Using a SCSI2SD V6 board...

britlord

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Hi.All.. I've just received a SCSI2SD V6 board (To use in my A2000) But I have notice that there's no SCSI ID jumper header on the board.. Will that be a problem getting it to work, as I like the idea of using a mini SD card to use as a hard-drive (No noise). I have already partitioned, and installed ClassicWB onto the card (in Winuae), so it's ready to go (32GB)...

If anyone has any info using this board in an Amiga. Please let me know..

Thanks..
 

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Also note that the firmware just left beta for the v6 boards, with an update on Aug 14 that fixes some pretty severe problems. You'll want to make sure to update the firmware to the latest. I had a bit of an issue doing this, and had to force the board into update mode with a shunt on BOOTLDR. I also couldn't get my Mac to update the firmware using the utility, and had to resort to DfuSe on Windows. Good luck.
 
I checked the Wiki and it doesn't say if this neat device will work ok with CMD HD drives or good ole' Windows 95/98 PCs with Adaptec AHA-2940 SCSI controllers.
 
Also note that the firmware just left beta for the v6 boards, with an update on Aug 14 that fixes some pretty severe problems. You'll want to make sure to update the firmware to the latest. I had a bit of an issue doing this, and had to force the board into update mode with a shunt on BOOTLDR. I also couldn't get my Mac to update the firmware using the utility, and had to resort to DfuSe on Windows. Good luck.[/QUOTE

Ok. But how do I update the firmware, as I do have STMicroelectronics DfuSe for windows (What is needed)

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I checked the Wiki and it doesn't say if this neat device will work ok with CMD HD drives or good ole' Windows 95/98 PCs with Adaptec AHA-2940 SCSI controllers.


Its going on a Oktagon 2008...
 
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I went through a bit of pain getting mine set up in my 2000. Michael, the creator of the SCSI2SD was a huge help. This was the advice that he gave to me:

"Try 15 heads, 63 blocks per cylinder (I think this is the same as 'sectors per track) and 8876 cylinders. This is a little less than 4gb, and the sector count in scsi2sd-util should be updated to match (15 * 63 * 8876).There is an option in scsi2sd-util to save the config to an XML file. This file has additional settings for heads and sectors per track which aren't in the gui. You can change the defaults (15, 63) then load the XML file back into scsi2sd-util and save to the device."

That worked once I downgraded from a 16G SD card to a 4G SD card.

Edit: I see that he has made some fixes to the "SD
card compatibility issues", maybe it will handle a 16G card now.

- - - Updated - - -

As for updating the firmware:

http://www.codesrc.com/files/scsi2sd/latest/

No special hardware is needed, just a USB cable if I recall correctly.
 
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CAREFUL! Rootboy linked to files for version 5 of the board. You have a version 6, so don't use that firmware!

As far as updating the firmware, it depends on what firmware came with your card. If you have one of the early betas, you'll probably need to use DfuSe.

The files for v6 boards are here:
http://www.codesrc.com/files/scsi2sd-v6/latest/

Load up the util6 for your OS, and then plug the card in with the USB cable. It should report what version of firmware. You can download the firmware.dfu file from the previous link and attempt to use the built-in updater from the util6 utility to upgrade. If it fails, let me know and we can work through the manual update using DfuSe.
 
I went through a bit of pain getting mine set up in my 2000. Michael, the creator of the SCSI2SD was a huge help. This was the advice that he gave to me:

"Try 15 heads, 63 blocks per cylinder (I think this is the same as 'sectors per track) and 8876 cylinders. This is a little less than 4gb, and the sector count in scsi2sd-util should be updated to match (15 * 63 * 8876).There is an option in scsi2sd-util to save the config to an XML file. This file has additional settings for heads and sectors per track which aren't in the gui. You can change the defaults (15, 63) then load the XML file back into scsi2sd-util and save to the device."

That worked once I downgraded from a 16G SD card to a 4G SD card.

Edit: I see that he has made some fixes to the "SD
card compatibility issues", maybe it will handle a 16G card now.

- - - Updated - - -

As for updating the firmware:

http://www.codesrc.com/files/scsi2sd/latest/

No special hardware is needed, just a USB cable if I recall correctly.

Ok Thanks so much. Though should I stay with the good old 33GB SCSI hard-drive..

Oh Do I need a programmer or not...
 
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Nope no need for a programmer, the SCSI2SD board has a micro usb port, so just connect it to your PC like you would a smartphone.
 
Guys my USB cable arrived, so do I just update the card and that's all to it IE: no settings to change. You see I have a 32 scan disk card allready formatted...
 
I'm using the older version of the card, it may be different for you...

But you should be able to connect it via the USB cable and check to see if you have the latest firmware first. If you do need to update, then select that option instead.
 
Since I'm having trouble getting both a CF and slim CDROM drive working on the A4000 IDE I'm considering this (connected to my CS PPC) as a HDD/CF replacement. But I have some questions. I am totally inexperienced regarding SCSI, so I have no clue how this differs from IDE in workings.

- I read somewhere these things didn't work with the Cyberstorm UWSCSI. However the SCSI2SD claims it does work. Can anyone confirm this indeed works?
- Will I be able to boot from it?
- What exact SCSI adapter and other cables would I need between the CS PPC and SCSI2SD?
- What is the distance between the screw holes on the SD slot side? Is it an industry standard distance and will it be the same as the one in the image I attached? Meaning I can mount it to the same bracket?
- Where can I buy this in Europe?

Thanks!!
 

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I'd like to buy one for my old Win98SE PC (which is equipped with an AHA-2940) but I would like the decision to be informed.

I can assure you it will work fine. I've got a similar set-up myself. You can buy it from our store at http://store.inertialcomputing.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=SCSI2SD-V6.02 , and it will ship from California, instead of Australia. Over the past year, I have sold over a thousand SCSI2SD v5's on eBay and via our web store. I'll be at AmiWest this weekend, but if you order one soon, I should be able to get it out in the mail to you ASAP. It will also include the latest firmware, 6.0.13, which was released yesterday.

- - - Updated - - -

Since I'm having trouble getting both a CF and slim CDROM drive working on the A4000 IDE I'm considering this (connected to my CS PPC) as a HDD/CF replacement. But I have some questions. I am totally inexperienced regarding SCSI, so I have no clue how this differs from IDE in workings.

- I read somewhere these things didn't work with the Cyberstorm UWSCSI. However the SCSI2SD claims it does work. Can anyone confirm this indeed works?
- Will I be able to boot from it?

Yes it should work fine, and you should be able to boot from it. Since the SCSI2SD is firmware updatable, there was likely a period of time, in the past,when it didn't work with the Cyberstorm. Firmware for SCSI2SD v5 has been at version 4.6 since January of this year, and is very stable.

- What exact SCSI adapter and other cables would I need between the CS PPC and SCSI2SD?

You need an IDC50F to HD68F adapter, and these are available as an option at the Inertial Computing Store.

- What is the distance between the screw holes on the SD slot side? Is it an industry standard distance and will it be the same as the one in the image I attached? Meaning I can mount it to the same bracket?

It's not industry standard, but you really only need one screw to hold it in place securely, along with some insulating material between the board and whatever it's screwed to, or some stand-offs. Cardboard works, foam-type double-stick tape works, and there are 3D printed brackets available as well.

- Where can I buy this in Europe?

In Europe, you can only buy the V5 boards from AmigaKit. The V6 boards are currently only available for sale from Inertial Computing in the USA, and CodeSrc/Michael McMaster directly (Australia). For CSPPC, I strongly recommend you use V6, since you will be able to benefit from the performance improvements of the new V6 architecture.
 
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(in answer to my question related to Win98SE and AHA-2940)

I can assure you it will work fine. I've got a similar set-up myself. You can buy it from our store at http://store.inertialcomputing.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=SCSI2SD-V6.02 , and it will ship from California, instead of Australia. Over the past year, I have sold over a thousand SCSI2SD v5's on eBay and via our web store. I'll be at AmiWest this weekend, but if you order one soon, I should be able to get it out in the mail to you ASAP. It will also include the latest firmware, 6.0.13, which was released yesterday.
Hey thanks!

I will probably use this product to extend the life of my old Voodoo4 PC.
 
SCSI2SD v6 success...

SCSI2SD v6 success...

Finally got mine to work, mostly. I have a Sandisk 16MB Extreme Plus in it right now, with a small WB partition (310 MB), a large Work partition (1.9 GB), and a 1.9 GB non-partitioned area on the "backside" of the card I had to leave unformatted, as any time I try to set a partition to the end of the virtual disk, I can never format it, it always refuses to format and displays the "not a Dos disk" message. Speed and access times are really good for what is working, 2,200,000 - 2,300,000 average.

In use with A2091 with 14mHz physical hack (jumper wire; no patched software), with C= 7.0 ROM's, 2MB 60ns RAM on board. Board is single device on the chain, native passive termination on the 2091 (resistor packs), V6 is set to device 0, SCSI termination on, 4GB volume size, and SCSI2 option enabled in options.

Realize this is after wrestling with another set of cards that "should" have worked, the ones Alex sent with the cards I purchased, also SanDisk , just one speed grade below what I am using now.

Here is the weird thing. When Alex from Inertial sent the boards (I have two), they worked initially, but as I started running into problems and reformatting, they got worse and worse about not reading drive geometry and not retaining whatever I attempted to write to the virtual disk (RDB info).

It is as though minimal fiddling = greater success? Did I somehow overwrite a low-level formatting required to allow the cards to work? I know SD cards have the (invisible to the average user) security partition. Is it possible Michaels v6 board overwrites that area with the virtual volume infomation, as it is the last two blocks of the card space, and that that space is more critical to the card operation than just security protocols? Just spit balling here...

A more basic possibility that there is an issue with the Amiga side (HD Toolbox) overwriting something critical where Michael stores the volume parameters on the card, or the reverse, that the location on the SD card where the volume info is stored somehow prevents the Amiga side software from being able to write to the card.

The logic seems to fit if I cannot partition the "last" segment of any given virtual volume, as though that area has to remain off limits for the v6 to use.

Would love thoughts from the group.

Mac
 
(in answer to my question related to Win98SE and AHA-2940)

I can assure you it will work fine. I've got a similar set-up myself. You can buy it from our store at http://store.inertialcomputing.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=SCSI2SD-V6.02 , and it will ship from California, instead of Australia. Over the past year, I have sold over a thousand SCSI2SD v5's on eBay and via our web store. I'll be at AmiWest this weekend, but if you order one soon, I should be able to get it out in the mail to you ASAP. It will also include the latest firmware, 6.0.13, which was released yesterday.
Hey thanks!

I will probably use this product to extend the life of my old Voodoo4 PC.

I recently purchased one of these V6 boards and am attempting to get it to work on a GVP G-Force 030. I also had an issue with it recognizing the parameters, which seemed to solve when I re-flashed the firmware to it. Not sure if the same will work for you :unsure:

My current issue is with read/write, block used twice, and unexpected status code errors. I actually managed to stabilize it for long enough to get Workbench 3.1 installed

My system is:
A2000 Rev 6 board
AF Classic Support Workbench 3.1
Kickstart 3.X (build 45.064)
GVP G-Force 030 @25mhz + 5MB RAM (Flashed with 4.15 ROM)
SCSI2SD V6, latest firmware
SanDisk 16GB (Included with SCSI2SD)

Settings that have been most stable:

Enable SCSI terminator: ON
Startup Delay: 0
SCSI Selection Delay: 0
Enable Parity: ON
Enable Unit Attention: OFF
Enable SCSI2 Mode: ON
Enable Disk Cache: OFF
Enable SCSI Disconnect: ON
Respond to short SCSI selection pulses: ON
Map LUNS to SCSI IDs: ON

Device 1 - 1GB FFS 45.15 (supposed to support larger drives now; played it safe with 4GB or less)
Device 2 - 4GB FFS 45.15
Device 3 - 4GB FFS 45.15
Device 4 - 4GB FFS 45.15


I did not fill entire SD card as formatted size would be 14.something GB and I am unsure how the utility performs it's math.
 
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