help request with my RiscPC

ok, no problem. I will try myself until tuesday.
Thanks!

You only need to boot the computer with the shift key held down to get over the error this will get you to the desktop then you need to investigate what is causing the error by opening up !Boot, to do this you hold the shift key then click on !boot, this will open a filer window with lots of folders.
Go to choices.boot.predesk and remove the file SetUpNet copy it somewhere then remove it from predesk folder.
you are now ready to reboot to see if you still get the error.
Let me know how it go’s i will be here for the next 8 hours it daytime in Australia.

Hi Rob
Thanks for your repply.

i first solved the problem with removing the LAN card, then I could boot a little bit further. But I think I’m doomed with this card :-) Now, the boot process seems to go well, but it take ages to come on the desktop. sometime, the desktop eventually show up, sometimes a nice error message popup to say that the disk is not present. The exact same hard disk boot fine and fast (well, as fast as the internal IDE can do) to the desktop.
I tried to change the IDE cable, I even tried to image the whole disk and put the image on a compact flash and tried to boot the compact flash, I have the exact same behavior (system boot fine on internal IDE, slow and can’t complet on IDE podule). I don’t know if the ide podule is so picky about the IDE devices, can it be that a regular hard drive and a random CF don’t work well with the podule ? In this case, it would be tricky to find out a way to make this whole thing working.

hi which slot in the back plane are you pluging in the ide controller? is it a two slot back plane?

yes, it’s a two slot backplane. I’m in the upper slot, but I tried the lower slot too, with same result.

switch off take out the back plane and plug the podule into the motherboard to rule out a fault with the back plane then restart

This is physicaly not possible : the Podule slot is 32×3 female connector, on the motherboard the podule slot is a PCI like style slot. Not physicaly compatible.
https://imgur.com/yxKeFqZ

sorry your right have you tried it in the bottom slot?

yes, I have tried both slot, no luck. I’m under the impression that the podule board can’t talk correctly to the hard disk, The boot begin, take ages, eventually come to the desktop, or sometimes tell that the drive is unreachable, and I can’t go further. Same disk drive work flawelessly on the internal IDE.

there are some drives that will not work in the risc pc it been a long time since i had mine up and running so i cannot recall if it was seagate or connor drives that had problems what drive do you have?

I’ts a seagate. I try one last think : make an image of the hard disk on a compact flash, try to boot the Compact Flash on the internal IDE to prove that it’s good (I know that it will avoid the LAN to work, but I just want to see if it’s boot) and then plug it on the Podule. If it doesn’t work, i will then assume that the podule has a problem.

EDIT
Tried with the CF has described, same bevahior. The boot take ages and sometine hang on a error message or sometimes go to the desktop and freeze. I think that my board is defectiv.

I tried with both discs attached, a copy of the hard disc on a CF card attached to the IDE podule, and the original hard disk on the internal IDE. When boths hard disk are connected, the System begin to boot on the compact flash that sits on the podule, and finish to load the desktop on the harddisk that sits on the internal IDE. When I remove the internal IDE, the boot begin on the CF that sits on the podule, wait a while, an go to the desktop and ask me "please insert disc “hard drive 4”.
https://imgur.com/vzah3J0

Now I’m asking me : do I need to change something in some boot file to tell the system where to look for the startup files needed for the desktop ? I have the feeling that at some point, the OS try to find somes files in the original location, meaning the internal IDE hard drive. If you look at the bar, I have 2 Disk 4.

The message is from ADFS (ie. internal IDE interface) not ZIDEFS, so there’s obviously a reference in your !Boot to files on ADFS::HardDisc4.$

If I were you, I’d look in !Boot.Choices.Boot.Desktop file (shift-double click your way down), and also the files in the Tasks sub-folder (same location). Replace any references to ADFS accordingly.

Note that where possible, replace references to ADFS::HardDisc4.$. with Boot:^.
This notation is filing-system agnostic (ie. works from any filing system or drive) rather than embedding specific disc names and filing systems in !Boot which is bad form.

ok, thanks for the tip. If I understand right, the filesystem itself, aka ADFS or ZIDEFS is a part of the path of the files?
I found tons of lines with “ADFS”, il replaced all those references with “ZIDEFS”, now it’s a little bit better: the system boot, take a while, and eventually after some minutes reach the desktop and display the wallpaper! But it still take ages to boot, and I still have 2 hard disk icons with a :4 number, once :4 and once hardDisk4. If I click on :4, the system hang, I can’t click on anything anymore (but the mouse is still alive).

are there anothers files where a reference to the ADFS can be hidden?
I didn’t tought it’s so hard to change to another IDE interface on a RiscPC, but there is one good thing about it : I learn a lot about the RiscOS managment :-)

I think you may need *configure IDEdiscs 0 to get rid of the :4

It’ll probably also speed things up if it isn’t looking for non-existent drives.

I think you may need *configure IDEdiscs 0 to get rid of the :4

Or if the drive is plugged into the ZIDEFS interface, you want to do a
*configure IDEDiscs 0
so it’s not looking for a drive on the regular IDE interface.

ok, thanks to all your infos, now its is working. I can reach the desktop and have the whole system loaded without error. But…. when the desktop appear, the desktop wallpaper need about 33 seconds to appear, this take only 10 seconds on the internal IDE controller. I have the feeling that the disc access are much slower. Isn’t the IDE podule supposed to be faster than the internal IDE ?

Isn’t the IDE podule supposed to be faster than the internal IDE ?

Not always. With SCSI yes, as SCSI to SCSI transfers are possible.
With a 32bit IDE podule, yes too… but not so much.
With a 16bit podule (probably without DMA) a massive slowdown is normal.

Then, I bought a 4D-IDE16 (4D) IDE Interface Podule (IDEFS/ZIDEFS) 16bit A310, because I wanted a faster IDE

Here is the problem. This interface is made for much older and slower hardware.

a massive slowdown is normal.

It depends – doesn’t the internal IDE mostly run in PIO mode? Not a big deal for harddiscs of the A5000 era, but by the time the RiscPC came out…

Here is the problem.

Actually, looking at the hardware, I think the problem is that you’re basically using a lot of I/O, latches, data transfer, and processor time to make what is essentially a bit-bashed interface.
As opposed to using a controller chip which can be given instructions and left to get on with it (and potentially have its own buffering, but it’s been over two decades since I last looked at the combo-IO’s datasheet).

Ok, thanks for the clarification. then this interface is pointless for me. I asked if this interface is faster than the internal IDE, I was answered that yes, it’s a bit faster, but not so much. I wanted this interface for 2 reasons: 1. being able to use a compact flash and the LAN interface together (I realised after many hours that my connection problem was there only when I use a compact flash on the Internal IDE, and that with the regular hard disk the lan card work well) and 2. having a faster interface than the slow 1.6 Mb/s internal IDE.

In the tests which we performed at work on this interface we did see a slight but measured speed increase over the regular ADFS interface on the RiscPC, hence I said “it’s a bit faster, but not so much”. It’s a Bank Holiday and I’m at home not at work so I don’t have access to these figures right now, but maybe Rick or David could share the speed test figures they have?

could be interesting, yes. If this is confirmed, any possibilitie to trade off and go on the better model instead, the Arcin32 ?

I realised after many hours that my connection problem was there only when I use a compact flash on the Internal IDE, and that with the regular hard disk the lan card work well

That might be because of subtle differences in CF cards vs harddiscs.

Have you had any luck using a normal harddisc on the internal IDE, and the CF on the IDE podule? You might find a CF card that won’t work on the internal bus does work on an extension card.

having a faster interface than the slow 1.6 Mb/s internal IDE.

Let’s just speak the truth – the internal IDE is really miserably poor. Like I said earlier, I think it is stuck in PIO mode so essentially talks to the media in the slowest manner possible. Pretty much anything is going to be an improvement on that…

we did see a slight but measured speed increase over the regular ADFS interface on the RiscPC

…including a bunch of latches and logic gates pretending to be an IDE interface. Yup, getting the processor to do most of the work itself is faster than the internal interface.
I feel as if I ought to actually be impressed that the internal interface is that rubbish.

but maybe Rick or David could share the speed test figures they have?

On all podules, your primary limitation is the bus speed. It’s 8MHz synchronous tops. Or slower (I think the regular access speed is something like 2MHz?).

This means you’ll see about 6MB/sec maximum on a 32 bit podule. Older 16 bit podules would manage about half that, and it is roughly in keeping with the speeds that I can remember from my older machines – given a big wimpslot, a Morley cached SCSI podule managed around 1.5MB/sec from tape streamer to harddisc (which means it was about 3MB/sec because it was writing to a SCSI drive on the same bus).
My Simtec IDE (16 bit) “felt” a lot faster than the internal IDE. I don’t think I ever speed tested it, it just seemed notably faster. Plus, partitions and the ability to have four drives off it was a bonus. ☺

My favourite harddisc interface is the 16 bit Simtec IDE; never gave me any problem and god knows I’ve hooked all manner of drives to it in my time…but note that I never tried it with a CF card; I meant to, but then the 32 bit world came along and my RiscPC…well…it’s probably full of battery fuzz nowadays. :-(