Necroposting. But I have a similar problem and there was no result last time.

On Sunday, August 4, 1991 at 3:37:02 PM UTC+10, Sameer Parekh wrote:
> System I am running on:
> Apple ][GS 1 meg Ingenuity GS Juice+ card.
> Quantum 105PRO. RamFAST SCSI card.
> ORCA installed on the drive.
> When I boot up, and the "Welcome to the IIGS" screen appears, after
> the thermometer is filled, the machine hangs. If I opt for the text boot up
> screen (where it says "In Pause Mode!" and all those version numbers) I get
> no problems. What is the problem?

My system: ROM 3 with 4MB RAM card and RamFAST Rev D 3.01ez in slot 7 with SCSI2SD.

So, previously I have installed SCSI2SD on RamFAST and it was "working fine" - some time ago. Stupidly, I didnt test it again before I started.

Tonight I wanted to test another RamFAST Rev D card so I installed it in a minimal system and hooked up the SCSI2SD that worked previously.
As I started up, the RF complained about the configuration and I had to save a new configuration. So far, so good. The SCSI2SD partitions are visible.
I attempted to boot System 6.0.4 partition and the GS/OS thermometer screen is displayed, the thermometer fills quickly but no extensions are loaded and the system sits there. CDA menu is accessible.
On several ctrl-apple-reset attempts I get the same behaviour.
On one attempt I manage to get the text screen displayed and all the extensions load and desktop displays....

So I switched out the RamFAST Rev D to my original card that was "working fine". But now I am getting the same non-booting behaviour on that card too.
Even worse is that after a few ctrl-resets the RamFAST believes there is no drive connected - until I cold restart.

I switched RAM cards. no difference.
I switched PSU from original to ReactiveMicro Universal PSU. no difference.
I booted fine off CFFA3K as an alternative booting device - so I believe the machine, on board RAM and ram card are fine.
I tried providing power to the SCSI case that the SCSISD is in and this didnt make any difference. (Previously I was surprised that the SCSI2SD was able to be powered across the SCSI bus, but thought perhaps it may have kicked it with a bit more juice.)

So what causes the GS/OS load sequence to fall over? I assume it is lack of data coming in from the booting device.
Why does it work sometimes with text mode?
Why is the RamFAST not happy?

Both RamFASTs have the J1 termination power jumper installed.
I haven't used an actual HD in a while, but I can probably pull one out to see what happens.

In the mean time, any insight on this issue would be appreciated.

Regards,
Andrew

There are some GS/OS boot modifiers. For example, booting with Shift held down disables inits and desk accessories. There was another trick to make it stay on the text screen while booting... changing an aux type of something? (Can't remember.)

Any chance the GS/OS installation got corrupted?

Shift booting displays No Inits/DAs but still nothing happens. I haven’t
been able to trigger text mode booting. So something is going awry very
early in the sequence.

I’ve tried another SCSI device and have been able to boot off that so the
indication is that the SCSI2SD setup is not working properly.

I did add a terminator to the end of the chain without seeing any
difference in behaviour. I also tried a third RamFAST card which does the
same thing so at least the RamFAST cards are working.

I tried turning off DMA and TWGS options in the RamFAST config and that
didn’t help.

I did try booting system off CFFA3000 and the SCSI2SD partitions mounted on
the desktop, so that is promising. Perhaps there is some corruption in the
boot files… but I don’t know what could have caused that given I haven’t
removed the microSD card since it was last working.

During attempts I noticed an ‘e’ in the bottom right hand corner of the
text screen. What puts that there?

Andrew Roughan <no_email@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> I did try booting system off CFFA3000 and the SCSI2SD partitions mounted on
> the desktop, so that is promising. Perhaps there is some corruption in the
> boot files… but I don’t know what could have caused that given I haven’t
> removed the microSD card since it was last working.

I extracted the volume using Cidepress and sent it to Geoff Body who was
able to boot it in KEGS. He had some initial delays and trouble starting
Finder but after removing some items from system setup folder. This seems
really strange given no boot icons displayed.

I side stepped the problem by creating another microSD card. This has been
working fine. So I am none the wiser about why the other one doesn’t boot.

Regards
Andrew

Andrew Roughan wrote:
> I side stepped the problem by creating another microSD card. This has been
> working fine. So I am none the wiser about why the other one doesn’t boot.

Hardware failure. I've played with this stuff on a different platform.
Had one card that stopped booting, all the diagnostics I could think of
showed it being fine. Since had a couple fail in subtle ways that I
forget now.
Basically the memory is only good for so many reads/writes and it is
quite possible that a defect can shorten the life.
If another card works fine, I'd retire the other card after copying
anything you need.
Dave

On 4/29/2023 2:47 AM, Dave Yeo wrote:
> Andrew Roughan wrote:
>> I side stepped the problem by creating another microSD card. This has
>> been
>> working fine. So I am none the wiser about why the other one doesn’t
>> boot.
>
> Hardware failure. I've played with this stuff on a different platform.
> Had one card that stopped booting, all the diagnostics I could think of
> showed it being fine. Since had a couple fail in subtle ways that I
> forget now.
> Basically the memory is only good for so many reads/writes and it is
> quite possible that a defect can shorten the life.
> If another card works fine, I'd retire the other card after copying
> anything you need.
> Dave
Another problem with SD cards, USB sticks and SSDs is that the data
deteriorates over time when they are not used. Sources I've read vary
on how long it takes for them to become unreliable but some suggest as
little as six months although most say a year and half to five years.
Charlie