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Problem with DVD drive and U-Boot

Posted: Tue May 09, 2017 1:03 pm
by Roland
Hi all!

I gpt my Cyrus+ last week (after a loong waiting...), and have now the X5000 up and running :-). Great machine, thank you for all the members of the 'X5000 group', you have done excellent work!

I have already been able to boot the machine with Ubuntu Live USB, but have not yet been able to install AmigaOS. For some reason U-Boot cannot boot from the DVD-Drive I have (Toshiba-Samsung DVD-ROM TS-H353C Rev. FS01).

If I just put the 4.1 Install CD in the drive (or ANY other CD or DVD disk!) and boot the machine, it just hangs after showing the boot screen, reaching never the animation... (Thus, it not possible acces to the boot menu or comand line either, they are not accesible even from the keyboard). Only way out is to eject the disk and reboot...

Without any disk in the drive, the machine boots normally, and the bootmenu can be opened. From comand line, 'SCSI reset' and 'SCSI info' comands work ok and show the DVD drive correctly. But if I then again put OS 4.1 CD in the drive, and choose to boot AmigaOS, U-boot just says there are not bootable disks. And if I run now the 'SCSI Reset' comand, the system hangs for ever as it did when I tried to boot with a disk in the drive...

The drive itself and cabling are fully ok, as it can be accessed and used normally from Ubuntu 16.04 Live, after booting fom a USB disk!

So, is there some configuration operation which should be done to get a DVD drive work and boot with U-Boot?
(U-Boot in my machine is 2014.4, oct. 2016)

There was not any other manual than the Hardware Reference manual included with the Cyrus+... Where could I find some guide or tutorial how to use/adjust the X5000 bootmenu? I am not a programmer, so just a raw list of commands does not help me much :-(.

Speaking of lists. is it somehow possible to get the listings in U-boot comand window 'paged', so the you have time to see what is actually coming on the screen...? And is there some 'break' comand to stop the execution of currently running comand? (like ctrl c or d in AmigaDos)

- Roland -

Re: Problem with DVD drive and U-Boot

Posted: Tue May 09, 2017 5:25 pm
by msalcedo
May I ask, what video card are you using?

Re: Problem with DVD drive and U-Boot

Posted: Wed May 10, 2017 2:22 pm
by Roland
msalcedo wrote:May I ask, what video card are you using?
Pourquoi...? This drive/disk issue has nothing to do with the display adapter. U-Boot's internal driver works perfectly with it (as with almost anything, AFAIK ;), and this problem appears at U-boot level, as you can read from above...

Some new info: I tried to download the latest OS4.1 disk image and reburned the installation disk. This disk was now recognized and started to boot! But the boot process was stopped and the machine hanged after all Kickstart modules were loaded. On the screen appeard text: "About to call loader entry at 0x7BD02020". Nothing printed after that, the screen just stays there and only way out is reboot...

- Roland -

Re: Problem with DVD drive and U-Boot

Posted: Thu May 11, 2017 7:43 am
by daveyw
Have you tried a different DVD drive?

When I first got my A1XE about 10 years ago, I replaced the CD drive it came with with a brand new DVD drive bought from a local PC store (something of a rarity for a Classic Amiga user!)

But I could almost never boot from it, only 1 in 5 attempts would work, and it couldn't read video DVDs.

I eventually replaced it with the cheapest second-hand drive I could find (only $10), which turned out to be brilliant and worked perfectly.

I asked a PC-owning friend to update the firmware on my "brand new" DVD drive, and it bricked. What a lemon.

Re: Problem with DVD drive and U-Boot

Posted: Thu May 11, 2017 7:47 am
by msalcedo
Believe it or not...
A video card can work with uboot and not amigaOS..

Please, what video card?

Re: Problem with DVD drive and U-Boot

Posted: Thu May 11, 2017 1:16 pm
by Roland
daveyw wrote:Have you tried a different DVD drive? .
Not yet, except an external USB-drive (Samsung). But it was not recognized at all...

- Roland -

Re: Problem with DVD drive and U-Boot

Posted: Thu May 11, 2017 1:30 pm
by Roland
msalcedo wrote:Believe it or not...
A video card can work with uboot and not amigaOS..
Sigh...... Yes I know! The U-boot has it's own driver (and AmigaOS it's own), as I myself said in my previous message. Don't you read the messages before you answer...? And as the problems which I described in my first message a) appeared at the U-boot level and b) there are not any display problems at that level, your question is irrelevant ;-).

But if it makes you happy: I will use a vulgaire HD 5450 for this installation process, which I replace later with a faster one.

- Roland -

Re: Problem with DVD drive and U-Boot

Posted: Thu May 11, 2017 10:17 pm
by msalcedo
Thank you for the video card info.
Yes, I read your post..
(from my experience, video cards are a bigger issue then dvd drives. but..

Have you tried to boot from a usb stick?

Re: Problem with DVD drive and U-Boot

Posted: Fri May 12, 2017 8:50 am
by Roland
msalcedo wrote: Have you tried to boot from a usb stick?
Not yet... Unfortunately I do not have currently the hardware needed to make a such one myself. My classic Amiga does not have an USB port...

From the U-Boot comand list I understood 'netbooting' might be a third solution. Is that correct? But here again I would need some tutorial/guide how to do it... Would I first need to set up some sort of 'bootserver' in another machine? That is probably beyond my skills... (at least if installing Samba or something like that is needed;-)).

- Roland -

Re: Problem with DVD drive and U-Boot

Posted: Fri May 12, 2017 10:15 am
by smf
Roland wrote:
msalcedo wrote: Have you tried to boot from a usb stick?
Not yet... Unfortunately I do not have currently the hardware needed to make a such one myself. My classic Amiga does not have an USB port...

- Roland -
Actually you have the hardware needed :)
There are several ways but if the X5000 is the only machine you have with an optical reader you can boot into linux and create an image of the installation CD and dump it into a USB stick.
I guess DD is included in the live usb stick you have? Or maybe even some graphical tools that are more easy to use.
After that you should be able to boot from the stick without having to do anything more and you are correct when you say that the graphics card should not matter at this point until the kickstart has been loaded.

I have a few more ideas i would try without any particular order before making an usb stick (if it can't be done really easy) and i do not have the X5000 infront of me so i can't verify my claims.

* Make sure the HDD is connected to sata port 0 and the optical drive in sata port 1.
* Try to boot without the HDD attached.
* disable the uboot variable amigabootquiet if it's enabled and then issue the scsi reset command and then "boota" . Does it let you choose what kickstart to load?
* can you list files from the CD in uboot?