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From: djh@neuromancer.metaphor.com (Dallas J. Hodgson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: Re: Putting 2 Hard Drives in A-3000 DOESN'T WORK!? HELP!
Message-ID: <1320@metaphor.Metaphor.COM>
Date: 20 Jul 90 19:39:01 GMT
Sender: news@metaphor.Metaphor.COM
Reply-To: djh@metaphor.com (Dallas J. Hodgson)
Organization: /usr/local/lib/rn/organization
Lines: 46
References:

I recently decided to put the 30MB Seagate SCSI drive I was using in my
A-1000 inside my A-3000 for a whopping 70MB total. The internal 40MB
Quantum is reported by the HD Toolbox as residing at SCSI address 0, and
the Seagate at SCSI address 6.

The HD Toolbox was not successful at low-level formatting the Seagate; it
would lock up. That's OK, it was already prepped anyway, I just wanted to
be complete.

I successfully used Change Drive Type to read the manufacturer's information
off the disk, and created a new Drive Type. Using this information, I
partitioned the drive (1 big partition) and saved all changes to disk. <REBOOT>

NOW I have a working SDH1:, recognized by AmigaDOS. Next, I formatted it
like so: "FORMAT DRIVE SDH1: NAME Seagate FFS" and all is OK. The drive
works fine! I reboot all day and it works.

THE PROBLEM WHEN THE POWER IS TURNED OFF! When the A-3000 is again brought
to life, AmigaDOS no longer sees SDH1:; the device simply isn't present,
visible, or recognized in any way. If I go back into the HD Toolbox and
run Change Drive Type <losing all the drive's info after the reboot> my
Seagate is recognized again until the next power-down. What Gives?

--- THE SOFTWARE KICKER ---

After giving up on HDToolbox to solve my problems, I thought I'd try
the A-3000 Install Disks' Format & Prep utilities. I hoped that the
utilities would give me a chance to BACK OUT of the program if, for
example, they would only recognize the Quantum but not the Seagate.

The low-level Prep utility displayed some message as : "Preparing to
low-level format SCSI device *6*...", which was my Seagate. But when it
FINISHED, it said : "low-level format of Quantum drive, SCSI addr *0*
complete! What a mistake; it formatted a -Different- hard drive than
it said it was going to, so I didn't even have a chance to reboot the
machine before disaster struck. Way to go! The user should always be
given a chance to back out before critical information gets destroyed.
Similar things apply to the Install disk's HDFormat tool as well.
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Dallas J. Hodgson               |     "This here's the wattle,             |
| Metaphor Computer Systems       |      It's the emblem of our land.        |
| Mountain View, Ca.              |      You can put it in a bottle,         |
| USENET : djh@metaphor.com       |      You can hold it in your hand."      |
+============================================================================+
| "The views I express are my own, and not necessarily those of my employer" |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+