CSA Magnum 40/4 HD Prep - help!

[chiark]

Wotcha all
I've just got a Magnum 40/4 for my 2000, and it's superb however I cannot get the SCSI to work at all...

From searching google groups, it seems that I need to use the CSA Magnum HD Prep. Damn. the board came with no software, and there's none on BBOAH.

Long shot: does anyone have the software?

The 2000 has Kickstart 2.04. I have Workbench 2.04, Workbench 2.05 (including the A600 HD installation disk), Workbench 2.1 (including the install disk), WB3.0 and 3.1... I've tried all of them changing the tooltype to SCSI_DEVICE=csascsi.device (and DEVICE=csascsi.device).... No avail.

I've also tried an old version of RDPrep, however that crashes. I guess that could be because it's an 040 machine... If I turn off the 040, it turns off the whole board so no SCSI.

Do I need the CSA HD Prep software and, if so, does anyone have this?

[chiark]

Well, no luck on this so I'm going to try SCSITools from the WarpEngine install disk - the same chap was behind both accelerators I believe!

Fingers are crossed. I'll update the thread in case anyone else comes across one of these.

[chiark]

Can't get scsitools to recognise this either...

The device is called csascsi.device - is there a way of telling if it's been loaded? version csascsi.device says object not found.

Most vexing...

[chiark]

By Jingo, there's a csa magnum disk on the net!

http://www.l8r.net/install/other/

Nothing from any SCSI disk so far; will keep trying.

(I realise I'm talking to myself!)

[chiark]

remind me never ever to trust a scsi cable that I think is fine....

[chiark]

...and...

SUCCESS!!!!

Turns out I did need the CSA specific SCSITools, which is slightly odd. it's as if csascsi.device was not autoloaded until the drive was set up. My suspicion is that it's actually pulled off the bootblock somehow as there's the option to update the driver which seems to write to the RDB & bootblock... But without the driver, how can it read the bootblock in the first place?!?

There's also reference to csascsi.auto, which I guess is the autoloaded version...

Ah well. I've forgotten far too much Amiga stuff over the last 13 years!

[TheCorfiot]

@chiark,

Sorry I've only just found this thread as I would have pointed you to the same place for the CSA software.

Well done, glad you persevered with success.

For HDToolBox,, I believe you need to enter "SCSI_DEVICE_NAME=csascsi.device" as the tooltype

Of course don't forget to drop the csascsi.device file into your expansion drawer & Reboot.

Glad it's Working.

[chiark]

Cheers

I tried HDToolBox from 2.04, 2.05, 2.1, 3.0, 3.1... with SCSI_DEVICE_NAME=csascsi.device, but I didn't have any joy. csascsi.device was never around. I'd assumed that autoconfig should load it into memory and not rely on it being on the disk... Damn thing!

I even tried the Microbotics partitioner with csascsi.device, but no matter what I did, nothing would find the sodding drives.

I wonder how much of it was down to the cable now... Perhaps csascsi.device was there all the time? I suppose I ought to try again just for my sanity

It's kinda embarassing, because in 1993 I ended up writing a new installer script for hard drives for the 1200 using the Microbotics solution for the place I worked (First Computer Centre). Even learnt the Commodore Installer language, brackets 'n' all...

[Toni Wilen]

Perhaps it unloads automatically if it does not detect any partitioned drives? (to save memory? or something wierd )

[TheCorfiot]

Try putting the csascsi.device in the Expansion drawer, You need to have this on the media you boot from, floppy or HD. for ex, the 2.1 install disk wants you to boot from it therefore this file should be copied onto that floppy.
From a CLI shell you can also type "HDToolbox csascsi.device"

If you boot from floppy, ie set the controller for non autoboot csascsi.device is not loaded at all. need to issue Binddrivers which will look for csascsi in the expansion drawer.

I found this worked with my GVP & gvpscsi.device....
However I bet not all drivers behave the same.

[Toni Wilen]

Autoboot disabled jumper usually disables controller's boot ROM completely (KS 1.2 "compatibility mode", KS 1.2 has stupid crashing bug in expansion handling which was fixed in KS 1.3)

[TheCorfiot]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Autoboot disabled jumper usually disables controller's boot ROM completely (KS 1.2 "compatibility mode", KS 1.2 has stupid crashing bug in expansion handling which was fixed in KS 1.3)

So Toni I am right in saying that in autoboot disable mode (or game mode as GVP call it on the HD+8 & using gvpscsi.device of course), csascsi.device will not be loaded, hence it's needed in the expansion drawer.
Thanks

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by TheCorfiot

So Toni I am right in saying that in autoboot disable mode (or game mode as GVP call it on the HD+8 & using gvpscsi.device of course), csascsi.device will not be loaded, hence it's needed in the expansion drawer.
Thanks

Yes, ROM containing the driver (needed for autoboot/mount) is disabled in this mode.

[chiark]

So the real question is does it unload... Every time I've tried it, the autoboot was enabled - actually, it's not autoboot or not, it's whether the SCSI is on at all or not!

The controller goes through a long (20 seconds or so) search of the bus, and there's diagnostic lights on the card showing what's happening. No labels though! If it's switched off, it doesn't do anything at all on the SCSI bus, no searching, no initialisation.

If the SCSI is on and it doesn't find a disk, it does leave a light illuminated on the SCSI diagnostic LED.

So... Is csascsi.device in memory if the controller is on but finds no disks to boot from?
"Possibly" is the only answer I can give at the moment. I'm erring on the side of "probably not". More testing tonight.

I wonder if it's loaded if it finds a valid disk (with a good cable, that was somewhat a problem too) with no Amiga partitions.

I'm intrigued now

Whatever, I'll scan the manual and upload the disk to BBOAH and amiga.resource.cx.

[chiark]

OK, update...

If I plug in a known working disk from another controller with SCSI switched on. No booting. HDToolbox doesn't work - "driver not found".

If I put csascsi.device in the same directory as HDToolBox then run it, the disk is found. If I do nothing and don't save changes then reboot, no autoboot.

If I do update, it boots.

What's it writing to where to allow it to boot on this controller?

[TheCorfiot]

Save changes, will update or in the case of a newly prepped disk write the RDB to the Hardisk, apart from partition info being stored here it also stores whether the Partition is Bootable or not & the Boot priority.
make sure you only set 1 partition as Bootable.

Therefore you NEED to save changes to the HD, once Partitioned & you are happy with it.

Glad putting the csascsi.device on the floppy solved the HDToolbox issue.

Sounds like job done to me.

[chiark]

That's the strange thing, Corfiot... The partition was already bootable, and indeed it HDToolbox showed this. I tried just loading HDToolbox and it picked up all the partitions on the disk, and elected not to update the disk. No boot. The only thing that I think changes is whether the disk is the last LUN or not...

I've taken disks from a GVP device and plugged it into an internal controller on the 3000, for example, and not had to do anything.

I took a disk from an old machine, put it on a 2091 card, and it booted. The same disk won't boot on the CSA until you save changes, even though none have been made.

I guess I'm just trying to work out what is being written to the disk! There's no entry in the RDB for a device driver (and that doesn't make sense, either - the driver would be needed to read the RDB), so what exactly is changing?!??

One of the advantages of the RDB is you can take disks from one controller and put it onto another one... unless it's a CSA device.

Thinking about this, I used to take disks from my 2000 to the warpengine, and the warpengine software was written by the same guy!

Job is indeed done and I know what to do for the future, but what's bothering me is *why*?

[TheCorfiot]

It's One of those things I think that If you know how to, the Why is annoying but......It will come to you one day.

The Device driver I know is loaded from the ROM during the KS startup, which is why some older A2091 ROM versions don't work with KS3.1.
As far as I am aware it is not part of the RDB
As long as you have a reliable way of Booting it, thats most important.

On HDToolBox to force the save changes box to become active, Update a Parameter such as the partition name but obviously leave it the same.

All the Best