RE: IDE device timeout when writing

Hi,

On Thu, 14 Oct 2021, Carlos Milán Figueredo wrote:

> > There seems to be a generic issue with these CF and SD adapters under various
> > Amiga Un*xes, for example the current m68k Linux kernel is not even able to
> > mount a root volume, when it's on a CF or SD card, and I get these errors
> > under NetBSD, while the setup works perfectly under AmigaOS.
>
> Yesterday I was stress-testing all the day the HDD from AmigaOS and I
> didn't get any issue at all, so I think you hit the spot!

Good to know that my setup and problems aren't alone. :)

> > Note that however for example an actual PATA SSD I had seemed to work
> > well, so it's not directly linked to solid state drives either.
>
> I think I have no choice but to go down that path. Sadly, the
> scandoubler I have on my A1200 -an Indivision AGA mk3- doesn't allow to
> fit the harddrive caddy, so I am not able to put a SSD drive in. I think
> my best bet is to use a small mSATA board with a IDE to mSATA converter.
> The order will take a while but I think it will be well worth the wait.
> Apart from the issue, it is a kind of HDD setup I wanted to try on the
> Amiga.

Yeah, same here, I have a Scandoubler/FliFi on the Lisa, so the HDD caddy
doesn't fit. The lucky part was in my case that the enclosure of the PATA
SSD was entirely plastic, so nothing got shorted by just hanging it in the
machine... But I still didn't like that I needed it.

Given that everyone and their dog uses CF/SD cards with their Amiga these
days, these driver issues really should be fixed in NetBSD (and Linux, but
that's a different battle for a different ML)... If anyone is up for
hacking on it, I can make my A1200/060/128MB remotely available with some
recent-ish NetBSD version of their choice. Maybe that helps. (I can even
make remote boot, serial console, and remote hardware reset happen if
needed, so I won't be needed to sit next to the machine for anyone to
fiddle with it.)

> As a CF card interfaces directly with the IDE bus, it is easy there are
> some kind of difference in the ATA commands, depending on the card. If I
> recall correctly, there was a product intended for the Amiga called
> "TrueIDE" that actually performed the translation of ATA commands to the
> connected CF card; while I think it would be useful for our case, it is
> not in stock anymore.

I think (and this is backed by the TrueIDE adapter wiki page at the
manufacturer): what TrueIDE does is masks the "removable" bit from the CF
card data, and doesn't do any further command conversion?
http://wiki.icomp.de/wiki/TrueIDE

Cheers,
--
Charlie