 install Disk.

using the disk can you see any devices on the SCSI chain? if so you may need to re-prep them. (theres no need to format them!) just reprep them so that the boot block is edited on the disk.

I fear this problem could well be a 24bit memory issue with the CBMA2630.

Although I would attempt to drop the RAM on the GVP to 4MB, its highly possible that the CBM A2630 may covert the first 4MB area.


GVP SCSI Drive Sizes,

well I am not sure on the maximum, but I have an 18GB disk and a 9.1GB disk and thats using the GVP 3.15 SCSI rom

@loedown

the GVP Combi uses its own 32bit space out side of Z2(24bit) memory

[Loedown]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

@loedown

the GVP Combi uses its own 32bit space out side of Z2(24bit) memory

Explains why I had 16 Mb then

[barney]

The memory shows up correctly. When I boot into 68030 mode, it shows 8mb total (2MB on A2630 and 6 on GVP SCSI Card). When I boot into 6800, it shows 6MB total (6 MB on GVP SCSI Card).

When I boot into 6800, Hard Drive is recognized but I am clueless how to configure. I am unable to create or activate the partitions.

When I boot into 68030, the entire card is visible, but the Hard Drive isn't. I am totally confused on what to do. I will try as you said and remove 2MB out of my SCSI card and see if that fixes the problem.

My issue is that once I finally get everything working, I am still lost as to how to configure the hard drive. I will try various configurations later today and give an update on where I am at.

note: by the way, this site is awesome. The amount of information on this Website blows me away. I will search around and maybe find the answer to my problem.

Thanks again everybody.

Barney

[Toni Wilen]

It is 24-bit DMA limitation if it works without accelerator RAM. It is some other incompatibility if it still does not work

[barney]

I did a search and I think I found the problem. It looks like I need to add "SCSI_DEVICE_NAME=gvpscsi.device" to tooltypes in HDToolBox.

Another person on this site did this and the hard drive came right up. I will give it a try.

Barney

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by barney

I did a search and I think I found the problem. It looks like I need to add "SCSI_DEVICE_NAME=gvpscsi.device" to tooltypes in HDToolBox.

Everyone would have said that

I thought (and I guess I am not the only one) you meant HD worked fine without accelerator but fails when accelerator is used..

[barney]

Hello, I have one more small question: Can I remove my existing hard drive from my 2091 scsi card and mount it on my GVP card without losing partitions.

Actually, can I go ahead and add "SCSI_DEVICE_NAME=gvpscsi.device" to tooltypes in HDToolBox while still connected to the 2091. Then, once I make the adjustment in HDToolBox can I move the HD to the GVP scsi and boot it up? Thanks.


Barney

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by barney

Hello, I have one more small question: Can I remove my existing hard drive from my 2091 scsi card and mount it on my GVP card without losing partitions.

Actually, can I go ahead and add "SCSI_DEVICE_NAME=gvpscsi.device" to tooltypes in HDToolBox while still connected to the 2091. Then, once I make the adjustment in HDToolBox can I move the HD to the GVP scsi and boot it up? Thanks.


Barney

Yes. Or you can simply open shell (CLI) window and type "tools/hdtoolbox gvpscsi.device" (works as long as you don't have ancient hdtoolbox version)

[barney]

Well, I renamed it but the computer is reporting defective card on boot up "red diagnostics screen" displaying all card on computer. I have 6mb installed and I set the jumpers accordingly. I have it set to autoboot but it still won't work.

I noticed that there are several other jumpers on the card that I can't find any information about. There are the three ID jumpers, there is a jumper 2, a jumper 3, and there is also a jumper near the bottom (jumper 15 "DTACK").

Do I need to set any of these other jumpers? This is really starting to bug the hell out of me. These GVP cards are a pain in the butt.

Barney

[barney]

Well, I renamed the line in HDToolbox to "SCSI_DEVICE_NAME=gvpscsi.device" and when I booted to 3.1 in 6800 mode, I was able to successfully access the drive and files. But if I boot up in 68030 mode, It brings me right to the purple screen "Insert disk" prompt. I am beginning to think their is a serious compatibility problem with the A2630 and the GVP SCSI.

Does anybody remember when they did to make this drive accessable in the 68030 mode? If you remember, please let me know.

Thanks

Barney

[rkauer]

A2630 needs a ROM update to work with any ROM above 1.3.

Also the A2630 allocates 4Mb of RAM on the autoconfig space, clashing the system if any other RAM expansion with more than 4Mb is used together.

[Shadowfire]

Remove memory down to 2MB/4MB on the GVP & see if your hard disk shows up in 030 mode.

If you use HDToolbox to configure a drive, it *should* work on every SCSI controller that HDToolBox supports. HDToolbox is the de-facto standard for writing RigidDiskBlocks to a hard disk.

Note that some hard disk controllers are not, in fact, 100% RigidDiskBlock compliant (such as the IVS Trumpcard and the ICD AdIde) and you cannot swap any drives to or from these controllers. Well, not without repartitioning them.

I know that the A2091 is RDB-compliant, but I don't know if the GVP is. If they included HDToolBox as their partitioning software, though, you should be good.

[barney]

You guys were right. I dropped the memory on my card down to 4MB and "WHAM!!!...now its working fine.

There is only one problem: When I power my system down and then power it back up, it presents me with the purple Workbench install screen. I have to install WB3.1 install disk, go into HDToolbox, resee the hard drive and reboot. then it works fine. Has anybody heard of this happening?

Barney

[Loedown]

Originally Posted by barney

You guys were right. I dropped the memory on my card down to 4MB and "WHAM!!!...now its working fine.

There is only one problem: When I power my system down and then power it back up, it presents me with the purple Workbench install screen. I have to install WB3.1 install disk, go into HDToolbox, resee the hard drive and reboot. then it works fine. Has anybody heard of this happening?

Barney

Would you like me to scan the manual I found yesterday, before I send it off to the guy who bought my original card?

[barney]

Yeah that would be cool! I sent you a personal message with my email address to send it to. Thanks again.

Barney

[Zetr0]

@Barney

congrats m8!

Now lets sort out your problem.

Firstly on GVP Impact Series 2 it is best to use the GVP Fast Prep for any device on the chain, the reason for this is simple.

I changes the Transfer Mask to DMA straight to 24bit memory, by using HDTools to prep the card it WONT change the mask and it will reduce the speed to less than 50% of the Original. (in some cases as low as 30%)

My friend TheCorfiot explained this recently on the phone to me not so long ago and my tests confirm it.

from here I would turn of your miggy place the GVP Install disk in the drive, BOOT from floppy!

now go into the Faaastprep program and discover the drive and prep it, this will change the RDB to the correct settings, you should still keep the data on the drive as you are not changing the geometry.

once done, take disk out and boot... this should stop all the issues your are having with it working / not working

[barney]

Ok, here is what I did. I booted from the GVP startup disk. By running the FAAST Prep, it recognized the hard drive then completely wiped all my previous partitions. Do I set each partition within FAAST Prep or do I procede with using HDTookbox to make the partitions? Also, you mentioned CMA and 24bit memory. Is this somthing I need to configure within FAAST Prep or is it automatic?

Barney

[Zetr0]

@Barney

strange as to why it would blast your previous partitons to dust.

from this point, I would use the FaaastPrep to partition the drive, this will automatically configure the transfer mask to use the 24bit DMA memory.

IF you use HDTools it wont configure the Transfer Mask properly and you will have drastically reduce performance.

do you have a SCSI CDROM installed in your A2000 yet?

before you do I have a configuration setup that will drastically improve both repsonse and data population.