Could someone please explain to me what the 2nd Hard Drives function is in the TOOL? One is attached to the motherboard but the other one is attached to the PS2 card. The reason I ask is because we moved recently and one of the hard drives got corrupted (even though I wrapped it very well and it traveled with us) and now the TOOL won't connect to the PS2 board and I thought that even though it hasn't got a function that maybe it loads the MRP driver from this drive instead of the main one?? It would be a real shame if it is this way as I don't know how to repair it. Any help is much appreciated, PS2Guy.
From what I have understood from reading these forums is that the 2nd hard drive is really just a duplicate drive. It doesn't do anything on PS2 side that I have seen. So in theory you can swap the hard drives and you should be good to go. Just for some clarification, the card that you are referring to is actually a miniaturized PC complete with processor, ram, and video. The motherboard is where the PS2 components are.
As Keberasky wrote, the PCI card really houses the PC side of the TOOL. The backplane board (with the PCI slots) is passive in the sense that it does not contain the CPU and just connects the PC to the PS2. The PS2 itselfs spreads over the backplane, PS2 mainboard and the various daughter boards attached to it. From a software point of view, the second HDD is connected to the PS2, not the PC. There is supposed to be a patch for PS2 Linux to access it, but I have never seen it in action. Besides that, I have never seen any software using the drive. My guess is that the HDD interface (which was later moved to PCMCIA, then the network adapter via expansion bay, then scrapped) hadn't been finalized at the time, but the boards already been manufactured with the prototype interface. Everything the TOOL's Linux needs resides on the first drive that is connected to the CPU card. If mrp fails to load, I'd suggest checking the connections between the boards. If mrp itself is not found, you need to rebuild the operating system installation.
Thanks Bugger!!! I was thinking that but just needed clarification on it. Looks like I have to pull it apart for the fourth time and re-seat the boards again. The error message is during start up, it fails to load dsnet and mrp and it states the reason as "maybe board not found". Do you think I could load Redhat 7.2 on it and connect it though the network and fire ProDG at it? Or is this not a good idea? I've loaded ProDG on my computer but it's windows so it doesn't work in there.
It's in /arch/mips/config.in, atleast for the 2.2.19 kernel from the Linux disc: PS2Guy, ProDG won't connect to the Tool if dsnet/mrp aren't running. Is the PCI slot with the plugged card damaged?
It doesn't appear to be damaged, I haven't striped it all the way though. I've looked at the tutorial and it looks fairly complicated, but not unachievable. I don't really have that much time to do it all at once, and I wouldn't want to stop halfway through as I might forget where I'm at. I can re-seat the cards that's not a problem but I was mainly worried that it's not usable now since one hard drive is corrupted.
It's the one connected to the PS2 Board. I swapped it over before we moved so I could see if it was the same as the other one. I found out that it wasn't an exact clone of the first one, it didn't have the updated romflash on it from SDK 3.0.
DD copies of both drives, collection of... Watching this thread closely as while my DTL-T10000H functions fine, and I have dd backups of both drives, this wonderful forum has taught me SO MUCH about my PS2 dev kits. I think that it's just wonderful that you have people putting up as much info as we have here; it really helps people when they first get a T10k or T10kH, I know it did for myself. I lucked out in that I am already a linux guy, I think that was helpful lol. Anyway I write as I think a while back ASSEMbler or someone had mentioned a project to try and get dd copies of drives for all the T10k versions (of both drives btw, just in-case) and also I guess it would make sense to dd my T15k drives, I am just so dang careful when I go anywhere near that thing. So, did I miss out on whether this went anywhere, ie have people been amassing collections of dd'd copies of their T10k/T10kH/T10kHA/etc drives? Regards, npt
Well, I have dumps of my drives. Last time I powered on my Tool, the emulation hdd was dying, the client wouldn't allow me to save the files, delete them or whatever, corrupt hdd
