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[A4000_Mad]

Hello,

My A4000 has stopped booting into HDD and I'm getting a yellow report that it has never displayed before:-


BSCALERT: PHASE ERROR ON SCSI BUS DETECTED!
PRESS LEFT MOUSE BUTTON TO CONTINUE.
PRESS RIGHT BUTTON TO RETRY.


The A4000 has been happily booting for months into a 9GB SCSI hard drive sitting on an Oktagon SCSI card. But now I either get the above report or:-

NO DISK PRESENT IN DDH0


Other info..........

CPU:
CSPPC 604e

Zorro boards:
Oktagon SCSI card
Cybervision 64/3D (with Phase 5 scandoubler)

ROMS:
3.0

Connected devices:
An Iomega SCSI Zip 100 is connected to the 25 pin rear socket of the Oktagon SCSI card.

Note:- It has always been the case that the Zip drive has to be connected and switched on for the A4000 to boot into the hard drive, otherwise I just get the insert disk prompt.

It will boot into a Workbench floppy disk but I do not get any icons for the hard drive partitions on screen.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated please?

Thanks,

[Bazzaq]

The csppc has scsi doesn't it???

have you tried removing the octagon and connecting the hd to the csppc? I guess your hd is 50 pin though and the ppc has a 68. you can get a convertor though.

It sounds to me like possibly the partition table is messed up, the rdb is it?

[Piru]

Messed up RDB doesn't produce SCSI phase errors.

But indeed, it's quite silly to use separate SCSI card when you have CSPPC. CSPPC SCSI controller is the fastest there is.

[keropi]

most likelly the HD is dead...
why do you use the OLD octagon scsi? get rid of it and use the csppc one... u can get 20+ mb/sec with the csppc...

[A4000_Mad]

@ Bazzaq

Thanks - You are correct that the PPC has SCSI and that my drive is 50 pin so would not connect to it without a converter. I believe the rdb (Rigid Disk Block) would also be called the partition table, but I'm hoping that this is not the problem.

@ Piru

Thanks - Data transfer speed has never bothered me to be honest :-) I have used an Ultra Wide SCSI 4GB HDD on the PPC, but I now use the Oktagon for the Zip drive and the larger 9GB HDD.

@ keropi

Thanks for the suggestions. I hope it isn't the HDD as there is a lot of great stuff in there :bigcry:

Excuse the poor quality of the pix but all appears well in 'Expansion Board Diagnostic'........



And the 'Boot Options'...



Thanks

[odin]

Backups! Backups! Backups! Backups! Backups! Backups!
</steve balmer> ;-)

[Framiga]

@A4000_Mad

try to replace the flat cable first (and check the PSU voltage also)

[Zac67]

Get a simple wide <-> narrow SCSI adapter (~2$) and move the disk to the CSPPC's SCSI. Remove the Oktagon.
Make sure your SCSI bus is correctly terminated (exactly two terminators at both ends).
Remove devices temporarily (adapt termination accordingly) to rule out failing devices.

[A4000_Mad]

Thanks moto Framiga Zac67 and again Bazzaq

A strip down and rebuild has got it working fine again. Must have just been a connection :cheers:

[motorollin]

Ahh, the old "strip-down and rebuild" :-) I've got UW SCSI devices on my MKIII (which has a 68 pin SCSI connector). I used 50 -> 68 way adapters so they connect to the 68 pin cable and it all works great. Might be an option if you want to get rid of the Oktagon.

--
moto

[A4000_Mad]

get rid of the Oktagon.

:boohoo: I love them Oktagons and have about 4 of them. With one of those and a 2GB Jaz drive you can easily set up or transfer data into any A4000 ;-)


I certainly agree that getting a larger capacity UW SCSI is a great idea. At the moment I only have one of 4GB capacity. I've previously used that together with the Zip on the rear socket of the Oktagon. Just need a 9GB or greater capacity UW SCSI hard drive to copy the contents of this one into