Running 3.2 on 3.1 roms and load kickstart at boot via Blizzard
 

Hello lovely people!

I finally spent some time installing 3.2; and I must say that it was a nightmare... Took me 4 hours to get to understand how to set up things in WinUAE; to mimic my actual hardware (a 3.1 ROM A1200 with a Blizzard 1230 MK4 and 32 mb of RAM).

After fetching the correct ROM for the Blizzard card, and after changing multiple times the settings for the memory, I finally was able to boot the installer; and there I realized that I need to use the module disk first, which is what soft-kick the new ROM in the system.

So I thought that I can just use the module disk to create the partitions; and for some reasons WinUAE didn't want to write on the disk, even running WinUAE as admin; since at every reboot, the disk would be reset again. I did the partitioning on my real Amiga and it did work; but then, a new problem arose: if you boot from module disk, format won't work. I had the 3 partitions show as "unknown", and formatting them would result in nothing happening, no error, nothing.

So I thought let's boot from installer disk; but without the module disk, that didn't work, I ran the application on the module disk to prep the installer disk as per manual (I RTFM LOL), but that would not soft kick the ROM; so I was able to format only the small workbench partition (using a 16 GB card), while the larger partition would error up when I tried to format them.

I threw the chair on the floor and took a break; I made a blizkick disk using the correct ROM, and then loaded the installer disk...and now it was able to correctly format those 2 large partitions; so I finally ran the installer and 3.2 fresh install is on my system disk.

NOW...

If I boot the 3.2 HD as is, I get an error, saying that the system cannot run LoadModule (Loadmodule failed: object not found); which is weird because I assumed that loadmodule would be added as part of the installer; so at this point when I want to run 3.2 from the HD, I need to boot "old school" with the blizkick disk, remove it and THEN the os load.

I remember in another thread I wrote, someone suggested me to run blizkick in the startup sequence; although there is a detail that I am missing: How do I tell the SS to check for KS version, and if that has not been kicked, to kick it and restart the machine, but the second time around, it should not kick the machine again because the kickstart is already in memory?

OR there is a way to do what the module disk does, and add that to my SS on the HD directly? I get that the best way at this point is to just put 3.2 ROM in the machine; although before doing so I want to get a feel for the OS first, and for the compatibility with the applications I use most commonly.

Also strange enough; the blizkick won't run on the actual card... but it works in WinUAE. the jumper is not set for neither of the 2 sets of pins; I tried with and without the jumper, for both the pin sets (the manual is so dark and it is not really clear which couple of pins is for the memory and which one is for the kick in memory...). No idea why is that happening; the card is working just fine and the Amiga see it no problems, using the memory and the CPU. But when I boot the disk with blizkick; I get an error saying that the card need to support the memory mapping... >_<

That is easy. You don't need to care because BlizKick already cares. :)

BlizKick should be able to load modules. However, you first need to get it running. ;)

This message appears if you installed with 3.2 ROM and then downgraded to 3.1 ROM.

If you run on a 3.1 ROM it tries to load modules with loadmodule. But if you installed with 3.2 ROM the installer assumed that loadmodule is not needed, so it didn't install it.

If you want to run OS 3.2 on ROM 3.1, then you have to install it with 3.1 ROM, too. If you then upgrade the ROM to 3.2 (via Blizkick or real), loadmodule is not needed any more, but it does not hurt if it is installed.

Oh, so it just does its own check without me putting a conditional step in the startup sequence? That is nice :)


I don't understand why the real Blizzard card does not take the command correctly; the pins are not closed, so going by the manual, that means that the memory onboard is set to preload the ROM I pass to it. Is my card defective? Anything I can do to troubleshoot? Thanks

I wouldn't be so sure about that. The manual is not very clear what the jumper means to third-party software. It only says what the card does if the jumper is closed or removed.

In WinUAE Blizkick only works if the MapROM checkbox is on. I would assume that a checked box corresponds to a closed jumper while an empty box means jumper open. If you go after that, the jumper should be closed for Blizkick to work.

The BlizKick guide says that the ROM map feature of the card has to be enabled to work.

I see, so the issue is that I used the blizkick to boot from 3.2, so the installer didn't install the correct loadmodule settings. Should I start all over again and install 3.2 while using 3.1 roms? Which means that I should not boot from the module disk but from the installer disk?


Also there is any idea about why my blizzard card does not work correctly with blizkick? I tried both jumper and neither works

On my 1230-IV I simply removed the maprom jumper to make it work with blizkick. No need to reinstall anything, just put "BlizKick path:to/rom QUIET" on top of your startup-sequence and you're set.

I tried both with the jumper on or off, and in both cases I get the error saying that the card need to support the maprom feature :( Do I have a broken card?

Yep, and the manual of the Blizzard 1230/IV says that the card is shipped with the feature enabled (when there is no jumper on the 2 pins closer to the CPU, the maprom feature is enabled).

I tried with the jumper on and without the jumper, and I always get the same error. Not sure if my card is broken or what else; but the CPU is correctly identified and used, and same for the onboard 32 mb of RAM

Not sure what is wrong here but blizkick won't work no matter which settings I use.

I re-installed 3.2 without using the 3.2 romkick disk and it is booting fine after doing the loadmodule; so I guess I am good. Still don't get why my blizzard card won't recognize the maprom setting, but at this point it is not needed.