Buddha 20th Anniversary and A2000/Kick3.1

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Don't Panic. Please wash hands.
  • First of all, thanks for supporting the community with so many great products Jens! <3 I have quite a lot of your stuff, both for C64 and Amiga!

    Recently I got to install my 2nd Buddha 20th Anniversary controller, as I already successfully have one operating in my other Amiga 2000/Kick 1.3 system.

    The new one gives me some trouble though...

    I am currently using a base system to try to narrow down any errors, however with an Oktagon 2008 (where the HD controller is disabled) to benefit from the extra memory
    I have on that card. I have of course tried without the Oktagon 2008 too, with same results.

    1) The Buddha controller doesn't always find my drive on the primary controller. It doesn't really matter if I put a 40GB IDE drive on it, og if I am using a CF adapter.
    I have tried with a few different CF adapters, the one I am using though is exactly the same I am using in my other A2000/1.3 - it's bought at the same time, it's from
    the same batch, they look totally identical.

    2) First time I booted, the Buddha auto booted into the system, but ever since, it only boots into the CLI screen. I have no idea how it stopped starting up the software
    automatically. I am currently typing InstallBuddha to start the install process. But no drives will be found... and I really don't understand why it doesn't start up
    automatically, as I didn't do any changes to the DOM myself.

    3) However, if I boot from a Workbench floppy, and then start the Buddha Install from the icon on the DOM, then it will find the drives.... no matter if it's HD or the CF.
    But... it will always only format a Workbench partition of roughly 500Mb and the Work partition of just below 2000Mb. No matter what I do, I can't force it to format
    the partitions any larger. Using the newer HDtoolbox from Aminet also doesn't help. I remember on my other A2000 that the Buddha automatically made a Workbench
    boot partition of a lower capacity, and then prepared the remaining data for the Work partition.. but it doesn't seem to work here. I wonder what I am doing wrong? :-)

    4) I tried to use a 2GB CF card, just for testing, and let the Buddha install software format and prep everything with WB3.1. But when I started to copy some random test data to the Work
    partition it suddenly destroyed the Workbench partition.. so I guess something is wrong since it override the partition tables somehow. I tried the same with a Sandisk CF 16B card - same issue...

    Basically, it seems that I can get it to work if I manually use HDtoolbox from Aminet and setup for example 5-6 smaller partitions, choose to install it with PFS3 from the DOM - but I really would like to have just 2 max 3 partitions...


    I feel I have tried all sorts of combinations right now. I even tried to use the DOM from my other Buddha controller, also that doesn't boot up automatically?

    My PSU is totally OK and has been fixed and ready for this century, so any issues should not be caused by that. Also the A2000 is a NOS A2000 which I bought some 15+ years ago, battery was removed at that time and then it was stored for more than 10 years until now :-) So I believe the motherboard should be 100% OK, it looks in mint condition.

    I have read through all posts here... I tried flashing the ROM, and it is currently flashed with BuddhaInstallUpdate1.2.lha - but I also tried 1.1, but no change. There is probably something I am missing out.. I just don't know what? :-) Any hints?

  • 2) First time I booted, the Buddha auto booted into the system, but ever since, it only boots into the CLI screen. I have no idea how it stopped starting up the software
    automatically. I am currently typing InstallBuddha to start the install process. But no drives will be found... and I really don't understand why it doesn't start up
    automatically, as I didn't do any changes to the DOM myself.

    The DOM has a low boot priority (actually a negative value, so standard Prio 0 is higher). If you have a new mass-storage device connected, it does not have an Amiga-RDB ("rigid disk block"), and thus no boot priority at all. After installing, the new media has an RDB with standard boot priority of 0. This puts it "in front of" the install-DOM - that's intentional, so you don't install twice (or even more until you realize that you are in an endless loop).

    But... it will always only format a Workbench partition of roughly 500Mb and the Work partition of just below 2000Mb. No matter what I do, I can't force it to format
    the partitions any larger.

    Note that PFS will allow you to use a huge partition, but it will not be displayed with the actual size, because the standard OS does not have any knowledge about 64-bit file systems. THe "info" command and the size that is displayed on a WB window are always clipped at 4GB, and it's even a signed number, so you may even see a negative size. That doesn't change the fact that all the space is usable. Just start copying files to the partition - it'll just work :-)

    Using the newer HDtoolbox from Aminet also doesn't help. I remember on my other A2000 that the Buddha automatically made a Workbench
    boot partition of a lower capacity, and then prepared the remaining data for the Work partition.. but it doesn't seem to work here. I wonder what I am doing wrong?

    HDtoolbox is hard to deal with if you have disks larger than 4GB. There are some good tutorials on the net, but it's tedious, as you need to install (and even patch in some cases) file systems before, then add them to the RDB, then choose the right flags - it's all very error-prone, which is why we decided to put it all into our installer, as it would take up more than our available time to explain it all to customers who want to do it all manually.

    4) I tried to use a 2GB CF card, just for testing, and let the Buddha install software format and prep everything with WB3.1. But when I started to copy some random test data to the Work
    partition it suddenly destroyed the Workbench partition.. so I guess something is wrong since it override the partition tables somehow. I tried the same with a Sandisk CF 16B card - same issue...

    Is that with our installer, or with your manual method?


    I feel I have tried all sorts of combinations right now. I even tried to use the DOM from my other Buddha controller, also that doesn't boot up automatically?

    Again - boot priority! If you have KS2.0 or higher, you can hold down both mouse buttons to get to early startup where you can manually choose the boot partition.


    tried flashing the ROM, and it is currently flashed with BuddhaInstallUpdate1.2.lha

    That installer update is for the DOM, not the Buddha ROM/flash. THe update for the installer is to deal with low-memory conditions, which you should not have if you have 8M extra from your Octagon.

    Further, the flash update for the Buddha ROM may also not be required if you have just bought the controller. I believe it comes down to two simple things here: Boot priority and displayed partition size.

  • Thanks Jens! :) Ahhh - I am truly getting rusty'n'old here :-) Of course it has to do about the boot priority. I did hold both mouse buttons to be able to boot from the buddha DOM after trying to install.

    Now I wiped my 16GB Sandisk in a PC, and tried again - it booted straight into the Buddha setup, found the card, and all good :-) I have now let the installer format it, resulting in a approx 500 gig WB and a 15XX gig Work partition. I totally forgot that the system of course will not report the right sizes using these old OS*s. I installed the CD ROM drive and are now copying random data to the work drive overnight for testing. If it doesn't work I will post about it, otherwise it means it works (to anyone reading this) :-)

    Indeed, I remember having issues back in the days installing a larger CF card on my Oktagon controller using the Oktapussy fix from Aminet too and the new HDtoolnox. It is awesome you have made it so simple, and this is really what makes your product so damn nice :-)

    The 2GB card (a Transcend) which failed and wiped my Workbench partition was installed by the Buddha software, however, it was installed by booting Workbench and then clicking the Install icon from the DOM. I am not sure if the install script works correct that way, I have the feeling that it maybe doesn't. This was also the only way I could actually find the CF cards after fooling around, before I thought about wiping them on a PC to give it a fresh start again.

    That installer update is for the DOM, not the Buddha ROM/flash. THe update for the installer is to deal with low-memory conditions, which you should not have if you have 8M extra from your Octagon.

    Further, the flash update for the Buddha ROM may also not be required if you have just bought the controller. I believe it comes down to two simple things here: Boot priority and displayed partition size.


    I am a bit confused about this part :-) I seemed to successfully flash something using BuddhaInstallUpdate1.2.lha, but I am not sure what, now that you write it is an installer update. My system has a total of 4MB RAM right now (Oktagon not fully populated with zip RAM) - the system boots, it works, but if I was to update anything to deal with low memory, which file should I then be using? It seems not so clear to me which files are used for what when I check the wiki :-)

    ... thanks again for the great answers Jens!

  • My system has a total of 4MB RAM right now

    ...which means that you do not have any low memory condition. Only if the system is 512k+512k Chip/ranger mem, and the drive you've connected is large (like the 16G drive you've reported to work now), you'll have a low mem condition. An additional chunk of 2MB (which was HUGE back in the days!) will already make the updates unnecessary.

    if I was to update anything to deal with low memory, which file should I then be using?

    BuddhaInstallUpdate1.2.lha deals with it. It contains all updated files of the V1.2 DOM. Just unpack this archive and copy the files over to the DOM - either with a shell, or with your favourite file manager.

  • Thanks a lot Jens! :-)

    Indeed, 4MB of memory felt like being the king of the world back then :-) I just wasn't sure if it would be eating up more when I tried to use such a large drive as 16G, but all good then :-)

    Now I also finally understood BuddhaInstallUpdate1.2.lha - I somehow totally missed out on the Buddha wiki that the files in BuddhaInstallUpdate1.2.lha are meant to be copied to the DOM, but I did notice that the files looks similar when comparing then in Dopus before, so I guess that's just because the DOM coming with my Buddha 20th already has the same files.

    I have copied a few CD's to my Work partition now, it seems to work just as it should, only showing the wrong capacity as it is supposed to do on a Kick/OS 3.1 system.

    It's ready to rock like it's 1992 -thanks again! :thumbup:8)

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