Shapeshifter / IDEFix questions

[scole]

Hello.

I finally got Shapeshifter running on my 1200, after installing BlizKick to kick 3.1 and run PrepareEmul from the BlizKick package. Running the PrepareEmul that came with shapeshifter was proving impossible. I had to master the dark art of the startup-sequence. Well, I say master, more like blindly copy what scant info I could find via google. Anyway, it works.

First question, can someone point me towards a nice and simple manual re editing startup sequence? Either online or as a publishig to track down? Frankly I'm in the chuffing dark with it, just about barely understanding enough to not break everything, but I'd be much happier learning what to do properly....

Second question, I have a internal CD drive and know IDEFix needs to be installed. I say know, more like what I've read tells me it won't work otherwise. Only, it does. I put a CD in and it reads it and the icon pops up in Workbench. I'm putting two and two together and concluding that it needs IDEFix to initialise the drive properly? Well, I install IDEFix from floppy fine, get the instruction pop up that I have to enter "IDEFix" in startup-sequence blah blah blah, but when I do it all goes tits up. Which leads me back to question 1 and a desire to understand how startup-sequence actually works and needs input inputted.

Third question, back to shapeshifter. I have formatted a nice and large 800MB partition as Mac, now I want to install OS7 on it. I pop in the OS7 CD, nowt happens. Is this to do with question 2 and IDEFix not being installed properly?

Pfft. There have been a few "throw the Amiga down the stairs any second now" style rages off of all of this...

:-D

S

 

[Kin Hell]

Toys out of the pram eh m8?

Frustrations aside, I wish I was a bit more clued up to help you. If you had SCSI, it would be a Breeze.

Kin

 

[scole]

Toys out of the pram eh m8?

Frustrations aside, I wish I was a bit more clued up to help you. If you had SCSI, it would be a Breeze.

Kin

Toys out the pram indeed. I have a terribly short fuse when it comes to computering...

What I really need to find is a book titled something like "Tw*ts Guide to Amiga". unfortunately, all written sources I've found seem to assume that the reader actually knows what he's doing, which clearly I don't!

S

 

[Kin Hell]

Despite that fact Steve, It should still be fun doing whilst trying to do it. Pee Cee's frustrate me more than Classic Amiga's tbh. Amiga's are far more Logical, probably due to a more Logical AmigaDOS environment than that of DO$. Then with the Atari, there was TOS & well, the name says it all. Ask rkauer! :twisted:

I've used IDEFix on an Amiga in the past & tbh, had a toys out of the pram event myself. issed:
I could never see any device on the second header because it needed the IDEFix software installing, & then when it was installed, the frickin' thing wouldn't boot from the bloody hard drive??

RE your issue here though, all I could say is be sure you are using the Primary Header when connecting your Hard drive. Also make sure the Hard drive is set to Master & if you need a CD drive, chuck that on the Primary header too, but set the CD drive as a Slave. Obviously, you'll need a long enough 40 way IDE cable with 2 x IDC headers on it to get from the IDEFix gizmo to the Hard Drive bay & then upto the CDROM bay. You could always do it with the devices on the desk at the side of the tower just to see if it works for you.

Once I'd switched to SCSI, all was great but for the 30 second delay in Boot time, whilst the Amiga sat there waiting for an IDE device which wasn't even there. To get rid of this, I chucked a 1GB IDE hard drive on the IDE header & just used it as a Back up partition for Drivers & the installed Boot Partitions.

All the best fella,

Charlie

 

[AndyLandy]

So, what does IDEFix actually do? Can't you plug a master and slave device on to the normal A1200 IDE header?

 

[Kin Hell]

@ AndyLandy

IDEFix H/W gives you 2 x IDE headers in 40 pin array & a single 44 pin header too. Despite this, you can only use either Both 40 Pin Headers or 1 x 44 pin header & 1 x 40 pin header.

IDEFix is a proper Kludge tbh.

Trying to put 2 x 44 pin devices on an Amiga is like trying to put a size 8 boot on a size 10 foot. Cables are restricted to approximately 10" in length & finding 44way ribbon & the headers is difficult enough anyway. Okay for say HD & CF inside a desktop 1200, but in a Tower...forget it.

Kin