Focus Hard Card Questions - ROM 00/01/03 and issues with ProDOS 8

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Focus Hard Card Questions - ROM 00/01/03 and issues with ProDOS 8

I recently found an old Focus Hard card for the IIgs (and IIe according to the manual).
The hard drive was bad on it, easily replaced and repartitioned using their software. NOTE: It takes many many hours to format a 30G drive.

The card works with GS/OS on my ROM03 machine just fine.
I reformatted it as regular ProDOS 8 so I could use it in a IIe or my ROM00 IIgs.

There are two problems with this:

1) With ProDOS 8 on the hard drive, the machine will not reboot reliably. Sometimes it boots fine, other times it dumps to the monitor.
From a complete power off, it works. However, rebooting the machine almost always results in a dump to the monitor.

00/2000: 00 00 BRK 00
A=FF00 X=0000 Y=0003 S=01FA D=0000 P=32
B=00 K=00 M=0C Q=A8 L=1 m=1 x=1 e=1
*

Maybe it doesn't like too many partitions? It has at least 30.
I will try a smaller drive when I get a CF. I don't think it can see much of this 30G drive anyway.

2) The card isn't recognized at all in my ROM00 GS. It isn't like the partitions aren't seen- the card isn't seen at all. I have checked for "your card" in the control panel, and even tried different slots- it doesn't even flicker the activity light. Nothing- dead!
Is the Focus card not known to work in a ROM00 IIgs? The manual says it will even work in a IIe, although I haven't tried that yet.

Also, does anyone have any ROM01 upgrade chips that they might spare one? Smile

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Re: Focus Hard Card Questions - ROM 00/01/03 and issues with ...

1) With ProDOS 8 on the hard drive, the machine will not reboot reliably. Sometimes it boots fine, other times it dumps to the monitor.
From a complete power off, it works. However, rebooting the machine almost always results in a dump to the monitor.

00/2000: 00 00 BRK 00
A=FF00 X=0000 Y=0003 S=01FA D=0000 P=32
B=00 K=00 M=0C Q=A8 L=1 m=1 x=1 e=1
*

I have this problem too from time to time. I don't know what causes it. I only have 4 partitions on a 128 MB CF card.

The manual says it will even work in a IIe, although I haven't tried that yet.
I don't know about the old IIgs, but it works fine in my standard IIe and in the enhanced Platinum IIe. I can't remember the last time I used it in a II Plus, but if it works in a standard IIe, it ought to work in a II Plus as well.

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Re: Focus Hard Card Questions - ROM 00/01/03 and issues with ...

What happens why you type PR#s at the applesoft prompt, or slot#, CTRL-P, RETURN when at the monitor prompt?
("s" is the slot# the card is in)

Does this always produce a proper boot, or still crash?

I have a couple of Focus Hard drives as well, and they have never failed to reboot, if the reboot is done properly with a CTRL-OA-RESET sequence.

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Re: Focus Hard Card Questions - ROM 00/01/03 and issues with ...

It crashes in the same way or just locks up sometimes where reset no longer even works. I need to reinstall GSOS and see if it ever crashes. I don't recall this until I reformatted and put on ProDOS. I tried 2.0.3 and 2.4.1.

It does work in my IIe, but has same issue. Works from power off and almost never on reset.

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Re: Focus Hard Card Questions - ROM 00/01/03 and issues with ...

I did some more experimenting. The card works in my ROM00 GS, but only in slot 1 or 2. 3-7 it is not seen. Strangely, the crashing to monitor never happens on this machine.

I then put in in lower slot on my IIe- no more crashing.

So, my Focus card does not like slots>2. Strange? Some kind of power issue, or bus noise?

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Re: Focus Hard Card Questions - ROM 00/01/03 and issues with ...

Unfortunately, this problem eventually returned, and it does this in any slot again.

Cold boot = fine
CTRL-Open Apple-Reset = lockup 90% of the time.

Frustrating.

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Re: Focus Hard Card Questions - ROM 00/01/03 and issues with ...

Unfortunately, this problem eventually returned, and it does this in any slot again.

Cold boot = fine
CTRL-Open Apple-Reset = lockup 90% of the time.

Frustrating.

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