Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!cbmvax!andy
From: andy@cbmvax.UUCP (Andy Finkel)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: A590 Hard Drive Problem
Message-ID: <8395@cbmvax.UUCP>
Date: 2 Nov 89 19:12:42 GMT
References: <3139@nigel.udel.EDU>
Reply-To: andy@cbmvax.UUCP (Andy Finkel)
Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA
Lines: 68

In article <3139@nigel.udel.EDU> 2200ai@gmuvax2.gmu.edu writes:
>Is there anyone who can help me with a problem I'm having with the A590 hard drive?  When I try to run excellence! from MSS the system gurus when I do a save.
>I called MSS and they said that the A590 is the only piece of hardware they
>are not compatable with.  All the other amiga hard drives for the 500 they work
>with.  What is the A590 doing differently from the other amiga hard drives on 
>the market?
>
>I am running from a 500 with the A501 memory expansion board; kickstart 1.3;
>workbench 1.3.2 ver 34.28.  Excellence will not even run when booting off
>floppy.  I have begun to encounter several other programs which will not work
>properly either.  In all cases the system gurus with a CPU address error.
>When I disable the autoboot ROM's in the A590 I can boot off floppy and 
>everything is fine.

I've looked into this problem, and know the answer...

There are two problems here, one which you can solved easily, the other
will take some work.  Fortunately, solving either problem will allow
Execllence! to run.

Problem 1:  The FastFileSystem that your 590 is autobooting from 
	    is setting location 0 to GDOS.

            This causes programs that incorrectly reference location 0
	    (generally they seem to use location 0 as a pointer, or a 0)
	    to crash and burn.  
	    Excellence! seems to be one of the programs with the problem.

Solution to #1:  Boot from your A590 Install floppy.  Run HDtoolBox.
Go to the partition drive page.  Select Advanced options.  Select
Add/Update File Systems.  (on the new page) Select Update
FileSystem.  Give it a new version # but otherwise leave it alone.
Click on OK on the requester, then OK on the page.  Then Click
OK on the partition page.  Back on the main page, click on
:Save Changes to Drive: .  Now, turn your system off, and boot from
harddisk.  Things should be fine now.

Problem #2: you have software that looks at location 0.  This
is a bad thing.  You should get it fixed, because any program that
writes to location 0 will cause the 'lookers' to have problems.

(We have a couple tools, MemMung and WatchMem that write to location 0
 just so we can spot problems like that.  Tools available on the Software
Toolkit disk, and the fish disks)


>
>MSS claims that they have always written their software in accordance with
>commodore's specs on software compatability.  Their comment was that 
>"we suspect that commodore violated some of their own hardware design rules
>when they designed the A590." 

They are incorrect.  They were just 'guessing'.


			andy


(BTW, if you have 1.3.2 you can use the FastFileSystem from that instead.
 It's a bit newer, has more bugs fixed; but the one with the A590 is fine)
-- 
andy finkel		{uunet|rutgers|amiga}!cbmvax!andy
Commodore-Amiga, Inc.

"Good tea...nice house."

Any expressed opinions are mine; but feel free to share.
I disclaim all responsibilities, all shapes, all sizes, all colors.