I need some help with OS4.1 on Peg2

Greetings, fellow amigans. I recently took the plunge and bought AmigaOS4.1 for my Peg2, and while I got the system up and running, I have a feeling it isn't properly set-up. I apologize in advance for the very long post but I couldn't seem to explain it in less words.

Let me start from the beginning. Following the manual I booted from the CD, entered my language etc all the way up to where it said I had to partition a drive and that the easiest way was to just use "Load OS4 template"... which failed miserably, stating that "the supplied file is not a profile" and when I looked in the "profiles" folder on the CD, it's completely empty. So I had to do it by hand. Going back to the manual I read that the first partition should be a FFS/0 without long filenames. I can't get the filesystem tab in MediaToolbox to show FFS/0. It shows DOS/03 or something similar when I try to have a plain FFS partition to hold the bootloader.( I fiddled around a LOT with this before I settled on SFS/00 on it because that was the only partition that the OS4 installer wanted to install the bootloader on.)

As it is now, I formatted it with SFS/00 instead and created the main OS4 partition just like that one, and my work partition, and finally created a SWAP as stated in the manual, and then proceeded to install OS4. So far so good.. until I rebooted. It failed to boot at all, and I had to boot from the CD again and then choose my OS4 install on the harddrive. That makes OS4 boot, but without any CD-rom support at all.

The next thing I tried was figuring out a way that I could boot without the OS4 CD. The closest thing I got was by typing "boot /pci/ide/disk@0,0:0 amigaboot.of" in the peg2's firmware start. That boots my OS4 installation but yet again without any CD-rom support at all. Media Toolbox happily states that it wants to change my harddrive to the ONLY drive in the system and doesn't recognize the CD-unit at all. I can't even open or close the CD-tray and even worse, I have to make a cold reboot or the firmware won't see the CD-unit again after a reset.

So, my questions is: How do I make a proper install that partitions the harddrive with the correct filesystems, preferably with that OS4 template that doesn't seem to exist on my CD?

If it still refuses to create it and I should continue with my current setup, how do I make it boot with CD support?

Other than these two problems, the system's been rock-stable, fast as lightening and has happily run all the old 68k things I've tried on it. It's ridiculously great in other words. I can't express in words how great it feels to be back with a true Amiga Workbench again after years of other OS's.

Any help with this is greatly appreciated. :)

As for anything related to the Pegasos in particular, I can't help, but I can still give you a few generic answers and suggestions.

Regarding the file system setup in Media Toolbox, what you want to do is select "Standard Filesystem" and then, in the button group below, select FastFileSystem on the left and Long Filenames on the right (it really must be *with*, not *without* long filenames, there are some files with longer filenames in the installation. Did you misread the manual?). This should show as DOS\07 (AFAIR) down in the shaded area below. Over on the right side of the window, don't forget to change the blocksize to 2048 (FFS really needs at least that to work well) and make sure you have at least 600 buffers.

But it should also work to use SFS\0 (not SFS\2 IIRC) as filesystem on your boot partition, so I'm not sure why that didn't work out.

When Media Toolbox wants to set your last drive flag, you should let it; the CD drive(s) don't "count" in that respect, so last drive means last hard drive. CD/DVD drives are not handled by Media Toolbox at all.

About the template, I think I remember hearing that it was mistakenly missing on the 4.1 CD, so that's probably why you couldn't find it. Probably your best bet - unless you know someone else with an OS4 installed from earlier - is to wait x days(where x is hopefully not so large by now ) and get the impending Update 1, where this file should be included.

Don't forget to make sure you are registered properly on Hyperion's site, so you can download it right away when it is released.

Hope this helps, and that others can cast some lightover the CD problems etc.

Best regards,

Niels

@Eldritch

Hello

My first post here, I also recently got AmigaOS 4.1 for Peg2, and yes the same happened to me about the template step as stated in the manual, the file does not exist. However, you can always manually establish your partitions (just as you did) and there is no difference.

Also like you, the machine wont boot as it is unless you do it from the open firmware prompt. What helped me here was configuring some env variables.

Use printenv to see the current value of your env variables

Use setenv <var_name> <new_value> to change them. There are two in particular, one for the default boot device and one for the default boot command. I cant remember their exact names but they are clear, you'll see them.

Change the device variable to /pci/ide/disk@0,0:0 and the command variable to amigaboot.of

That should solve one problem (having to boot manually)

About the CD not being recognized, I don't know what could be happening. Have you installed the appropriate updates from Hyperion's site?

Hope that helps.

Regards,
Efren

@Eldritch
I don't have a Peg2, so can only make generic comments: Did you remember to install the SLB on the harddisk? Easy to overlook (I did!) if you've never installed OS4 before. Go to Media Toolbox, Edit RDB/Reinstall..., and look under "AmigaOne boot code (SLB)".

@Bender Quote:
For such a serious problem/flaw, I would be inclined to contact Rogue/etc directly.

@Eldritch
I have peg2 too, but because i install os4 on it 7-8 monts ago, i do not remember about how exactly i install it. All what i remember, it's that it was not from first time.

Also i remember, that it was madness slow on installation stage (it was like some problems with IDE, etc). As far as i remember, that problem was fixed in the HotFixes, but, the main ISO (that CD for sale with 4.1) does not have that fixes, so, these problems still can be here.

Also installation process itself was not like "ok" "ok". I remember that manual was wrong, and i do everything manually. Something was wrong related to partition values (size of buffers, or something). Auto-detect also does not works as must.

That all what i can say :)

Thanks guys. :) I got it to atleast boot by itself now, but still no CD. Installed the hotfix too, but to no avail. Seems like I have to open up the box and see if its jumpered wrong or something like that.

@Eldritch

How have you jumpered your devices? i have always used cable select on my pegasos machines.

Well it's strange that it works when you boot from the cd and otherwise not anyway but make sure you're using cable select since that *should* work.

@smf

I have on my peg2 cable-select ones, and that all works just fine with Morphos, but, AOS4 make some problems with it and i manually change it as far as i remember.

That remind me old problems with classic setup, when you need to do some magic to make cd+hdd works fine on the 3-4ide cables

@Eldritch
Sorry for my english, I am italian.
My Pegasos 2 works fine with AOS 4.1, installation easy, below a link good tutorial:
www.ngi-info.com/.../Installat ... _4.1_Pegasos2_English.pdf

@nbache

Quote:

STOP!

He was talking about the bootloader partition if I got him right. And this MUST be either a usual FFS partition without long filenames or international, etc. or a SFS/0 partition, because otherwise OpenFirmware can't access it and can't load the second level bootloader.


For the system partition, etc. you are of course right and FFS/2 with long filenames must be used if for some reason SFS/2 nor JXFS can't be used.

@Cyborg

Ahhh ... okay ... Bootloader partition? Must be something Pegasos specific? Sorry, hope I didn't mislead too much.

Best regards,

Niels

Edit: I guess this also means that the OS4 template from an A1 or Sam CD would not work on a Pegasos. Hopefully the Update for Pegasos contains a template file tailored for those (haven't seen the contents of the Pegasos Update myself, only the other two).

Ok, this is a little embarrassing but I finally figured out what the problem was. Seems like OS4 didn't like my only IDE cable running both a HDD and the CD in any configuration (master-slave or master-cable select) and just showed the slave device as "busy" so after putting each on their own IDE port, everything works.

Even better was that I got update 1 downloaded and installed flawlessly, so now I'm one VERY happy returned Amiga user.

Anyway, since I hadn't messed with filesystems in a while, this thread got to be a quick tutorial in how to format the damn thing correctly so thanks for that. :)