Original ICD The Link and 1 GB > drives

[exoshell]

I recently purchased an ICD The Link off ebay for use with my 1040 STF. This version of the is simply labeled "The Link" not a Link2 or a Link 97. I've searched the web for information specific to this adapter, but haven't been able to find anything. Most of what I've found refers either to the Link2 or Link97. The only bit of information I've found about this adapter is that it lacks support for parity. Hopefully, someone has the following answers:

 

1. Can I use SCSI drives larger than 1 GB with this adapter along with the HD Driver software?

 

2. Can I use SCSI-2 or SCSI-3 drives with an appropriate cable adapter?

 

3. Do SCSI-to-IDE adapters work?

 

Thanks

Edited December 23, 2007 by exoshell

[chance227]

I recently purchased an ICD The Link off ebay for use with my 1040 STF. This version of the is simply labeled "The Link" not a Link2 or a Link 97. I've searched the web for information specific to this adapter, but haven't been able to find anything. Most of what I've found refers either to the Link2 or Link97. The only bit of information I've found about this adapter is that it lacks support for parity. Hopefully, someone has the following answers:

 

1. Can I use SCSI drives larger than 1 GB with this adapter along with the HD Driver software?

 

2. Can I use SCSI-2 or SCSI-3 drives with an appropriate cable adapter?

 

3. Do SCSI-to-IDE adapters work?

 

Thanks

 

Hi there

 

The answer to your Questions is Yes, Yes, and Yes

 

1 You are only limited to your Partitions and Drive letters.

 

Quote From (Uwe Seimet)

There is not limit imposed by HDDRIVER, but only the operating system

limits. TOS limits the number of drives to 14 (with HDDRIVER you can also

use the IDs A: and B: for hard disk drives, if you do need two floppy

IDs).

The maximum partition size for TOS 4.x is 1 GB.

Note that with MiNT or MagiC as operating system there is no limit for the

partition size and you can use at least 23 partitions.

 

2

 

I currently use a SCSI 3 unit conneted to a SCSI 1 adapter and it works fine

BUT you MUST diasble parity on the Drive or it will not work.

 

3

 

From what I have seen on the web I have no reason to beleive it will not work,

I cant put my hands on the doc at the moment, but someone did a step by step

setup with the same hardware.

 

 

Hope this helps

Chance227

[exoshell]

Thanks

[GeekGod]

I have used a SCSI-to-IDE bridge adapter with both a Link2 & AdSCSI Micro ST and it worked fine.

 

Once while messing around I hooked the AdSCSI Micro ST to a SCSI-to-IDE adapter, then an IDE to Compact Flash adapter, then a Compact Flash to SD card adapter, and I was able to format and install the ICD SCSI Pro Utilities on an SD card and boot my system.

 

The SCSI-to-IDE adapter I used was an old Acard Tech AEC-7720U. The IDE to CF adapter was some generic one off of ebay, and the CF to SD adapter was the type-2 from Mittoni. I currenty have an old 2GB Quantum IDE drive in my Mega with the AdSCSI Micro ST & SCSI-to-IDE adapter.

[exoshell]

Well, I finally got a SCSI drive and an enclosure, but now I'm having problems with the Link. AdSCSI and AHDI both say there is no device present. Any ideas?

[exoshell]

I spoke too soon. After a little RTFM, I fiddled with the jumper settings. After 3 hours of combined formatting and bad sector checks, I have my ST up and running with AdSCSI.

[TTowner]

I am posting this becuse i feel it could be of some interest...

It was copied from ATARI-forum and is not my post...

It talks about SD cards and adapters. As we are now finding it very hard to buy the correct size SCSI devices this seems to now be a more viable option...

 

 

drives C-P 535MB physical size,TYPE BGM {see partition notes},

on ACSI>>SCSI >IDE {lun0 id0 drive in master ide mode}

samsung 8.4GB drive SVO844-D IDE

 

STE 1MB / adscsi plus also confirmed using a sh205 drive shell with scsi mod so older cards will work fine}

hd driver v8.16

 

the method i used

 

using hd driver from floppy adjust all the peramiters of the floppy copy and let it save

youll need to load the HDDRIVER.prg from the floppies auto folder

go to settings

in general driver choices enable restart after reset and unlock after reset

and leave the rest unchecked unless you use two scsi hosts lun 0 and lun 1

if this is the case you can enable to logical luns {so you can boot from either or or just one

 

in scsi driver adjuster menu for adscsi plus pro or link etc enable icd compatable interface and also asci speed enhancement fast acsi

enable scsi rest on error and reset when booting

 

then reboot before formating

in format dont enable the error table format it using an interleave of 2

and when it sector checks press esc

escape the sector check or youll be there all day

then reboot

 

and restart hddrutil.exe

then in partition auto split to 14 partitions { you can have 16 i think not sure there maybe limits}

and recorrect the sizes to 511MB and dont set a type leave it at '---'

in the compatability menu choice enable tos 1.04 compatable

and byte swapping enabled

then partition the drive

any slack space will be ignored

you now WITHOUT QUITING OR REBOOTING FIRST need to use change partition type

 

youll see the type is most prob BGM and all ticked

now press ok and let it take the action and quit the hddrutil gem

it seem's the type isnt set till you do this and is only set if you do it straight after partition

{took me a while to twig here to this bug }

 

at this point the machine will be a bit strange and sluggish

so when you quit the app it warns you to reboot

so power down ! both the machine and the drive /interfaces

 

repower drive and puter 20 sec later

and proceed to initalise {same menu 'harddisk' as partition} each drive starting at C

when you do the intitialise the drive will make its grinding sound and the bee will still be onscreen

youll also see the menus for sector size etc leave these alone

i connected an led to the ide interface jp4 it does go out when this step completes so its handy to have one

basicaly wait a few second and press reset {bug in something do do with hddriver v8.16 havent tried a later one}

it will still initialise

so once reset for 10 seconds or so

restart and repeat this with hddrutil FROM FLOPPY till you make all the drives C- P initalised

when you have made about 1/2 of them the machine will respond much better

and once they are all done

use hddrutil to install the driver to the drive C from the install menu in hddrutil

 

and take the disk out

 

power down at this point wait the usual 1/2 a min

and power up then the drive will start as a 14X535MB IDE fast drive

then click the drive c choose the usual install disk drive from the ataris options menu

name each drive as C,D,E etc and a name if you like

and then once all the icons are done and youve alligned them on the screen

save the desktop

 

reboot and there is your 14 drives ready

 

open drive p

i found i had to save the desktop with all the icons

and at first drive F-P were not avalible

i simply rebooted from the hddriver floppy and reinstalled the driver from the menu in hddrutil.prg

seems the driver wont install correctly till all the icons are there and saved to a desktop.inf

on drive c

and again reboot

so...

gives around ~1300Mb/Sec and an access time latency time of 14ms or so.....

this is better than most scsi drives

 

small 8-10GB ide drives are best suited most makers i tried allow the interface to project the right size to hddriver

 

see above for how to use several ide drives on one cable and switch them off when you want to change them

just from the power

 

this scsi->ide interface is only for one ide drive on one scsi id you can have a few of them thou

but you still have the choice of master or slave

as hd driver likes it ....like id->0 master id->1 slave id2->master id3-> slave as physical ide drives

however i didnt prove this as the ide is alive in scsi

and for all purpose will appear as scsi to the driver maybe???

[ppera]

Some notes:

 

There is a 1GB limit by some ICD adapters (and inernal one in Mega STE). It is hardware limitation and has not much with driver used. As I know, only latest ICD Pro adapters can access above 1GB on SCSI drives. On their WEBsite it is not clear what adapters can access what.

Then, it has nothing with partition size limits of TOS. As said, it is HW limitation.

 

SCSI-IDE adapters should work. However, I have bad expereiences with CF cards. With Yamaha adapter it worked not with most CF cards. Only Sandisk 2GB was partitally usable - reading was OK, but writing not. With regular hard disks it worked flawless and very fast - as DMA chip in Ataris can (1280KB/sec) . There are other adapters which maybe work better with CF...

 

Exoshell:

 

what capacity is attached SCSI drive ?

[ijor]

There is a 1GB limit by some ICD adapters (and inernal one in Mega STE). It is hardware limitation and has not much with driver used. As I know, only latest ICD Pro adapters can access above 1GB on SCSI drives. On their WEBsite it is not clear what adapters can access what.

 

The only ICD host adapter that can't do more than 1GB is the very first model. "Link" models are the latest ones, and they can all use high capacity drives.

 

There is no such a thing as "ICD Pro adapter", or you mean driver/software?