A600 woes: internal IDE controller

Hi all,

I'm having some strange issues with 2 A600s I have - it's driving me batty
Anyway, both machines are A600s with 2.05 (37.300) ROMs and neither machine will accept an internal hard drive at all, the PCMCIA slot does work (my Archos OverDrive boots on both machines if I plug it in)

I've tried:
a 40MB Connor hard drive (it was the original drive I had in an A600HD)
a 4GB CF Card on IDE->CF adapter
a 1GB Seagate hard drive (took it out one of my A1200s, known working)

All of the above work fine in my 2 A1200s but not in either of my A600s

Ideas on a postcard please?

Thanks
woody.cool

"Kickstart 2.05 revision 37.300 - This 2.05 kickstart rom was included in most of the A600's produced. It has full support for the PCMCIA slot so can be used with PCMCIA upgraded. It was also the first revision with support for the internal IDE HD port. However this revision of the ROM only allows an HD up to 40MB in size which is quite restrictive. If you wish to use a larger HD with the A600 you will need to upgrade to the 37.350 revision of the 2.05 kickstart rom or the later 3.1 kickstart rom. Some people have reported that they can use larger HDD with a 37.300 rom by making the first system partition 40MB, and then any further partitions any size up to 2GB each, but this hasn't worked when we tried it with that rom revision."

http://wiki.classicamiga.com/A600_Upgrade_Options

I think like me on one of my A600s it would not really let me use any HD, so I stuck a 3.1 ROM in it and happy days.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BrooksterMax

"Kickstart 2.05 revision 37.300 - This 2.05 kickstart rom was included in most of the A600's produced. It has full support for the PCMCIA slot so can be used with PCMCIA upgraded. It was also the first revision with support for the internal IDE HD port. However this revision of the ROM only allows an HD up to 40MB in size which is quite restrictive. If you wish to use a larger HD with the A600 you will need to upgrade to the 37.350 revision of the 2.05 kickstart rom or the later 3.1 kickstart rom. Some people have reported that they can use larger HDD with a 37.300 rom by making the first system partition 40MB, and then any further partitions any size up to 2GB each, but this hasn't worked when we tried it with that rom revision."

http://wiki.classicamiga.com/A600_Upgrade_Options

I think like me on one of my A600s it would not really let me use any HD, so I stuck a 3.1 ROM in it and happy days.

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I have successfully used hard drives bigger that 40MB on the internal IDE with 37.300 - one of the drives I'm trying is only 40MB (it's an original from an A600HD anyway) - I may see if I can get a 3.1 ROM anyway at some point, but don't want to waste the money on a ROM if I'm not going to be able to do what I want with it.

Its hit and miss I think with that ROM revision which is maybe why you have had luck before.

Perhaps you can get a Kickstart 2.05 revision 37.350 cheap from someone that has upgraded rather than going all out for a 3.1

I experienced the same thing many time with 37.300 ROMS.
Tbh every HD you setup in 3.1 looks like NDOS in 37.300 and vice versa which kinda sux.

Get some 37.350 or 3.1 ROMS and be done with man.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mfilos

Tbh every HD you setup in 3.1 looks like NDOS in 37.300 and vice versa which kinda sux.

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That's not the symptoms I'm having.

I should have elaborated a bit more - any Hard Drive tools (such as HDToolbox or HDInstTools) do not even detect the device on the end of the cable.

I successfully used several 4 and 8gb CF and SD cards on my 37.300 a600, but like mentioned above I've also read that this revision can cause troubles with certain drives.

Have you checked that the IDE cable works on the a1200?
Did you make sure that HDToolbox and HDInstTools are scanning scsi.device and not something else?
Otherwise I don't know. Strange that you would have same symptoms with all those drives on two different machines...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by frodegh

Have you checked that the IDE cable works on the a1200?

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Yes, obviously my original post was not clear on this, I tried drive & cable in my A1200 and had not problems, but when tried in both A600s, drive not detected.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by frodegh

Did you make sure that HDToolbox and HDInstTools are scanning scsi.device and not something else?

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Double checked and triple checked - definitely scanning scsi.device

Quote:

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Originally Posted by frodegh

Otherwise I don't know. Strange that you would have same symptoms with all those drives on two different machines...

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Yes, I'm proper confused here tbh, I have no idea why this don't work.

Do the HDs actually spin-up?

@woody

Sounds to me like you need a TC Dual KS 3.1 / 1.3 switched kickrom adapter ;)

TC :whistle: