Help getting internal HDD in Mega STe

[AtariSociety]

Hi all, been futzing with getting a hard drive in my Mega STe for the last few hours. No luck. So figured I would ask here for advice.

I purchased this Mega STe couple years back and it did not come with a drive BUT it has the metal hdd sled with ACSI to SCSI card inside all connected.

So, I tried 2 drives and both HDDriver 7.55 and HDDriver 8.2 will not see to allow me to format and partition and use. They just don't see either drive.

The two drives in question are... Apple Quantum 160MB ProDrive LPS and a Seagate 2GB Barracuda ST32550N. Most my tests were on the 160MB as I figured it was more inline getting it to work. But did try both. Now there are jumpers on each drive but neither has jumper block to change them so guessing that means they should be set at SCSI 0? I did try a jumper block on the 160MB but did not help either.

On the ACSI pcb I tried the dip switches all to Off, all on, and various combinations. The drives all spin up and do that initialize sound so they should be working, just zilch in terms of HDDriver seeing them.

With all them on and using HDDriver 7.55 and using the ID Check, I would see under the ACSI IDs this... ACSI 0.0: Atari SH/Megafile Direct Access. But clicking format or partition no drive appears to do anything. Also with #1 and #3 on I got ACSI 2.0: Atari SH/Megafile Direct Access and with #2 only on I got ACSI 1.0: Atari SH/Megafile Direct Access.

But again, no drives appear for me to format.

I suppose both drives can be old and bad but they do spin up.

Any other tips? Could the ACSI to SCSI PCB be bad?

Thanks

TJ

Edited March 16, 2018 by AtariSociety

[AtariSociety]

Some side notes about my Mega STe.....

In order to boot the Mega STe (since it has no internal HDD), I have always had to hit the space bar on my keyboard to boot from floppy disk. Unsure if this is an issue but when I turn on the Mega STe, the floppy whirs and stops, screen is blank, and will sit there until I hit space bar. Then it will boot from floppy and if I have an older Supra 20MB drive connected to the ACSI port in back, it will boot to it.

But I always have to hit space bar to boot. Wanted to get that out there.

Thanks

TJ

[ParanoidLittleMan]

Atari Mega STE internal ACSI-SCSI adapter can work only with SCSI drives where can disable parity.

So, first thing you need to do is to get some docs for those drives and see can and how to disable parity.

It that is not possible you need different drive or upgrade of internal adapter. Which is btw, limited to 1GB accessible capacity.

http://atari.8bitchip.info/modmste1.html

[Bikerbob]

Yes, as Peter says (Paranoid) there are few workable options for a REAL HD in your machine. Both of mine I do not use the internal adaptor. Using DMA adaptors to CF or MicroSD are popular now. Look around threads here and on Atari-Forums.com and https://www.exxoshost.co.uk/forum/index.php - These are your best sources for various kits out there now. I use a device called a micro cosmos - excellent. but at the moment out of production. Ultra Satan is good. There are others as well.

 

James

[AtariSociety]

I actually do have a small black external Satan device that came with the Mega STe. Has cable to connect internally too, although I am not sure how to mount it inside since it is in a small black case. Guess I could just let it dangle in there or create some internal mount. I tried this device externally and did use HDDriver in it with a 2GB SD card, and did get it to work once mounting on desktop and read and write from it.... but, after reboot, it will not boot from the SD Card. In fact, I could not use HDDriver 8.2 after formatting and partitioning the SD Card to INSTALL HDDriver on it. It hangs when I select Install HDDriver. Maybe 8.2 is my issue and I need to upgrade to version 10?

 

TJ

 

Yes, as Peter says (Paranoid) there are few workable options for a REAL HD in your machine. Both of mine I do not use the internal adaptor. Using DMA adaptors to CF or MicroSD are popular now. Look around threads here and on Atari-Forums.com and https://www.exxoshost.co.uk/forum/index.php - These are your best sources for various kits out there now. I use a device called a micro cosmos - excellent. but at the moment out of production. Ultra Satan is good. There are others as well.

 

James

[ParanoidLittleMan]

There are other drivers available:

http://atari.8bitchip.info/pphdr.php

Demo image with games here:

http://atari.8bitchip.info/DiskImgPP1.html

[AtariSociety]

Well I was able to get the external Satan SD card drive booting so that is good. Still have issues with the actual hard drives but will leave it alone for now. TJ

[atarian1]

In general, I tell anyone wanting to use a hard drive with the ST to stick with hard drives under 1GB. By the time 1GB hard drives were coming out, the market was starting to be dominated by Macs and PCs, so hard drive manufacturers started cutting corners on the SCSI standard. One feature that >1GB hard drives tend to have is SCSI arbitration that not all ACSI-SCSI adapters support - including the Atari-built ones.

 

Apple SCSI hard drives are optimized for Macs. They could work with other computers, but they can be finicky too with non-Mac computers. I remember some people having hard times with Apple drives back in the day too.

 

As recommended by others, best use a modern SD card drive for hard drive needs.

[ParanoidLittleMan]

1GB capacity limit has nothing with arbitration. There are no Apple SCSI hard drives. I used 18 GB SCSI drive well with my modded Mega STE internal adapter, where of course no SCSI bus arbitration.

[tjlazer]

Sounds like you have TOS 2.05. I hated that the screen was white and I had to hit space. Get TOS 2.06, you get a nice Atari logo and memory test. You hit space to skip mem test. I have a spare set of TOS 2.06 if you want it.