Life, the universe & everything...Atari (well, mostly)

[JezC]

Your 3 year old Linux distribution will do the job fine. I still use my Ubuntu 10.04 on a 21 year old computer for some things.

Thanks - I don't have a CD or DVD drive in my newest computers, hence the age of my live CDs!

I just need to find where I've stored them...

[kodak80]

That's a bit worrying...I'll have to get something working on the Falcon IDE first & then I might have something to compare against.

Any details on the IDE to CF adapters you've found to exhibit this behaviour?

So, I just re-tested the adapters and this one works fine:

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CF1-working-back-side.jpg (313.42 KiB) Viewed 1740 times

This one does not work when using the same CF card:

CF1-NOT-working.jpg (459.28 KiB) Viewed 1740 times

CF1-NOT-working-back-side.jpg (248.85 KiB) Viewed 1740 times

I hope this helps. I have not investigated why the one does not work but when I power the Falcon, this one has a red LED lit and my Falcon bombs.

[JezC]

Thanks @kodak80 - very helpful!



Fortunately my two CF adapters are the 'working' kind so that is one less variable in the equation.

I came across this topic viewtopic.php?f=25&t=30 in my searches & I'm pretty sure that the NVRAM battery will be long since dead, so I need to find a way to reset the NV on every (cold?) boot.

I'll first try the keyboard shortcut to see if that works & take it from there...but if I need to run something from floppy (there's mention of a boot-sector program to reset NV) then can't I just load HD Driver from floppy?

There are quite a few possible solutions on there, just wondering which ones people are using until they get the battery replaced?

I noticed that @Badwolf has a program to force NV settings (along with setting the date/time) but the Falcon doesn't have any internet connection (yet!) so I'd probably be better with some other solution for now? (Or maybe BW will share how his Falcon is connected up )?

[stephen_usher]

Reset the NVRAM using the utility posted here https://exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4288 from floppy.

[JezC]

Thanks @stephen_usher - looks to give a few more options to try...

[Badwolf]

I came across this topic viewtopic.php?f=25&t=30 in my searches & I'm pretty sure that the NVRAM battery will be long since dead, so I need to find a way to reset the NV on every (cold?) boot.
...
I noticed that @Badwolf has a program to force NV settings (along with setting the date/time) but the Falcon doesn't have any internet connection (yet!) so I'd probably be better with some other solution for now? (Or maybe BW will share how his Falcon is connected up )?

I think I'd misunderstood what the NVRAM reset programs did -- if your machine won't boot because NVRAM is corrupted, the floppy boot loader reset trick Stephen Usher mentions is the ticket.

What my program (Falcdate) does is sets NVRAM configuration at every boot based on a config file (I still haven't replaced my NVRAM!)

It also attempts to resolve and set the date/time from a daytime provider. If there's no network, it just carries on.

There are Mintnet and Stik versions, but I'm not sure that you can actually bring up a Stik/StiNG network before the desktop anyway, so that may be a bit redundant.

I have been meaning to have a look at the source of UIPTool and refit Falcdate to bring up its own DHCP interface from an EtherNEC/NetUSB type cartridge, get its time, and then carry on. I think it's project number 805 on my list...

Anyone want to do that for me?

BW

https://github.com/dh219/falcdate
https://bitbucket.org/sqward/uip-tools/src/master/

[JezC]

Thanks @Badwolf - my Falcon does boot but won't currently let me autoboot from the IDE (CF/SD card) but when I run the HD Driver from floppy (at boot) it finds the IDE partitions fine & they work from there, so just an autobooting issue from what I can tell.

I'll try the boot-sector first & see what that reveals (just need to find the easiest way to write that to a floppy first) but then having a block of NV configuration settings applied on every boot might be handy...


However, I am still wondering whether the easiest fix (for now) is just to run HD Driver from floppy at boot & load in newdesk.inf with the correct desktop settings etc. - or are there other subtleties that I'm missing here?

[rubber_jonnie]

Thanks @Badwolf - my Falcon does boot but won't currently let me autoboot from the IDE (CF/SD card) but when I run the HD Driver from floppy (at boot) it finds the IDE partitions fine & they work from there, so just an autobooting issue from what I can tell.

I'll try the boot-sector first & see what that reveals (just need to find the easiest way to write that to a floppy first) but then having a block of NV configuration settings applied on every boot might be handy...


However, I am still wondering whether the easiest fix (for now) is just to run HD Driver from floppy at boot & load in newdesk.inf with the correct desktop settings etc. - or are there other subtleties that I'm missing here?

Have you tried booting from the HDDRIVER floppy and configuring a blank CF card? If you've written an image it's perhaps got corrupted along the way. I'm just thinking as a test to see if you can autoboot from a fresh drive setup.

[stephen_usher]

By the way, the Exxos clock chip replacement works well. I didn't use the supplied battery holder but instead added a CR2032 holder and stuck it in a place where I could replace it without having to take the RF shield off.

picture.jpg (334.8 KiB) Viewed 1668 times

[JezC]

Have you tried booting from the HDDRIVER floppy and configuring a blank CF card? If you've written an image it's perhaps got corrupted along the way. I'm just thinking as a test to see if you can autoboot from a fresh drive setup.

I thought I had (some time ago) but that was before I had the CF cards working with TRUDIE in my H4 so I may dig out the small (32Meg) CF card & try with that again just to be sure. If I run HD Driver from floppy it does see the partitions on the card & let e open them from the desktop (might repeat the process & prove that sysinfo/Gembench can be run OK just to be 100% sure)...

Thanks for the suggestion!