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From: tope@enea.se (Tommy Petersson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: External 3.5 info wanted
Message-ID: <4274@enea.se>
Date: 29 Jan 89 16:03:20 GMT
References: <620004@hpnmdla.HP.COM> <5160022@hplsla.HP.COM>
Reply-To: tope@enea.se (Tommy Petersson)
Organization: ENEA DATA AB, Sweden
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UUCP-Path: uunet!enea!tope

In article <5160022@hplsla.HP.COM> tomb@hplsla.HP.COM (Tom Bruhns) writes:
:> 
:>Note that above I said no "hardware" problems.  There is a software problem
:>that may get you in the above scenario.  There is a BUG in Kickstart 1.2/1.3.3
:>that causes the trackdisk device to reject perfectly valid raw I/O packets
:>if you have a drive at df0: and one at df2: (the first external on a 2000)
:>but no drive at df1: (the second 2000 internal drive).  This renders the 
:>external 5 1/4 drive useless for transferring MS-DOS files with the 
:>PCUtilites packages that came with 1.2.  I don't know if DOS-2-DOS will 
:>have the same problem - if they go through trackdisk, the almost certainly
:>will.  If they go straight to the hardware there's no problem.  I was told
:>that the error is that trackdisk is checking the wrong location on a raw
:>I/O request, and if there's not a DF0, that location will probably contain
:>values such that the I/O request will fail.  I confirmed by borrowing a 
:>second internal drive that the problem does not occur on a 2-drive 2000,
:>though.  SO... if you want to be able to do this sort of thing before 1.4
:>comes out (which is supposed to have this fixed), keep your 1000 or get
:>a 2-drive 2000!
:> 
:>> >-- 
:>  
:>  Scott Denham 
:>   Houston TX
:>----------
:--
:Hmmm.  Thanks for the info!  That explains something I think I saw posted
:at a local BBS that was supposed to make the 2000 think the external drive
				  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
:was the second internal drive.  If such a hack exists, maybe you would 
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
:find it useful...   maybe someone else could comment, 'cause not being a
:2000 owner, I didn't pay much attention to it at the time.
:
:More to the poster who was interested in the HW hack to put external
:drives on whatever machine:  if you can't find it locally, I'd be happy
:to send you a disk w/ it and my notes on making it work (the 5.25 drive
:I got didn't like the amiga's timing...)
:
:Tom Bruhns
:tomb%hplsla@hplabs.hp.com

I have heard and read about this hack, what is the final word: will it
or will it not work? Is it possible to have an external drive as df1:
without having to use any software fix (like AssignDev). Is it possible
to have three external drives to a B2000 as df1: to df3: in the same way?

Tommy P.