Conference hydra::amiga_v1

    Re:-1
    
     Whats Consultrons BBS #.
     I could get the updates tonight...
    
    									Ed
    

    The BBS# is the same as the tech support number,but is available
    only between 6pm-10am,and most always on weekends.
    	(313) 459-7271
    Len Poma said that no registration number is required so that is
    not a problem. If you have the current patch installed (its on this
    net) you only need two files
    	CDP400a.lzh
    	CDU400a.lzh
    							thanks,
    								bill

    NET has been goofing around with the phone lines in Nashua. I haven't
    been able to connect to many systems during the past two months that I
    used to be able to connect to. Consultron is a NO-GO even at 1200 baud.
    Can someone upload those update files?
    
    -Paul

    Lem Poma stated the major changes in 4.0 are faster floppy handling,
    and 2.0 compatability.
    								bill 

    I tried a week ago or so, but the message stated that the files were not
    to be ready until the 20th.  I can give it a go Friday that way I get the
    cheaper rates on AT&T's reach out America Plan.
                                                  
    Alan
    

    The files in question are now available at TAPE""::USER2:[UPLOAD]
    (as well as CRISTA""::AMIGA: - a lowly 11/750). Also on CRISTA are
    some additional files that were in the "CrossDOS_Updates" area on
    Consultron's BBS:

Listing of [CrossDOS_Updates] since 12-jul-90

CDP400a.LZH                39732 ----rwed 16-Jul-90 12:50:22
: CrossDOS patch files.  Update R/W versions V3.06c to V4.00a
CDP306c.LZH                23762 ----rwed 16-Jul-90 12:50:21
: CrossDOS patch files.  Update R/W versions V3.05b to V3.06c
CDU400a.LZH                56369 ----rwed 16-Jul-90 12:50:23
: CrossDOS utility files.  Update R/W versions V3.06c to V4.00a
MFormat.lzh                 7113 ----rwed 19-Jul-90 16:36:54
CDP400aINTL.LZH             7070 ----rwed 16-Jul-90 12:50:22
: CrossDOS patch files.  Update R/W INTL versions to V4.00a
CDU306c.LZH                63181 ----rwed 16-Jul-90 12:50:23
: CrossDOS utility files.  Update R/W versions V3.05b to V3.06c

    The "306" files were already at TAPE, but there's a size difference
    between the ones on CRISTA. Not knowing too much about CrossDOS, I'll
    let the registered owners make that decision. Following is some text
    from the BBS announcing the update and a t-shirt offer:

CrossDOS Version 4.00 Update Available!
=======================================

CrossDOS is currently at version 4.00a as of July 12th, 1990.  Version
4.00a will provide up to two times faster floppy data access for those
owners  of  the  Amiga  500,  1000 and 2000.  Formatting a MS-DOS disk
(with  verify)  now  goes  from  360  seconds to 149 seconds!  It also
provides Amiga operating system V2.0 compatibilty.

For  those registered users, we have provided patch files to allow you
to  upgrade to V4.00a.  These files will update users from V3.06c (and
higher)   to   V4.00a.    The   files  are  called  "CDP400a.lzh"  and
"CDU400a.lzh".    These   files   are   found   in   the   File   Area
"CrossDOS_Updates".

If  you  have  not  updated your earlier version of CrossDOS (V3.05 to
V3.06b),  you must do so by downloading and installing the patch files
"CDP306c.lzh"  and  "CDU306c.lzh".   These files are found in the File
Area "CrossDOS_Updates".

If  you  wish  for us at CONSULTRON to update your disk to V4.00a, you
must  send  in  the original CrossDOS disk, include your warranty card
(if  not  already  sent  in), reference your product serial number and
include a check for $10.00 (US) made out to "CONSULTRON".

CrossDOS T-Shirt Offer
======================

We  at  CONSULTRON  are  now  offering, for a limited time, a CrossDOS
T-Shirt offer.  The CrossDOS T-shirt has the familiar CrossDOS graphic
of  the  disk flying across the bridge.  The artwork is black line art
on  a  aqua  blue  shirt.  The shirts are 50% cotton and 50% polyester
fabric  so they will not shrink much after drying.  They come in adult
sizes Medium, Large, Extra Large and Extra-Extra Large.

If  you  would  like  to order the CrossDOS T-shirt, indicate the size
needed  and  send  us a check or money order for $13.00 (US) or $16.00
(CDN)  made out to "CONSULTRON" (sorry no CODs or credit cards).  This
price includes shipping and handling.  Please allow about 4 to 6 weeks
for  delivery.   We  are  not making a profit on this offer, so we may
need some time to accumulate a sufficient order.

Send the order to:

CONSULTRON
11280 Parkview
Plymouth,  MI  48170

    V4 doesn't appear to work correctly on my system. Anyone else having a
    problem. When I attempt to format, I consistently get an error 23. When
    I attempt to do a directory, I get an "Attempt to Recover" message.
    When I select ignore, I get "Not an AmigaDOS Disk" error.
    
    Grrr ... back to 3.06.

    V4 works ok for me.  I had a few problems like you described (er23) I am 
    not really sure what all I did to solve them.  I did go thru my DH0: with
    whereis and make sure all old versions of Mformat, Attach, diskchk etc 
    were deleted.  A few were hanging around old paths.  Also I placed 
    TDpatch13 in my StartUp-Sequence.  I spent the rest of the night trying
    in vain to get the blasted thing to read Rainbow RX50's.  The only 
    improvement is my Amiga dosent hang after formating a 10 sectored floppy. 
    This is a slow improvement prior to 306c it crashed.
    
    Actully with MSH's MessyDiskfmt I can get a single sided 10 sectored 80
    track floppy formatted that the Rainbow likes.  But MSH and CrossDos
    both put the FAT and Dir entries in a different place from the Rainbow
    and Visa Versa.  I can format on the Amiga and read/write on the
    Rainbow as long as never plan on read/write on the Amiga ever again. 
    Anybody know if MSDOS 3.2 (MSH and CrossDos default) did something 
    different to the FAT structures.  More than likely its the Rainbow 
    (DOS 3.10) that is off the wall.  
    
    Any Ideas  I need:
    
    Blocks  0-19  Boot area
           20-25  FAT 2 sections of three blocks each
           26-31  six block Dir 96 entries
           32-799 Data
    
    All with a Cluster size of 1, CrossDos uses 2 and as far as I know
    there is no way to change it.
    
    I have even tried using a hybrid of MessyDisk and CrossDos.  Talk about
    infinite possibilities.
    
    
    

I am running into the same problems as .7....

The first time I tried it, I figured I still had some old images around
so after ensuring that V3.06 still worked, I went through and made sure
that I had got rid of everything related and then tried again - same problem.

If anyone has any ideas I am interested.

Note: I reinstalled V306C and it still works without a problem.

John

    Okay .. I think I have the problem resolved (also confirmed by someone
    on PLINK).
    
    First, V4 will not work with NOCLICK or other patches. In other words,
    if you upgraded SETCPU to V1.6 and added a NOCLICK routine to stop the
    drive clicking, V4 of CrossDOS won't work. You need to return to the
    use of SETCPU V1.5 to stop drive clicking if you want to use V4 of
    CrossDOS. Use the MOUNTMF command supplied with the CrossDOS patches
    and place it in your startup-sequence. That automatically mounts DI0:
    and DI1: and installs TDPatch13 or TDPatch12 (provided you have them in
    your c directory).
    
    -Paul

    If you wish to save memory use the TDpatch13 that came with V4 in your
    StartUp-Sequence.  Then use ATTACH to 'Mount' the CrossDos floppy this
    way Kill works and unloads the Driver, so you can Attach it again
    later.  You need to ASSIGN 'CrossDos dist floppy label:' DH0: to get
    Attach to work.  Looks like the silly thing is hard coded for the
    distribution floppy label.  
    
    Also ATTACH uses the DEVS:MountList.msdosFS as a mount list not the
    default DEVS:MountList so you need to copy your DEVS:MountList to
    DEVS:MountList.msdosFS.  The problem I have seen with the 1.3 mount
    command and ARP 1.3 mount command is that Kill unloads the handler but
    when you try to mount it again it says already mounted.  While
    Kill/Attach works fine as long as you can live with its quirks.
    
    Also ATTACH kill's CB (console Buffer) and another strange thing with CB 
    DISKCHK runs very slow.  Normally 80 seconds for a standard Amiga 
    Floppy but with CB loaded it slows to a crawl around block 250.  I
    noticed this when I put my Amiga back together just after I moved to
    Colorado at the same time my Digi View died.  Almost sent my system in
    to get fixed thinking I had a sick 6520.  By the way New Tek has free
    service just the cost of mailing the Digi View back in for a new one.
    
    Alan
    
    

    I had a problem with V4.0, too. When I tried to access a MS-DOS disk,
    CrossDos thought that the disk is not a valid (MS-)DOS disk.
    Formatting a MS-DOS disk on my AMIGA and trying to read it with a
    DEC-Station 350 gave me a "sector not found"-error.
    I found out, that there are two different filesystems on the
    distibution disk. One is called MSDosFileSystem and the other
    OldFileSystem I think. When I specified the OFS to be used by CrossDos
    everything seems to work fine.
    Now the question:
    Does anybody out there know what differences there are between these
    two filesystems, why they are distributed both and why the normal
    MSDosFileSystem won't work ?
    
    Thanx,
    	Michael
    

    Since a (not so quick) perusal of the directory to this conference
    hasn't yielded what I seek, I'll put my question here.
    
    I'd like to use CrossDOS to read/write partitions on my (second) hard
    drive that are formatted for MS-DOS and used by the ATonce emulator. 
    CrossDOS comes with a sample mountlist.MSDOSfs file that shows how one
    might mount a hard drive partition, but all my attempts to use it have
    failed.
    
    I have at least one perceived problem and a couple of questions.  One
    problem is that the mountlist.MSDOSfs entry for a partition specifies
    "device=scsi.device", even though I have no such driver on any of my
    release disks.  When I try to mount the partition (as I do for my
    floppy drives), it has no effect.
    
    Questions:
    1.	Is the 'unit=' parameter for the second drive supposed to be '2'
    	or the SCSI address thereof?
    2.	Do I need to have a DEVS:scsi.device, or does AmigaDOS "know"
    	about it?  Alternately, is there some OTHER driver I should use?
    3.	I'd like to set the RDB information for the partitions to specify 
    	L:MSDOS_file_system (or whatever its name is) and have them
    	automount.  Is there any hope this will work?
    4.	If #3 succeeds, will this make it impossible for ATonce to use
    	the partitions?  (It appears to go after particular disk blocks
    	rather than using the file system.)
    5.	Someone, some time ago, commented that older CrossDOS versions
    	didn't work with hard disk partitions.  Which do I need?

Re: .13

Yes, it is possible to use CrossDOS to mount an MS/DOS hard disk partition.
I've used CrossDOS version 4.01a to do just that when I was playing around
with IBeM.

It's a bit hard to answer some of your questions, because the answers
depend on the brand of hard disk controller you have.  Also, since I
know nothing about ATonce, I can't really comment on sharing the
partition between the Amiga and the ATonce card.

>One problem is that the mountlist.MSDOSfs entry for a partition specifies
>"device=scsi.device", even though I have no such driver on any of my
>release disks.

SCSI.DEVICE is the name of the device driver for the Commodore 2091,
590, and built-in Amiga 3000 controller.  SCSI.DEVICE is in the ROM
on the controller card, and is automatically "loaded" when the system
autoconfigures.

(I believe that Commodore does ship disk based versions of SCSI.DEVICE
on the HdToolBox disk, just for people who are using Kickstart 1.2, which
doesn't know how to access the boot ROM on a controller.  But, that should
not affect you.)

>    1.	Is the 'unit=' parameter for the second drive supposed to be '2'
>    	or the SCSI address thereof?

For the 2091, 590, the built-in 3000 controller, and any sane disk
controllers, it should be the SCSI address.  The older Commodore
controllers, the 2090 and 2090a, had some weird "add one" rule that I
don't understand.

>    2.	Do I need to have a DEVS:scsi.device, or does AmigaDOS "know"
>    	about it?  Alternately, is there some OTHER driver I should use?

This depends on the manufacturer of your disk controller. scsi.device is
correct for the new Commodore controllers.  Other manufacturers named their
drivers differently.  You can use my program "Mountlist" to see what the
mountlist entry for one of your hard drive partitions looks like.  You
can get the program from:
	TLE""::UPORT$:[RMEYERS.TRADE.AMIGA]MOUNTLIST.ZOO

By the way, if the device driver is in ROM, leave off the devs: in the
mountlist entry.

>    3.	I'd like to set the RDB information for the partitions to specify 
>    	L:MSDOS_file_system (or whatever its name is) and have them
>    	automount.  Is there any hope this will work?

Yes, it should work.  The program that you use to partition your hard
disk should allow you to do this.  The Commodore HdToolBox program allows
this under the "Advanced Options" when setting up a partition.

What happens is that a copy of the MS/DOS file system is written to
cylinder zero of this disk so that it can be accessed during boot
time.  This is exactly what happens under 1.3 with the FastFileSystem.
(In Kickstart 2.0, the FastFileSystem is in ROM, and so the copy on
cylinder zero is not needed.)

The RDB does permit as many alternate filesystems as you want.  If you
have too many, however, you may have to reserve cylinder 2 (and higher)
to also be used to store the RDB.