IDE detected as SCSI? It Works! But Why??

[neofree]

I have an Amiga 1200 in a Power Tower. Although I have accelerators standing by, right now this is a plain A1200 with 2megs of standard RAM and 3.1 ROMs, and only an IDE HD and CD-RW drive that were taken out of a PC...

When I (FINALLY!!) got some WB3.1 disks today, I booted up HDToolbox and it said it two SCSI devices, and no XT devices. So I went ahead and low level formatted and did a verify with success! And then even formatted the two partitions successfully and am about to install Workbench 3.1...

I just realized that I could have clicked New Type under IDE and put the cyls/heads/etc and had it use my entire hard drive, where as SCSI, it only used 1.2 gigs of the 10gigs that is actually there. Instead of reformatting, I'm going to install 3.1 as is for now, as my only goal is to get into OS3.9 CD and make a 3.9 emergency disk and start all over again...

But WHY?

Why did it format as SCSI?
Why didn't it detect the IDE devices automatically?
Why did it detect the SCSI drive as only 1.2gigs?

Baffling...

Thanks,

Neofree

[adolescent]

The IDE in the A1200/A4000 is called SCSI.DEVICE for backwards compatibility. It's not really SCSI.

BTW, you should never low level format an IDE device. It's not needed and you can cause problems with the drive.

[B00tDisk]

I have no concrete answer to your question, but this brings back a memory of my first HD: a 60-megger in my A1200 back about...oh, fourteen years or so ago (would that timeline be right for the A1200?...anyway...)

The drive came bare, and I had no HD prep tools (my 1200 didn't come with any; I'm not sure if 3.0 did at all). Anyway, as this was my first big step out with an HD I invited friend Matt over to assist. As we were walking through the various steps, I said "Hey, it's listing my (IDE 2.5") hard drive as SCSI! Did I do something wrong?"
Matt's reply was "No, that's normal. Just keep going."

I think we were too busy playing Scorched Tanks after the install for me to raise the question...

[neofree]

Interesting, so will the HDToolBox on the 3.9 CD automatically detect my HD? Or am I going to have to look up the Cyl/Hds/etc?

Thanks,

Neofree

[adolescent]

It should detect it properly. I have a 40GB and it worked.

BTW, you will need a CD-ROM driver (ie. IDEFix) to get the CD-ROM working with OS3.1. You can download it from Aminet.

[Trev]

Never low-level format an IDE drive? So when a sector goes bad, we should just forget about the drive's spare sectors? ;-) Granted, you should use a tool provided by the drive vendor, but still. . . . If it weren't for low-level formatting, most laptop users would be replacing their drives once or twice a year. Or maybe they are. :-(

Trev

[Dandy]

...
BTW, you should never low level format an IDE device. It's not needed and you can cause problems with the drive.
What kind of problems should that be?
:-?
I already "lowlevelled" so many IDE hardrives in my life and never experienced any problem...

[Dandy]

...
BTW, you should never low level format an IDE device. It's not needed and you can cause problems with the drive.
What kind of problems should that be?
:-?
I already "lowlevelled" so many IDE hardrives in my life and never experienced any problem...

[Gopal]

Some drives low level format the area were the information about it is stored.
That might be the reason your drive shows up as only 1,2 gb.
You could try a low level format again, and this time get a new size (even more than original size is possible, but you'll get a horrible situation when your drive fills up).
Do not low level format drives, unless the tool+hd officially support each other.

[Piru]

You people who claim to have low level formatted an IDE HDD... You haven't. If you did, the HDD would be useless by now.

What you have done is to write the whole disk full of certain pattern (zero most probably). And no, it doesn't really fix anything (just force the drive to work around the failing areas, IDE drives do that automagically. It works to a point, but always gets slower and slower due to remapping).

You cannot low level format modern HDD.

[neofree]

Well the HD survived the low level format anyway... It's not like other low level formats I've seen, because it only took a few seconds to complete. When I did the verify drive option though that took awhile...

It seems the reason why it was 1.2gig is because it just happened to have a Seagate STXXXXX hard drive already listed in there, perhaps just a default drive.

I don't think there is any issue now with the HD, but I still can't get it to see my CD-ROM drive. I downloaded IDE-fix and when I do a scan it sees the HD (as SCSI), but doesn't see any ATAPI devices. I've got it slaved to the HD. I've tried another drive and cable.. They are both connected to a 2.5<->3.5" IDE adaptor connected directly to the A1200 Motherboard (it's not a buffered IDE). I've been told by more then one person that I should be able to run both HD and CD-ROM without getting a buffered IDE, but what could be wrong?

Thanks,

Neofree

[pjhutch]

Check the IDE jumpers, HD should be set as master and CDROM as slave. HDToolbox ignores non-HD IDE devices anyway.
You then need to configure the CDROM software ie CD0 DosDriver to point to atapi.device (or whatever the device name is) and the Unit number and it should mount any CD in drive.

[neofree]

Wasnt trying to get HDToolBox to see the CD-ROM, but rather IDE-Fix.. It has a menu to choose which devices, and a Scan button to scan for devices.

[bloodline]

It's not like other low level formats I've seen, because it only took a few seconds to complete

That's because the drive just ignored your request, like all modern IDE drives do.

[Framiga]

Check your CD0 icon in Devs:DosDrivers/

it should be like this:

/************************************************** ******/
/* CacheCDFS mountlist entry © 1993 Elaborate Bytes, O. Kastl */
/************************************************** ******/
FileSystem = L:CacheCDFS /* The name of the game */
Device = "atapi.device" /* Name of ........ */
Unit = 1 /* exec device unit */

etc, etc

with the CDROM jumpered as SLAVE (ID1)

and the HD as MASTER (ID0)

IIRC the IdeFix97 installer "would" have had installed all the required files, onto your system.

[adolescent]

Also make sure IDEFix is executed by the startup-sequence. It should be at or near the top of the file.

[Trev]

You people who claim to have low level formatted an IDE HDD... You haven't. If you did, the HDD would be useless by now.

Well, then we'll call it something else. Not all drives automagically allocate spare sectors.

Trev

[Daedalus]

neofree wrote:
Wasnt trying to get HDToolBox to see the CD-ROM, but rather IDE-Fix.. It has a menu to choose which devices, and a Scan button to scan for devices.
Yes, this should indeed have listed your CD-ROM drive as unit 1, even if you haven't installed the CD-ROM drivers. You have a really long cable? Is it a 2.5" or 3.5" hard drive? A number of 2.5" drives don't support Slave, and 3.5" drives sometimes need different jumpering depending on whether there's a slave on the cable or not. If you create a Workbench floppy with Ide-Fix installed on it, try putting the CD-ROM as master by itself on the cable, boot from the floppy and then see if it recoognises it...

[neofree]

I took out my PC a standard 3.5" IDE cable you get with PC's, that was hooked with the same HD and same CD-ROM drive in the same configuration in the PC. It worked fine in the PC, with the HD as master, and CD-ROM as slave. I plugged that cable into the 3.5"<->2.5" IDE adaptor I got from eBay and plugged it directly into the A1200 motherboard...

[Daedalus]

Hmmm... Then I recommend trying the suggestion with the boot floppy and only the CD-ROM attaches as a master. This will tell us if it's a power or signalling problem, as most Amigas are prone to problems like this.

[neofree]

Will do! Thanks!

[doctorq]

@neofree

If you execute FindCD from the archive, without having the device drivers installed in devs: then it will not find your CD drive. Write this in cli "copy (path were you unarced IDEfix, like ram:IDEfix)/devs/#?.device to devs:" and try to launch the FindCD programme once again. Hopefully now it will find your CD drive.

[neofree]

OK, I got IDEFix to work! So now HD and CD-ROM work just fine when booting from HD to 3.1...

I open the OS3.9 CD, create emergency disk.. with no problems.

it then boots from floppy gives a empty wb screen and says please insert disk for df0 in any drive... then u click cancel (retry doesnt work) and it boots like if it booted from the HD... try to start os3.9 install and it says must boot from emergency disk.

I've tried 3 disks, and same thing happens!

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Neofree