Author Topic: GVP HD8+, HDToolBox, SCSI to IDE adapter (Read 3934 times)

sim085 · « **on:** June 17, 2009, 05:06:33 PM »

Hi again,

I started a new thread about my problems on connecting a CF card because at this moment all I am trying to do is manage to understand if the SCSI to IDE adapter works fine.

What I did so far is reconnected the SCSI drive to my GVP HD8+. When I use the 'AutoBoot' option I boot in the Workbench installed on this drive. Here I load HDToolBox and the hard drive is recognised without any problem.

When I put the switch on 'Game' and load Workbench Installer from disk, I copy HDToolBox to RAM and change the SCSI_DEVICE_NAME to 'gvpscsi.device'. I start HDToolBox and the drive (SCSI) is not recognised at all, i.e. - every button is disabled.

Do I maybe need some GVP installation disk rather then HDToolBox? (I do not know, just trying to guess).

Regards,
Sim085

save2600 · « **Reply #1 on:** June 17, 2009, 05:22:33 PM »

I too have been having a helluva time trying to get a SCSI<>IDE adapter<>IDE<>CF adapter to work in my A2091. Same sort of problems as you, but I can get the drive to be recognised. Just when I go to format, I always get bad checksum errors. This and most of the time, the last partition will not be recognised - no matter how small it is.

And no, you should not need a GVP install disk for this, so long as you're changing HDtoolBox to gvpscsi.device.

Have you inserted the card into a PeeCee or Mac and formatted it as a FAT drive? Sometimes, with too much
monkeying around with it on the Amiga, I found that I needed to reformat the CF card to FAT before it would
be recognised by HDtoolBox.

Was this part of the thread where Mozzerfan gave you all sorts of great tips? Including the jumper settings on your card?

The SCSI<>IDE adapter I have NEEDS to be set to work as a SCSI unit, else it will not work at all. In other words, the way it is shipped is ATA or Ultra mode. That needs to be changed to either SCSI I or SCSI II. Both seem to perform as poorly in my system.

Good luck! Be nice if we can get this straightened out sometime this year! lol

zipper · « **Reply #2 on:** June 17, 2009, 05:25:08 PM »

Game switch seems to disable your HD in order to be able to boot a game from floppy disk.

sim085 · « **Reply #3 on:** June 17, 2009, 05:44:48 PM »

Quote from: save2600;511834

I too have been having a helluva time trying to get a SCSI<>IDE adapter<>IDE<>CF adapter to work in my A2091. Same sort of problems as you, but I can get the drive to be recognised. Just when I go to format, I always get bad checksum errors. This and most of the time, the last partition will not be recognised - no matter how small it is.

I did manage to install workbench on the CF card, however I had to format the CF card as FAT and I also had to change the MaxTransfer value.

Quote from: save2600;511834

Was this part of the thread where Mozzerfan gave you all sorts of great tips?

Yes, Mozzerfan did tell me somewhere that I needed to format the CF card as FAT. However I had some problems with Windows Vista where I first needed to format the CF card to FAT32 and then to FAT. Do not know why!

Quote from: save2600;511834

Including the jumper settings on your card?

The jumpers should be ok, although at the moment I connected directly an IDE drive (no longer the IDE -> CF adapter and CF card). However when I switch on the GVP and Amiga the Hard disk does not even start turning!

Quote from: save2600;511834

The SCSI<>IDE adapter I have NEEDS to be set to work as a SCSI unit, else it will not work at all. In other words, the way it is shipped is ATA or Ultra mode. That needs to be changed to either SCSI I or SCSI II. Both seem to perform as poorly in my system.

Mine has some jumper settings as well.

Quote from: save2600;511834

Good luck! Be nice if we can get this straightened out sometime this year! lol

Wish you all the best as well

sim085 · « **Reply #4 on:** June 17, 2009, 05:45:55 PM »

Quote from: zipper;511835

Game switch seems to disable your HD in order to be able to boot a game from floppy disk.

That makes sense to me

... after some time the GVP will try to load from disk. I do not have any idea if at that point the drive would be recognised since I do not have a formatted SCSI drive (all my SCSI drives have workbench on them).

sim085 · « **Reply #5 on:** June 17, 2009, 05:47:57 PM »

Quote from: sim085;511838

However when I switch on the GVP and Amiga the Hard disk does not even start turning!

Ok, this just came to my mind:

The IDE hard disk I connected to the SCSI -> IDE adapter was previously used as an external hard drive. This external hard drive needed a power supply on its own to make the hard disk work (i.e. USB power was not enough).

Is it possible that I need to give this hard disk some more power to start spinning? At the moment it is like dead!

save2600 · « **Reply #6 on:** June 17, 2009, 06:09:56 PM »

Ummm yeah. Power is good :-)

I just plugged the Max Transfer values from MozzerFan and Matt_H and all seems good for now. Am about to try the CF card in my USB outfitted A2500 to see if I still get checksum errors. Being able to move a CF-HD between the A1000 and A2500 is going to be great.

Oh - and speaking of power though... I also discovered that I had to supply power to the floppy like power input of the CF adapter, even though it's supposed to draw its power from the IDE connector. So: power to your HD, power to the CF adapter and power to the SCSI<>IDE adapter and you should be up and running!

sim085 · « **Reply #7 on:** June 17, 2009, 06:19:34 PM »

Quote from: save2600;511842

Ummm yeah. Power is good :-)
Oh - and speaking of power though... I also discovered that I had to supply power to the floppy like power input of the CF adapter, even though it's supposed to draw its power from the IDE connector. So: power to your HD, power to the CF adapter and power to the SCSI<>IDE adapter and you should be up and running!

I do not have the CF adapter connected anymore. My SCSI -> IDE adapter is connected directly to an IDE drive. However this IDE drive does not want to even start spinning when I turn everything on!! I was assuming that the power connected to the SCSI -> IDE card would be enough for the IDE drive as well (considering that in a PC it would only have one source of power)

save2600 · « **Reply #8 on:** June 17, 2009, 06:29:46 PM »

Sorry - my bad. Go ahead and connect a power lead to the HD itself though instead of relying on the hardcard/IDE adapter and see if you strike bonanza then.

sim085 · « **Reply #9 on:** June 17, 2009, 07:09:49 PM »

Ok, giving the IDE hard disk direct power makes it spin. On Autoboot obviously the GVP does not boot from disk because there is no workbench installed on this disk drive (or should it still do something?). After a while it loads the install workbench disk from floppy drive. However HDToolBox still does not find the IDE hard disk (everything disabled)

However this could be because of the same reason HDToolBox could not find the SCSI disk drive! or?

sim085 · « **Reply #10 on:** June 17, 2009, 11:55:31 PM »

At this point I am not even sure if I am connecting the SCSI -> IDE adapter card to the IDE hard drive correctly. The problem is that the card socket is labeled as follows

40 38 36 34 32 30 28 26 24 22 20 18 16 14 12 10 08 06 04 02
39 37 35 33 31 29 27 25 23 21 19 17 15 13 11 09 07 05 03 01

Which is different then how it is labeled here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT_Attachment under the Pin Out section (right). Additionally I do not have the 'male' connector part as displayed in that image, although I do have the two channels. These two channels are at the lower end of the above diagram (that is on the odd number side).

This made me assume (maybe wrongly) that I have to connect the male IDE socket on the IDE -> CF card in such a way that the channels would match. Doing so does not turn a light on, doing the other way round turns the light on the card on!!

I do not know if the my above explanation is any helpfull if wanted I can take pictures and put pointers (yes I am that desperate at this point).

At this point I am starting to think that the SCSI -> IDE card might have some problems

MozzerFan · « **Reply #11 on:** June 18, 2009, 12:39:25 AM »

Sim, like Save said, you need a molex power splitter.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Molex-5-25-Two-Power-Splitter/dp/B000ITL4KI

One lead goes to the SCSI-IDE, the other lead goes to the IDE harddisk.

sim085 · « **Reply #12 on:** June 18, 2009, 12:51:27 AM »

Quote from: MozzerFan;511913

Sim, like Save said, you need a molex power splitter.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Molex-5-25-Two-Power-Splitter/dp/B000ITL4KI

One lead goes to the SCSI-IDE, the other lead goes to the IDE harddisk.

I did a little McGyver trick; That is I used the power supply that comes with the external hard disk case. I did manage to get the hard disk spinning. However there is no way how HDToolBox can recognise the hard disk.

I tried connecting the SCSI -> IDE adapter card in all types of manner and to no avail.

What I am doing is set the GVP switch on to 'AutoBoot' option. Then after some time that nothing happens automatically Amiga boots from floppy (where I have the Install disk). I copy HDToolBox to RAM and change the required settings to gvpscsi.device. I double click on HDToolBox and all options are still disabled!

I do not know if when booting from floppy, GVP no longer allows access to the hard disk. I tried to use HDToolBox (by putting switch on 'Game') on a SCSI drive and this did not recognise it either, however if I boot from the SCSI drive (obviously in workbench) I do get the hard disk recognised by HDToolBox.

MozzerFan · « **Reply #13 on:** June 18, 2009, 12:59:18 AM »

Quote from: sim085;511914

I do not know if when booting from floppy, GVP no longer allows access to the hard disk. I tried to use HDToolBox (by putting switch on 'Game') on a SCSI drive and this did not recognise it either, however if I boot from the SCSI drive (obviously in workbench) I do get the hard disk recognised by HDToolBox.

You don't need to use the Game switch. Leave it in autoboot position.

There is a gvp installation disk. you can find it here:
http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/impact500mk2

sim085 · « **Reply #14 on:** June 18, 2009, 01:08:13 AM »

Quote from: MozzerFan;511916

You don't need to use the Game switch. Leave it in autoboot position.

That is what I am doing, but HDToolBox still does not recognise the IDE hard drive. I can not test with a SCSI hard drive because I do not have one which is empty.

Quote from: MozzerFan;511916

There is a gvp installation disk. you can find it here:
http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/impact500mk2

I have the original disk

hopefully it works. Jut one question, before I continue the IDE hard drive path (this is to know who to connect the IDE drive to the SCSI->IDE adapter) -

When I connected the IDE->CF card in a certain way I have a light turning on. I took this as meaning that I connected the two card correctly, since connecting them in the other way would not turn this light on. Is my assumption correct and therefore I can connect the IDE hard drive in the same way I connected the IDE-CF card?

(if you did not understand the above paragraph don't worry, I'll try it in both ways).

Author Topic: GVP HD8+, HDToolBox, SCSI to IDE adapter (Read 3934 times)

sim085

GVP HD8+, HDToolBox, SCSI to IDE adapter

save2600

Re: GVP HD8+, HDToolBox, SCSI to IDE adapter

zipper

Re: GVP HD8+, HDToolBox, SCSI to IDE adapter

sim085

Re: GVP HD8+, HDToolBox, SCSI to IDE adapter

sim085

Re: GVP HD8+, HDToolBox, SCSI to IDE adapter

sim085

Re: GVP HD8+, HDToolBox, SCSI to IDE adapter

save2600

Re: GVP HD8+, HDToolBox, SCSI to IDE adapter

sim085

Re: GVP HD8+, HDToolBox, SCSI to IDE adapter

save2600

Re: GVP HD8+, HDToolBox, SCSI to IDE adapter

sim085

Re: GVP HD8+, HDToolBox, SCSI to IDE adapter

sim085

Re: GVP HD8+, HDToolBox, SCSI to IDE adapter

MozzerFan

Re: GVP HD8+, HDToolBox, SCSI to IDE adapter

sim085

Re: GVP HD8+, HDToolBox, SCSI to IDE adapter

MozzerFan

Re: GVP HD8+, HDToolBox, SCSI to IDE adapter

sim085

Re: GVP HD8+, HDToolBox, SCSI to IDE adapter