exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

I would add that the clock does work. It can be set and it does hold time, which suggests that the data connections and clock crystal connections are fine, but why won't it boot from HDD?

Well it seems to be stable now but won't boot from any drive... I think I have a service manual somewhere.

rubber_jonnie wrote: 27 Jan 2025 11:25 I know what you mean about each boot being a new surprise...

The main issue I have is that if I set booting, so *configure boot, all it'll try to boot from is the FDD and not the IDE or SCSI drives. Though yesterday it surprised me by booting properly from the IDE drive...

Ho hum.

A very weird behaviour indeed...

I really hope you'll find out what the issue is.

If you boot into the ROM monitor what does *config show?

I take it that it does boot into the ROM version of RISCOS.

HigashiJun wrote: 27 Jan 2025 22:34

rubber_jonnie wrote: 27 Jan 2025 11:25 I know what you mean about each boot being a new surprise...

The main issue I have is that if I set booting, so *configure boot, all it'll try to boot from is the FDD and not the IDE or SCSI drives. Though yesterday it surprised me by booting properly from the IDE drive...

Ho hum.

A very weird behaviour indeed...

I really hope you'll find out what the issue is.

Me too!

stephen_usher wrote: 27 Jan 2025 22:51 If you boot into the ROM monitor what does *config show?

I take it that it does boot into the ROM version of RISCOS.

*config doesn't show me anything, either from the supervisor console or when I hit F12 from RiscOS, which does boot and is ROM based.

The failure is at the point the machine starts.

If it is configured to boot, which it is, the following sequence happens when everything is normal:

1. The boot process starts a bit like a PC, the FDD seeks and then a message appears on screen 'RISCOS 4096K' followed on the next line by 'ACORN ADFS'
2. Next what should happen is the !BOOT folder should be read either from hard disk, provided the disk is configured using OPT 4, 2 which it is. This will load drivers such as those for the network adapter etc.
3. Once the drivers are loaded, RISCOS will boot to the initial desktop, after which it should load the !BOOT file (This is inside the !BOOT folder) and this is what provides the customisations, such as open windows, window position and background etc.

What I'm getting in reality is that if a floppy disk is in the drive, that has opt 4,2 set and a !BOOT folder, it will try to boot from that. It will fail as the !BOOT folder I have on there is incomplete as there isn't enough space on the floppy, however it does try.

However, if the FDD is empty or the floppy is not bootable, it should then boot from IDE if it bootable, and failing that, SCSI. It is simply not booting from either.

What is odd is that both IDE and SCSI can be configured as present, and in that state the machine can see and use both types of drive, just can't boot from either.

So I used *configure and *status, the results being here:


I'll need wot have a trawl through all this later I think.

OK, the configuration does have boot set. Hmmm...

stephen_usher wrote: 28 Jan 2025 12:59 OK, the configuration does have boot set. Hmmm...

Yeah, it's a bit weird.

Looking at your settings you have 1 floppy and one IDE drive configured but no "Hard Drives" i.e. SCSI drives. It's also set to boot from drive 0, the IDE drive I think. Adding the SCSI "Hard Drive" may allow it to boot from there. I don't know what drive number that has though.