@Ricossa:

The drive (and the driver) do not know there is a disk inserted unless the driver tries to read it. That is the purpose of the "Auto Check" or "Check now" commands.

From the "config word" I can see that you have not enabled Auto Check. Either do that ("fdtool u 0 a") or make just one immediate check ("fdtool u 0 c") and the driver will check the drive to see if anything is in there.

It can tell the difference between DD and HD diskettes (it tries both formats until a Read works without errors), so let it check by itself and see what happens.

Try "fdtool u 0 c" and it should check the disk.

Then try "fdtool u 0 i" again and it should show the disk loaded and identified.

I wasn't going to add to this thread because these "Hi, I'm ..." threads are usually boring, but poor Paul's status (outcast) makes me very sad. Anyone would think he was a Pommie cricketer.

However, I'm Tony, I'm a professional engineer and software developer and (thankfully) now retired, so I can spend 16 hours a day playing with my Amigas.

I've been part of the OS4 team since 2003 and it's been great fun.

Now that the product has been released, you can all see what fun we've had making it.

Now to start 4.1 ...

Would someone who has a working "fast" Update4 installation AND a working "slow" Final installation do this for me:

1) Boot the Update4 installation, run Prefs/ScreenMode and write down the Mode Properties (Visible size, Maximum colours, Horizontal and Vertical freequencies).
2) Boot the Final installation and write down the same numbers.

See if there is any difference between the two installations and report back here.

[edit]
I've tried Update4, current beta system and Final release and I can't see any difference between them as long as the GUI settings are the same in each one.
Of course, if you have window drag-with-contents set in Final but not in Update4, then it will be slower.
[/edit]

Another thing to try: use a CD-R disk instead of a CD-RW. The cost is negligible.

Aha! You must be an engineer like me!

OK, so it's running OK (otherwise MTB wouldn't see it).

What sort of disk is in the drive?

What does "fdtool (u 0) info" say?

I wonder if it is caused by a change in GUI preferences?

@Toni:

If there were a problem as basic as "Shell won't run", I think it would have been noticed by one of the betatesters or the developers who use the Shell and gcc to compile OS4 components.

It's more likely that there is a problem with your installation.

Just use a standard floppy cable (34-wire) and connect it to the motherboard at one end and the floppy drive at the other. In the middle of the cable there is a narrow strip that is twisted over - this twist should be between the motherboard and the floppy drive to make the drive appear as drive 0. If the cable is not twisted, then the drive will appear as drive 1 (which is OK, just not normal).

Make sure that the red stripe on the cable connects to pin 1 on the motherboard (away from the memory DIMMs) and pin 1 on the floppy (towards the power socket).

Also check that the cable connects properly to the motherboard and is not "one row out" on the pins.

If the machine still does not boot, disconnect the floppy cable, boot OS4, go into Prefs/U-Boot and make sure that the floppy boot priority is not higher than the HD - for instance:

First bootsource = Floppy
Second bootsource = parallel SII IDE Disk

- won't work because U-Boot will try to boot from the floppy first.

Yes, you can use the old AmigaInput. It has some issues which have not yet been resolved, which is why it has been left out.

I just checked the Gears demo with the updated current beta system and OS4 Final and I also found the new release slower (116 fps instead of 132). However, I tracked down the cause:

With no "640x480" mode in my Radeon tooltypes and no "Picasso96Settings" file in Devs:, Gears was opening an 800x600 screen and running more slowly in that.

When I added a "640x480@70" mode in the Radeon tooltypes, Gears ran at its old speed again.

I don't think this is Saimo's problem on his WB, but it might be for other apps.

If you have two drivers trying to control the same hardware, then obviously something will break. But a CW connects directly to its own floppy drive, so there should be no cross-connection between the hardware.

The name "FD0" is hard-coded into the a1floppy driver, so you should not use the same name for a CW drive if a1floppy is running.

If you ONLY have a CW installed, then I suggest you disable the a1floppy driver. Similarly, if you don't have a CW, then don't load its driver.

The simplest way to disable the driver is to edit Kickstart/kicklayout by commenting out the line "MODULE Kickstart/a1floppy.device.kmod". Just put a semi-colon in front of the line to disable loading the driver.

While you are at it, disable the IDE/SATA drivers that you don't use.

It does not use a Catweasel at all, it only addresses the VIA 686B chip.

OK, since this is the first time that the floppy driver has been released, some people are going to have trouble with it. I'll offer help and answer questions here.

FAQ
---

Q1: Why can't I read my <insert name of game> floppies?
A1: The XE hardware can not read Amiga-format floppies. There is support for Amiga filesystem (FFS2) on PC-formatted floppies, this will let you read/write floppies on either an A1 or a Classic. See the docs on the CD.

Q2: So-and-so managed to get his PC to read Amiga floppies, why can't we?
A2: He isn't using the VIA 686B Southbridge chip that we have in the XE. It can't read them.

Q3: Does it click?
A3: If you ask it to.

Any more questions?

That's good news - now you can edit the thread heading to say "SOLVED!"

There are some cables around that have the Slave connector on the end rather than in the middle, but the fact remains that Brandon needs to make sure that the new drive is connected to the Master connector (the black one).

There are three env-variables that control the order of boot attempts: Boot1, Boot2 and Boot3

Normally you would set Boot1 to be CD (so that you can always boot from CD after an accident), Boot2 to HD (normal) and Boot3 to whatever else you are likely to use (floppy, USB, ethernet, etc).

You can use the menu to set these variables, but it is tricky to get into and out of it without losing contents, eg every time you enter the menu it erases Boot2 and Boot3.
You can always do it by hand from the U-Boot shell and make sure you save it afterwards.

If you are using sii for you main HD, I would suggest:

setenv boot1 psiiCDROM
setenv boot2 psii
setenv floppy
saveenv

@SS:

Firstly, it's a hack, not a fix. It does not completely cure the problem, it merely reduces the probability of it happening, and software support does the rest when it does happen.

It's impossible to tell from that pic whether the hack has been done properly, but it is in the right area of the board (up near the CPU). There is more of it on the other side of the board.

The second closeup (lower left of the main pic) is nowt to do wit' DMA hack and is a factory mod.

FWIW, the USB fix (which is really a fix and not a hack) is just a case of adding a few small resistors to the USB ports. It can be done on the board but needs expert+tools to do it neatly with SMD resistors. I didn't bother, just added big pigtailed resistors that look ugly, but who's to see them?
Alternatively they can be added externally (to the cable to the front ports, for instance).

Well I can't tell YOU, else Steven would kill ME.

Bah, how long till the end of the year? Amother two weeks (tm)?

What about if I offer myself for killing, then Steven could tell Rich, Rich could tell Mikey_C to kill me, but since this is Oz and he's a Pom, I'm pretty safe?