Falcon 030 HD mounting problems

[J4n1X]

Hello,
I am quite new to the Atari Scene, having received my Falcon just a week ago. It has a IDE hard disk, and I really want to use it to install some Programs like Papyrus and other productivity programs(because why not?). Sadly, the computer came without ANY floppy disks, I had to use some of my own.

Now, whenever I start it up, it just boots into regular TOS and doesn't show anything except the floppy drives. I have managed to access and read/write to the disk with ICD Pro loaded from a floppy disk, but when I tried to install it to the hard disk itself, it never managed to load itself successfully.


I have already tried a ton of things:

-I repartitioned the disk and tried to install ICD Pro to it --> Repartitioning went fine, but after copying the driver to the disk, it didn't work

-I tried to install AHDI from the Falcons Language Disk --> Shows SCSI ID 0,0 not responding, but hard disk seems to be ID 16,0, no disks show up

-I tried Cecile --> Freezes when I try to interact with the disk, but shows them when I load the driver from floppy(haven't attempted to read/write to the disks)

-Finally, I tried to install the HDDriver demo, repartitioned again and tried to install it --> Same as ICD Pro

It really is important to note that the disk already had some files on it, and that it worked like a charm, but just never mounted itself.
I opened up the Falcon a few times already and I did check if the hard drive was set to slave, which it wasn't, but just below the hard disk(on the board) there were a few pins with a jumper. I searched what these would do, but didn't find anything.
A thing I noticed as well was that it had a full 10 MB ram board, maximizing the memory of the Falcon.
I may add that I am a 15 year old boy with a HUGE interest for old technology, but I am sadly lacking the experience a task like this needs.


I am more than happy to join a community of people with simular interests as me, although I am not as experienced as you are.
Hope you are having a great day.

[tommo]

I have no solution, but maybe this is useful anyway.

To be sure if the falcon sees the ide as master or slave
you can used HDDUTIL.APP of the hddriver demo you have.

(tools>device check)
bus1: atari scsi
bus2: atari ide
0.0: (master) your hd should be here
1.0: (slave)

Looking on youtube 'atari falcon booting'
and compare it with your falcon booting is usualy helpfull.

Old harddisks take time to get ready.
After the logo there is a memorie test and then a delay.
Both delay and memorie can be deactivated for faster bootup.

In case of a slow harddisk deactivating them is not helping,
the harddisk is not seen because it is not ready yet.


Good luck with your old tech

edit:

Now, whenever I start it up, it just boots into regular TOS and doesn't show anything except the floppy drives.

after succesfully install of a driver , reboot and seeing the desktop
you still see just the 2 floppys until you do this
(option>instal devices)
then the c-drive that is present will be seen.

but you already know it is installed because the text message it displays after the memorie-test & delay.

[J4n1X]

Ok, first, thank you for your help
I have used the Device Check and this is what it returns:

Bus 1: Atari SCSI
7.0: USEIMET HDDRIVER 1015 Processor
Bus 2: Atari IDE
0.0: TOSHIBA MK2224FCC V1.0 Direct Access

So judging from what you have written, I think this one is fine.

Comparing my boot to the ones in the internet, the only thing I have noticed only one thing: After completing the memory test, my falcon just stays at that screen for a while, seemingly doing nothing, before it just goes to TOS. Also answering the thing with the "Install Devices" option: I have done that but nothing shows up, most likely because the driver is not loading from the Hard Disk.

I don't think the drive is not ready when it needs to be; I can hear it beeing accessed for a split second before doing nothing.
But still, I thank you very much for your help, tommo

[wongck]

look at this, something i wrote few months back
You will need hddriver but will give you an idea even for other drivers
viewtopic.php?f=27&t=18790&#p161599

[wongck]

Comparing my boot to the ones in the internet, the only thing I have noticed only one thing: After completing the memory test, my falcon just stays at that screen for a while, seemingly doing nothing, before it just goes to TOS. Also answering the thing with the "Install Devices" option: I have done that but nothing shows up, most likely because the driver is not loading from the Hard Disk.

If you are using HDDriver and you sure it is installed on C drive, then most like IDE bus is not enumerated.

You will need to run hddriver.prg from the floppy, as you will need to access your C drive.
Then run hddrutil, (make sure both prg are on your floppy)
Select the hddriver.sys on your C drive from the "FILE > Locate hddriver" menu.
Go to menu "Settings>Devices and partition".
Then in the dialog, select all ( button pressed in) for bus 2 (ide bus).
it should auto save, otherwise save it.

I am typing from memory so some steps may be missing.

[J4n1X]

Hey Guys,
Thank you so much for your help, but sadly the computer still refuses to show the drive. I will probably discard this drive and change it for an cf or sd card adapter, as I think the drive is just nearing its death.
Still, thank you very much for the help

[Latz]

Hi,

don´t give up so fast!
Drive (Toshiba) is displayed in HDdrutil, right?
If you click on "Install HDdriver", the available drives/partitions should be shown. Select drive C:, click OK, quit hddrutil.
Remove the floppy and reboot, there should be a bootmessage of HDDriver.
On the desktop, in menu "Options", select "Install devices". Now icon for harddisc drives should show up. Save desktop settings then.

Lars

[calimero]

You can try with Petari harddisc driver. It is quite affordable ... http://www.8bitchip.info/atari/pphdr.php

[J4n1X]

Hey Guys,

I really tried the things with HDdriver, but that stuff still won't work. There never is a bootmessage and even after selecting "Install Devices" it won't show up, which is logical I guess, since the Driver is never loaded. I have no idea what the problem is. Well, I think the next thing I will have to consider is the hardware, maybe I have to set some jumpers or something else. If you know what I could do in this case, could you please tell me? I thank you in advance.

Have a nice day,
J4

[neanderthal]

Well,by the sound of it the disk should work.Pretty much the only thing that can be set wrongly hardware wise is master/slave or cable not mounted properly,however then one seldom sees the drive or can access it at all.
Could of course be some real odd bad sectors but those should normally pop up when preparing the disk.
Alternately could be stuck ALT-key,one can actually bypass hard-disk boot with that on Falcon.

Main thing tho,the driver has to be installed specifically with installer program.Just copying the files wont do the trick.
Like in old basic AHDI(Hddriver might be a bit complex with all its options) ,get driver into memory,boot with disk or run AHDI.PRG.
Run HINSTALL.PRG in HINSTALL folder,,File->install,select C and then OK should do the trick and put a file called SHDRIVER.SYS on C...But it is of course a old disk so might be getting wonky.Dont know how Toshibas are,my old Conner is gone years ago.