Help setting up a Katana

Hi all,

I'm having problems sharpening it...no, wait ;-)

I've hooked everything up as per the guide in the SDK - Katana's SCSI-A port via a 50-pin cable to an Adaptec 2940U card, terminated SCSI-B with an active terminator. The only thing I haven't done in the guide is to terminate the 'For GD-writer' port (I only have one terminator right now...) but everything else is ok. I'm also turning everything on in the correct sequence as specified.

When I turn on my PC it hangs at the 'Press CTRL+A to enter SCSISelect' screen (from the 2940's BIOS), unless I change the 'Plug+Play scam[sic] at boot' setting - if I do this it boots into Windows, but without mounting the Katana. If I enable 'Termination at host adaptor' it also boots correctly, but without the devices mounted. I can see both

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ID 3: CPL KATANA DA
ID 4: CPL GD-M

in the device list in the 2940's boot menu, and I can check/enumerate the hard drive so I know it's almost working...all I need is for it to enumerate properly and then boot into Windows correctly, so the two devices can be detected by Windows.

What are the correct settings in the 2940's boot menu? Will terminating the GD writer port fix my problem? (I don't see why I'd be able to see either device at all if it was a termination problem, but then SCSI's weird...)

Thanks in advance :thumbsup:

Stone

 

Hey Stone,

Do you have any other SCSI devices hooked up? Have you checked for any hardware conflicts? I had the same issue, but removed another SCSI card I had in the computer and it cleared the conflicts and everything worked peachy. I'm sure you've tried this, but thought I'd throw it out there for you.

Out of curiosity is your system booting to the main screen when not in Emu mode?

 

Hi Jay

I have no other SCSI devices in my system at all, whether on the same chain or not. In fact the 2940 is the only additional PCI device installed at all

Whether plugged into a system or stand-alone it boots just like a retail Dreamcast, except it seems slightly pickier about scratched discs - I've had a few that it'll refuse to play at all. I was under the impression that you needed to be able to access it with a PC to put it into emu mode, and I haven't been able to do that...

My aim is to be able to master a virtual GD-ROM to try and get the scratched games into a usable form on its hard disk, as then I can just run them off the disc without using the (damaged) original media at all. Right now I can't even boot with it hooked up though :-(

Would it harm anything to set the CPL GD-M as the 'boot device' in the SCSI card's menu? It's not actually booting from it (I disabled that in my motherboard BIOS, and there's no bootable filesystem on the devkit anyway!) but I wonder whether you need to have something in there just to get it to boot happily...

Stone

 

No.

You only need to terminate the SCSI-B port, you don't need to terminate the Writer port.

 

The cavalry arrives!

OK, so I know now that the problem's somewhere in the 2940 config. Does anyone have a working setup from which they could copy down the settings for me?

Stone

 

Lol.

...What do you specifically mean by 2940 'settings'?

I only ask as it should be a 'no-brainer' / 'plug and prey' type scenario...

...All I've ever done is plug the PCI card in the host P.C, switch it on and bam I'm connected to the Dev Box.

...I've never thought of settings or adjusting anything.

It almost sounds like the SCSI card is conflicting with something, could be Windows, what ver are u running? could be hardware, could be something simple like trying the card in another slot, or another P.C altogether.

 

I'm running XP...

The card is second-hand; I think the settings (in its own internal menu) may not have been at factory default. Thinking about resetting them should probably have been the first thing I did

I'm just about to reboot again, but I can make it enumerate both devices on boot now. Hopefully I'm not too far away from it working

Stone

 

OK, so it shows both devices on boot:
ID 3: CPL KATANA DA
ID 4: CPL GD-M


but after the GD-M it shows the disk size, then C: ... is it trying to map this to the C drive and having it overridden by Windows when it boots? There doesn't seem to be any option to change the drive letter assigned to each drive in the adaptor menu.

Stone

 

I have heard that sata can cause problems iirc.. so a good question would be do you have sata on your computer?

 

Argh. Yes, both my hard disks are SATA...

[and they're detected as a SCSI controller in Windows]

Stone

 

Few more tidbits:

Are you planning to run the SDK development environment? My understanding is it won't work on XP. You can access the drives, but that's it.

Also, have you d/loaded the most current ASPI drivers per the manual? (I know dumb question, but thought I should ask).

SATA drive, definitely an issue, it's been mentioned here before.... Bummer....

Use an old system with Win98SE, it works like a charm with everything....

 

I was hoping to be able to drop standard disk images onto the drives and have it run. Ah well...

I do have some old PCs kicking about at home, I'll have to dig one out. Irritating

The only other thing I was going to try was swapping the card between PCI slots to check it wasn't a non-bus-mastering slot, but it doesn't look like there's much point now. Grrr.

Stone

 

No point in swapping slots if you have a SATA mobo, SATA is king!

I use Win2K as an O.S for the Dev Kit, I think I might even use XP as the old machine I use is multi-O.S-bootable and I very rarely worry about which O.S I'm running in.

 

No worries, you can use that old system for Jaguar Development too. That's what I did, I finally have my DC/Jaguar setup JUST the way I want it....

 

That's what I used my laptop for, no easy way of getting a SCSI card in that...

Never mind, I've got a small pile of 486-class machines at home so I'll have a root through the attic when I'm next back

Stone

 

the sdk's drivers and utils work fine on XP , but of course there are a few quirks....

 

I remember during installation, some things in the actual SDK only worked under Windows 98, while a certain object in the Windows CE SDK only worked under Windows NT. I can't really rmemeber which Windows version went to which, but I installed the SDKs onto each one of my Windows HD partitions.

Which OS do you guys say is best fitted for the SDK setup?

 

Windows 98 kind of make more sence now. I got to give it a try. May be then I'll be able to close virtual GD-ROM door in GD-Workshop...

 

Win98SE works like a charm for me. Haven't tried it in NT before....