UltraSatan setup question

[Skarro]

Hello all,

 

After about a year of waffling, I finally got around to setting up my old MegaSTE and 1040STF. Unfortunately, the 1040STF doesn't want to output video any more, so I'm putting that one aside for now. The MegaSTE - after being in storage for close to 20 years, booted up fine and everything still seems to work OK.

 

I now want to start setting up the UltraSatan I bought from Lotharek, and eventually replace the internal hard drive in my MSTE with the internal UltraSatan. Before I do that, however, I have a couple of questions for those who might have already gone through this process:

 

1) I ordered the UltraSatan from Lotharek with the flash cards included. Did Lotharek do any basic setup of the flash cards already? If I plug the UltraSatan into the MSTE with his cards, is there already a basic drive setup that will show up on the Desktop?

 

2) I want to back up everything from my internal hard drive onto the UltraSatan card. What would be the best way to do this? I have both an external and an internal UltraSatan, so I was going to connect the external unit to the MegaSTE, back up everything from the hard drive to the external unit, then remove the hard drive and install the internal UltraSatan. My only concern is what could happen if I connect the external UltraSatan to the ACSI port, while the internal hard drive is still connected at the same time. Will there be a conflict? Can I muck up either of my drives? My internal hard drive is partitioned into C:, D:, E: and F: drives, and I also have a RAM disk as G:. What will the UltraSatan show up as if I connect it to the external ACSI port?

 

3) I know that there are a couple of software packages out there that people are recommending to format the UltraSatan flash cards, but can the regular Atari hard disk setup program work as well? My problem right now is that my MegaSTE is living in its own bubble, with no easy way to get 3rd party software on to, or off of, it.

 

Thanks for any suggestions or advice!

 

[ParanoidLittleMan]

There will be conflict for sure. Because UltraSatan is by default set as target 0 and 1. Internal Mega STE is set usually as target 0. So, you need to change some. Easier and wiser is to change internal drive to 2 - by moving middle slider on dip switch on ACSI-SCSI internal board. After that machine will boot from UltraSatan when it is connected. Of course, if proper hard disk driver SW is installed. Will it boot from internal when no UltraSatan is attached depends from hard disk driver on internal disk. AHDI will not boot from target 2 for instance. Changing targets on UltraSatan is possible, but that's not good idea, because internal hard disk driver can not handle UltraSatan for sure.

I would say that there is no 'regular Atari hard disk setup program' . What Atari offered - AHDI is outdated and not capable to work with modern devices.

You may try ICD Pro SW, which is now freeware, but there are better solutions. And they offer TOS/DOS compatible partitioning, so file transfer with some PC is really simple. http://atari.8bitchip.info/pphdr.php

Backup of your files to SD cards should be not problem after setting everything up. Then just copy all files, directories to partittion(s) on SD card(s). Order of partitions depends from which device Atari will autoboot. As said, UltraSatan partitions will not show up if you boot from internal drive. When boot from UltraSatan, partitions on it will be C ...., and internal drive's will be last ones. Must take care about total partition count limit, what is 14 in case of TOS, so C-P max. In case of need, and if autoboot works not well from some reason you may load driver from floppy.

[Charlie_]

You will need to unplug the internal hdd and boot up a floppy that has the UltraSatan config software.

Found here: http://www.lotharek.pl/product.php?pid=94

 

Set the UltraSatan to an ID other than 0 so it doesnt conflict with the internal hdd.

 

Plug the internal hdd back in and you should be able to boot and then setup the SD cards on the Ultrasatan from there.

 

I havent done it in a while but I remember being able to use both internal hdd and ultrasatan together with HDDRIVER

found here: http://hddriver.seimet.de/en/

[Skarro]

Thanks for the info guys.

 

Another follow-up question: if I do connect the UltraSatan externally to the MSTE, and leave the internal SCSI hard drive connected, do I also need to change a Master/Slave relationship on either device? It's been a while since I've worked with SCSI drives, but I remember needing to do this when adding multiple SCSI drives to a system. Or will the UltraSatan interface take care of that?

 

My biggest problem right now is trying to get the UltraSatan configuration software and drivers onto my MegaSTE, but I may have a few options there...

 

Thanks!

[ParanoidLittleMan]

There is no master/slave switch (jumper) on SCSI devices. It is on IDE (ATA) hard drives. As is said. most important thing is that you ensure that no same target # on connected devices. Therefore must change something, since default setting is: internal=0, UltraSatan=0 & 1 (2 slots take two #s). My opinion is that best is to set internal to #2 (by moving middle slider), because it is simple + then will autoboot from UltraSatan if it is connected.

When no UltraSatan connected, then will boot of course from internal. Later depends from current driver SW on internal drive, but it can be updated. Although, best would be to not use that drive after successful data transfer to SD cards. And then again, ideal config is to leave UltraSatan on default setting..