Trouble Setting up Transcend 4GB IDE Flash Disk

[mfletcher]

Hi,

I recently bought one of these to replace the aging hard drive in my A4000

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Transcend-4G...item461404f31a

HDToolBox can see the drive, and I partitioned it with the following settings.

Partition name: DH0
File system: Standard File System, FFS
Mask 0x7ffffffe
Max Transfer 0x1fe0000
Block size 512
Size of partition: 1024MB

I can install WB 3.1 on the partition just fine and reboot and run it without any issues.

The problem arises after installing ASIM CDFS v3.10 which Ive used in the past with no issues. After installing it and rebooting I start getting the following errors:

DH0 has a checksum error on disk block 1056187

Ive never seen this happen before - never had this issue with other drives, both CF and 3.5" in the past. How do I go about troubleshooting this error?

Mark

[Turran]

First of all, I would not use FFS as it will drive you mad with its validation problems. Use a filesystem that can handle an unexpected shutdown. I strongly recommend PFS3-AIO.

http://aminet.net/search?query=pfs3+aio

My cheatnotes:

PFS\03 = 0x50465303
Mask = 0x7ffffffe (There are 6 f’s)
MaxTransfer = 0x1fe00
Blocksize = 512

PFS3\Tools\pfsformat device DH1: Name Work Quick fnsize 107 NOICONS

That is a good start at least. Never played with those devices before (only IDE-CF)..

[thomas]

Originally Posted by mfletcher

DH0 has a checksum error on disk block 1056187

Most likely MaxTransfer error. MaxTransfer should not be higher than 255 blocks.

255 * 512 = 130560

or in hexadecimal

0xff * 0x200 = 0x1fe00

[mfletcher]

Thomas - give me five mins and I'll try again.

FYI when I define/edit the drive type for the first time details are:

Manufacturers Name: TRANSCEN
Drive Name: D
Drive Revision: 2011
Cylinders: 7769
Heads: 16
Blocks per Track: 63
Blocks per Cylinder: 1008
Park head where (cylinder): 7769

[mfletcher]

Creating partition with

Mask: 0x7ffffffe
MaxTransfer: 0x1FE00 (I hit enter after setting this to make the value stays)
File System Block Size: 512
Reserved blocks at:
Beginning: 2
End: 0

On the Partitioning screen
Start cyl: 3
End cyl: 1044
Total Cyl: 1042
Buffers: 30

Partition size for DH0 is 512 Meg

Now installing WB...

[mfletcher]

Ok its installed. Rebooted a couple of times to see if I can boot to Workbench on the HD without any issues.

Moving onto installing ASIMCDFS 3.10

The HD is on the same cable as the cdrom - hd is master, cdrom is slave.

[mfletcher]

Ah,

its during the install of ASIMCDFS while its copying files to DH0: that I get the checksum error.

DH0 has a checksum error on disk block 530273.

So, from a drive setup point of view, have I setup the drive correctly? I believe I have, because I've followed the instructions set out, for example setting MaxTransfer to 0x1fe00. So is this as terran points out, just FFS being flakey or could it be an issue with the drive itself?

[mfletcher]

And actually, after installing ASIM CDFS and rebooting, I just get the drive prompt. Its as if the drive isnt there. So, faulty drive?

[thomas]

Originally Posted by mfletcher

Ah,

its during the install of ASIMCDFS while its copying files to DH0: that I get the checksum error.

Does it really only copy files or did it run some software to scan for CD drives before?

The reason for my question is that the standard AmigaOS IDE driver (called scsi.device) does not support CD drives (or ATAPI drives in general). It needs some additional software to recognise a CD drive. Because of its age this additional software might interfere with how CF cards identify themselves.

The same happens with IDEfix: once the IDEfix software is active, CF cards are no longer recognised. If this happens while the OS is already running, it could well be the reason for the checksum error.

Originally Posted by mfletcher

And actually, after installing ASIM CDFS and rebooting, I just get the drive prompt. Its as if the drive isnt there. So, faulty drive?

Does the drive reappear if you switch the Amiga off and on again (to remove all resident modules from RAM)?

[mfletcher]

Thomas -

The installer asks which device you want to probe for devices... theres an asim_atapi.device that detects my cdrom.

Switching off the A4000 completely and switching it back on, I get the insert floppy screen, no booting to HD.

[thomas]

If you insert the Install disk and run HDToolbox, are all partitions gone or is anything left? Do you have to "change drive type" or can you start creating partitions without that?

What's your hardware configuration? This DOM has a female connector which shall plug directly to the motherboard. But "asim_atapi.device" (which AFAIK is an ATAPI driver for the motherboard's IDE controller) finds your CD drive, so the drive is connected to the motherboard. Where is the DOM connected to then?

Can you copy files to the DOM partition without installing AsimCDFS? Does it fail then, too? How many files (or megabytes) can you copy to the partition?

Does it fail also if you make the partition smaller, for example 100 MB?

Can you make a boot floppy with AsimCDFS installed so that the CD driver is active before you install the DOM? Does it fail earlier then, for example already during installation of WB?

Which version of WB are we talking about? Your signature says OS 3.9. Why do you install AsimCDFS when you have CacheCDFS out of the box?

If it's not OS 3.9, what if you try OS 3.9? Does it boot from your emergency disk? And does HDToolbox see the DOM when OS 3.9 has booted from CD? Can you install OS 3.9 to the DOM?

[mfletcher]

Hi Thomas

Im actually running 3.1 in this case. I had 3.9 installed on another drive a while back, butin this case since Im setting up a new drive decided to go with 3.1 in the first instance.

I have an A4000 with an Apollo 4060 Accelerator, a specturm 24/48 card and Deneb USB card. The DOM has a female connector that is correct, but I have an adapter cable so it can connect into a regular IDE cable, so both DOM and CDROM can connect to the single IDE port on the A4000

Before installing ASIM CDFS I was able to install other programs from Floppy - Amigakits EasyADF for example without any issues. So maybe less than a MB. I havent been able to copy multiple MB's yet.

When I start up with the install disk, I dont have to change drive type before creating partitions. I think the partitions are there, but I dont see them from the workbench floppy disk.

Mark

[fitzsteve]

What type of IDE cable are you using?

I was setting up a CDROM on my A1200 recently with 4Way IDE device and I was using a modern rounded IDE cable, every time I installed the CDROM with IDEFix97 it trashed my DH0, I was getting SFS errors too.

I changed the cable for an older style, flat grey cable and it's working like a charm since!

[mfletcher]

@Fitzsteve - it is an old style ide cable - I'll take some pictures of the internals of the A4000 and put them up to post. Although I wonder if its the male-male cable adapter that is causing the issue.

[thomas]

The DOM has a female connector that is correct, but I have an adapter cable so it can connect into a regular IDE cable, so both DOM and CDROM can connect to the single IDE port on the A4000

Ok. But a device which was made to occupy an IDE port entirely might not work very well with another drive on the same cable. Does the DOM have a master/slave switch? If not, it might well be that the DOM reacts on commands which are sent to the CD drive.

Actually I wonder why you pay so much money for a rather small DOM disk and a non-standard adapter cable when you can have a matching CF-IDE adapter plus a very large CF card for the same money.

Another point: did you ever have a working OS with the Deneb drivers installed? If yes, you could have put the drivers into the Deneb's flash ROM and then could boot from an USB card reader or memory stick. No need to deal with floppies any more.

Originally Posted by mfletcher

When I start up with the install disk, I dont have to change drive type before creating partitions. I think the partitions are there, but I dont see them from the workbench floppy disk.

What do you do in this situation to get them back?

What if you hold down both mouse buttons immediately during power-on, do the partitions appear in the early startup menu? What happens if you click on "boot without startup-sequence" then?

[fitzsteve]

A solution could be a 4way IDE device splitter and use the CDROM on the second channel so the DOM can totally occupy the first. You might need to install IDEFix97 to activate the secondary channel though.