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TT issues. Help welcome...

Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2017 3:42 pm
by Anzac
So, having received the TOS 3.06 UK ROMs, i finally unpacked the TT and tried it.

first i turned it on with the German TOS. it did the memory test:

4MB ST RAM
16MB TT RAM

The hard drive spins up but starts to make a "clanging" noise (similar to what i´ve heard on malfunctioning drives of later generations, though this one is much louder), which stops after a while during the boot process (during the part the black bar below the RAM tests is "shrinking" from right to left) and starts again when the computer goes to boot the OS, stopping when TOS is presented. The hard drive is an IBM DNES-309170W, which means it´s a 9.1GB instead of 4GB as described (?) when purchased...

it was interesting to see that using a modern LCD with VGA, i was able to display ST-Low, ST-Medium, ST-High, TT-Low and TT-Medium without having to reboot.

so, after checking the system was working with German TOS and already suspecting a failed HDD, i opened the machine to switch ROMs. i am attaching some photos. the ST-RAM board has the jumpers configured to 2MB from what i read online but the memory chips have the following markings: LH64256K-10

So, then i switch the ROMs, reinstall the 16MB RAM card and boot again and, yes, TOS is in english and everything appears to be working as before.

so then, i grab an Atari FDD which had Hard drive utilities, etc and try to boot with it. it detects the Hard drive but no HDD icon appears. i then try to configure it with HDDDriver (i took the opportunity to upgrade my version from 9.10 to 10.10) and if i tried to boot using the HDD 10.10 FDD, it shows both the IBM drive and HDDDriver on boot, but it freezes there and doesn´t finish booting. removing the floppy and letting it go to TOS, inserting the floppy again and running the HDDDriver utility had the following results:

with HDD9.10, on starting the program i received two messages saying that XHDI was not present but allowed me to continue and another saying no SCSI drivers were installed and i could also continue. With HDD10.10, it would start and show the devices and buses without issue.

however, any attempt to configure the IBM drive would result in either an error message or two "bombs" and back to desktop. i would also start receiving messages that "window could not be drawn - insuficiente memory" and freezes on the desktop. maybe this is all related to the HDD problem, maybe the ROMs or maybe there´s something else...

so, any ideas?

Re: TT issues. Help welcome...

Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2017 3:52 pm
by exxos
What happens if you re-fit your original German ROM's ?

My first guess is your RAM card has a bad connection. If you can run a floppy (hard drive not plugged in) and boot up, try running the ram test program and make sure your machine is working properly before trying to diagnose the hard drive.

https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewt ... ?f=25&t=28

Re: TT issues. Help welcome...

Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2017 3:56 pm
by Anzac
Thanks Exxos, i will run the RAM test program later and report back the results.

i will run them with UK TOS and DE TOS

Re: TT issues. Help welcome...

Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2017 4:44 pm
by rpineau
Once you're done testing the RAM and if it's ok, the "window could not be drawn - insufficient memory" message can also be due to some bad data returned by the drive (sector size and what not), making HDDriver allocate a huge buffer in memory which makes the machine run out of memory and trigger this message. This would point toward an issue with the drive itself.
It would be good if you could test with another drive... but finding recent SCSI drives is not always easy.
Rodolphe

Re: TT issues. Help welcome...

Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2017 4:47 pm
by Anzac
rpineau wrote: Tue Aug 29, 2017 4:44 pm Once you're done testing the RAM and if it's ok, the "window could not be drawn - insufficient memory" message can also be due to some bad data returned by the drive (sector size and what not), making HDDriver allocate a huge buffer in memory which makes the machine run out of memory and trigger this message. This would point toward an issue with the drive itself.
It would be good if you could test with another drive... but finding recent SCSI drives is not always easy.
Rodolphe
Thank you Rodolphe.

in the meantime i ordered this HDD:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SEAGATE-ST391 ... 2749.l2649

it seemed cheap enough to help diagnose.

Re: TT issues. Help welcome...

Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2017 8:09 pm
by Anzac
Running YAART

tested ST-RAM, 23 passes, no errors
testing TT-RAM, lots of errors on first pass...

maybe when i removed the TT-RAM card to change ROMs i might not have plugged it correctly... it can also be a bad SIMM... they appear to be 4MB 30 pin SIMMs... i´ll see if i can test them one by one...

updates to follow.

Re: TT issues. Help welcome...

Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2017 8:11 pm
by rpineau
Yea, try without the TT Ram, see if you can get the drive working.
Then we'll move on the TTRam "fixing" (or at least diagnosing).
Rodolphe

Re: TT issues. Help welcome...

Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2017 8:58 pm
by Anzac
Ok, TT-RAM board removed. Drive still doesn´t work.

if booting with HDD10.10, it detects the drive on boot (SCSI ID 0.0) and stops there.

removing the floppy, booting to TOS, running HDDDRIVER from AUTO folder, scans all IDs succesfully.
Then, using HDDUTIL, it sees the drive, but does not configure. when using self test, it gives several error numbers.

so i´m thinking the HDD is really on the fritz. i recently bought another antique, an AHS-52L from FSE that has 2x Quantum prodrive LPS and removed one from there and put it on the TT.

booting with HDD10.10, it scans correctly, but then gives two bombs which i believe has to do with some program running on the AUTO folder on C partition.

booting directly to TOS, running HDDDRIVER, it scans, detects and when i do "install devices" on desktop, it shows the C/D/E partitions ok.
lots and lots of programs on AUTO folder... maybe i should delete it altogether?

i´m hesitant since the drive was supposed to be on that external box along with the other one and i have already another 9.1 SCSI HDD on the way... maybe there are some goodies there...

Re: TT issues. Help welcome...

Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2017 9:06 pm
by exxos
So basically your "other drive" is working, but 2 bombs.. likely best idea is to rename the AUTO folder to AUTX and make sure its not trying load and ACC's etc.

Your problem drive sounds like its failing to spin up correctly ? Does it sound like its spinning up and spinning down all the time or spinning constant speed ?

I remember I had a IDE drive in my falcon for years, that one kept spinning up down all the time.. eventually it did spin up and I copied all my files off it.

Another old drive when I was messing about with MFM drive, they wouldn't spin up correctly if the heads had "got stuck". Those with those drives the head motor could be turned manually to "free" the head, then the drive would spin up and work normally.

I'm not so sure about SCSI drives, though doesn't sound like the drive is in the land of the living anymore. Normally you can hear the heads moving and resetting on power up also.... ?

Re: TT issues. Help welcome...

Posted: Tue Aug 29, 2017 10:04 pm
by Anzac
Ok, updates:

the Quantum Prodrive had partitions C/D/E/F.

Partition E appeared to have corrupt files with strange characters on the file names. could not delete them, so i formated that partition.

Then i copied everything from C to E\Drive_c_old\ and tried to delete everything on C. some files on a TEMP folder could not be deleted, so i formatted that partition as well.

installed HDDDRIVER.SYS on C and now it boots fine! :)