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Pegasos II hard drives compatiblity list

Sonic

# 1
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 408 from 2004/7/15

From: Russia, Moscow

Hello, guys! As i see from forums, many people experience problems with hard drives. Let me suggest to create a compatiblity list of hard drives to help future users.

The list should be in the format:
Model Size Status Stable CPU Description

My first entry:

Samsung SP2001H 20Gb Bad Y G3 Works but firmware
sometimes does not
detect it.

Description of columns:

Model and size - self explanatory;
Status - "Ok" or "Bad" - works or doesn't work
Stable - whether any HDD of this model has this bug and the bug is
reproduceable ("Y") or this depends on the individual drive and there are well working drives of this model ("N").
CPU - CPU with which the drive was tested
Description - description of the problem.

I hope the gathered information will help Genesi to find the problem and fix it.

P.S. I changed my drive to Maxtor 20 Gb (don't remember the model, will tell it later) and everything went OK.
iPod, iBook, iMac,... iRobot?
»22.07.04 - 05:48

Spidey

# 2
Priest of the Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 568 from 2003/2/24

From: Netherlands

Hmm,

I don't have all the numbers, but:

Maxtor 80GB (8MB cache, or is it 2??): no problems with Peg II-G4
IBM realstar 40GB: no problems with Peg I-G3, doesn't work with Peg II-G4

Bye,

Spidey
»22.07.04 - 21:23

Black_Eagle

# 3
Butterfly

Posts: 70 from 2003/6/5

From: Karlstad, Sweden

Are you sure it's not just a "slow spin up" problem that stops the drive from being recognized at boot sometimes? I know a bunch of people who have that problem.

I have a Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 80GB, which works perfectly, while my friend Develin has the two models earlier one, Barracuda IV, also 80GB and he had some spin up problems.
OnyxSoft - Amigans never surrender, they know they can do it better...
»23.07.04 - 08:30

takemehomegrandma

# 4
Yokemate of Keyboards

Posts: 2720 from 2003/2/24

If you by "compatibility problems" mean the slow spinup problem on G4 machines, then there is no need for a compatibility list IMHO (the HDD's are still compatible but the Peg's hardware init is too fast for them, which can be cured). AFAIK, there is no such thing as incompatible HDD's on the Pegasos; but you have to use real 80 wire UDMA cables and be careful with your master/slave jumpering. As for the HDD spinup problem, here I quote "mat" from another thread:

Quote:

OK. As I wrote earlier I've been experimenting with OF scripting to make it recognize disks with long spin-up time. After some problems (screwed up nvramrc) I have found the solution that works for me. What I did is a small script added to nvramrc that adds the slight delay (3-4 seconds) to the boot-up process. The delay is enough for my disks to spin up so I can use auto-boot without reseting Pegasos on cold boot up.

First of all I want to warn enyone trying to use it - it can make your Pegasos unbootable and you'll need to reset nvram settings using emergency procedure described here (in case of screwed up nvramrc you need to press ESC on serial console to get to the IKARUS low level console). I won't take any responsibilty for any damage you could do to your Pegasos or yourself.

After that warning here is what I did.

0. My setup is Pegasos II G4 1GHz with the newest OF (2004-05-04), two disks (Maxtor 200GB and WD 80GB) on primary IDE channel.
1. Boot up to OF prompt
2. Open nvramrc using nvedit command
3. You'll see the simple text editor. At the beginning enter the following:

: wait 500000 0 do i drop loop ;
wait

Mind tha spaces - it must be exactly as above.
Press CTRL+C to exit the editor
4. Save nvramrc to nvram using nvstore command
5. Power down, wait for the disks to spin down completely and then power it up again. It should boot up normaly with a slightly longer delay before prompt. After that you can try ls /ide - it should show your IDE disks - hopefully detetectd correctly.

Above procedure worked for me - I hope someone brave enough to try will find it usefull to.

I have not tried this myself (I am not troubled by this cold boot problem since I never turn my Pegasos off ) but it looks quite easy and it has obviously worked for other people. I would of course prefer to just have to punch in a "setenv ide-delay 3" command at the OF prompt, and hopefully we will get a similar solution in a close future.

Please also have a look at the comments that followed in the original thread:
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=2370&forum=11&start=26&viewmode=flat&order=0
MorphOS is Amiga done right!
MorphOS NG will be AROS done right!
»23.07.04 - 08:58

Neko

# 5
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 301 from 2003/2/24

From: Genesi

Well, here is a trick you guys can play with Pegasos or Efika if you want this. Doing a 'wait' loop is a little changable per CPU, but the firmware includes as part of the standard a function called 'ms' - which will wait a minimum of the specified number of milliseconds.

100 ms

Will wait AT LEAST 100 milliseconds (it may actually wait a hell of a lot longer..)

You can also create environment variables if you so wish; however this is completely and totally freakish and I am not sure of the 100% correct way to remove them if you make a mistake.

The Forth word to do it is 'nodefault-bytes'. You can add an environment variable (which, as in the name, will have NO default value as most environment variables do).

So, an experiment for you guys. Make a variable called 'ata-delay' using 'nodefault-bytes'.

ok 5 nodefault-bytes ata-delay
ok setenv ata-delay 1000

Assign it a value in milliseconds (remember 1000 ms in a second). Then add this line to your nvramrc, before any probe-all;

5: ata-delay $number 0 = if ms then ;

That should do exactly what you want, correct?

[ Edited by Neko on 2007/9/24 10:36 ]

[ Edited by Neko on 2007/9/24 10:43 ]
Matt Sealey, Genesi USA, Inc.
Developer Relations
Product Development Analyst
»24.09.07 - 09:23

QMaster

# 6
Butterfly

Posts: 98 from 2004/6/4

From: Ivanovo, Russia

I have 2 drives:
Samsung 160Gb and Seagate 250Gb.
They're working, but the problem is that OF hangs with them on poweron. I inits keyboard and doesn't init the videocard. Waiting doesn't help and resetting the comp several times helps. The HDD LED stays light on.
WBR, Vladimir Berezenko
»25.09.07 - 04:47

jcmarcos

# 7
Paladin of the Pegasos

Posts: 1178 from 2003/3/13

From: Pinto, Madrid ...

Quote:

Neko wrote:
Well, here is a trick you guys can play with Pegasos or Efika if you want this...

Excellent information, Matt. By the way, I can see that FORTH must be the weirdest computer language I've ever seen (Rebol also, and also some funny languages by ace Wouter Van Oortmersen).

Why was FORTH chosen as the language for CodeGen's OpenFirmware? Perhaps, the mission of a firmware is to scare away non expert users, to avoid manipulation. Then it hits the nail, for sure!
»25.09.07 - 09:00

Golem

# 8
Moderator

Posts: 766 from 2003/2/28

From: Denmark

Quote:

Why was FORTH chosen as the language for CodeGen's OpenFirmware?

Because it's OpenFirmware?
»25.09.07 - 12:21

Painkiller

# 9
Acolyte of the Butterfly

Posts: 128 from 2007/11/19

From: Nokia, Funland

Quote:

Then add this line to your nvramrc, before any probe-all;

5: ata-delay $number 0 = if ms then ;

That should do exactly what you want, correct?

Should I add the "5:" also or just the line you have bolded?

EDIT: How silly of me I never even looked nvedit before asking. Anyways this little script corrected my problems thank you! Well not all of my problems, but I'm willing to live without IDE-CF and having CD and HD on separate cables, but atleast I'm able to boot directly now.

[ Edited by Painkiller on 2008/1/21 16:23 ]

[ Edited by Painkiller on 2008/1/21 16:39 ]
»18.01.08 - 13:23

MDW

# 10
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 469 from 2003/7/25

From: Wroclaw/Poland

I did everything what you wrote. However when I boot my Pegasos I get communicate:

"nvramrc script error: internal Forth compilation state error"

I've checked everything several times. Everything is ok but it doesn't work. Do you know why? Could you help me?
»25.04.08 - 20:31

judas

# 11
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 175 from 2005/1/14

From: core of universe

Hi,
I allready mailed with bplan about probs with harddrives.
On my systems (Peg2 with G3 and G4), certain combinations of harddrives make the OF boot without getting all HDs detected.
After resetting the PEG, everything works fine.

As far as i remember, the problem was somehow allready known, but as I never came beyond OF 1.2, I never got a fix.
For one of my Pegs, the situation is really bad, because he has 3 HDs and 1 DVD and its the bootdrive which isn't detected a coldstart, all other drives are allways there.
»26.04.08 - 11:01

magnetic

# 12
Yokemate of Keyboards

Posts: 2129 from 2003/3/1

From: Los Angeles

Hi guys

Well after finally reading this thread i'd like to add a coupl eof things if I could..

1. Per Bplan themselves they recommend FLAT 80wire ATA CABLEs - IT CAN MAKE A DIFF WITH IDE BUS WITH ROUNDED - they are not as well shielded as the flat. Ppl will disagree with this I understand, however this is what TK told me.

2. You cannot go wrong with any SEAGATE Barracuda Series on Pegasos. Some of the early ones may need a reboot but AFAIK Rev IV and later work 100%

These were the original specced drives for the ODWs (then they changed to Hitachi for who knows what reason) Those drives were selected for a reason. We had multiple pegs with all ide channels filled stress testing and those drives were great.

And they are quit and fast.

magnetic
Pegasos 2 Rev 2B3 w/ Freescale 7447 "G4" @ 1ghz / 1gb Nanya Ram
Quad Boot: MorphOS 2.7 | Amiga OS4.1 U4 | Ubuntu PPC GNU/Linux | OS X 10.4
»27.04.08 - 08:15

ThePlayer

# 13
Paladin of the Pegasos

Posts: 1069 from 2003/3/24

From: Hamburg/Germany

I bought last Week a Samsung HD753LJ 750GB Harddrive i use it with a SATA-Bridge. And so far i have no Problems i use Partitions with 600GB and and all is ok.
Oh and i use Rounded cables.
PowerMac G5 Quad 2.5 running UWQHD Resolution
»27.04.08 - 09:30

judas

# 14
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 175 from 2005/1/14

From: core of universe

Still owning 3 Peg2's with more than one harddrive, I can say, that harddrives are not really an issue on PEG.
The problems arrise from DVD and CD-drives in combination with harddisks. Maybe someone should have a look at the OF-part of CD/DVD-drivers, as there's also the bg of beeing unable to load files over a certain size. ( which will hit you on the "inst32"-file with suse linux)
»29.04.08 - 18:34