Stopwatch cursor issue in Workbench

[JimJagger]

Hello,

I'm new to the forums but I'm a very old friend of the Amiga.  I recently broke my A1200 out from the loft and set it up to show my kids.  The core machine is working fine but I'm struggling to utilise my old hard drive.

I've managed to get it to boot into Workbench but the cursor is stuck on the stopwatch, making it impossible to click on anything.  It must have been 25 years since I had this running so I can't recall much about why this might be happening.  Can anyone offer any tips?  The core machine appears to boot up fine via the floppy drive.

https://ibb.co/z2nVCGx

It's worth noting that I get the same issue when I tried this with an old Amiga 600 too.

My ultimate goal is to extract old DPaint artwork from the hard drive and transfer it to a PC.  That will likely be my next task once I've cracked this.

Thanking you all in advance.

Cheers,
Jim

[TribbleSmasher]

How long did you wait? Maybe you set a ridiculus large jpeg as the wallpaper and the machine is on its knees to decode it.

Or,
as your Workbench is set to window-mode, there might be another applications window behind that awaiting your input.

[JimJagger]

Thank you for your reply. 

I waited about 5 minute initially but I've just booted it back up and will leave it a little longer, just in case.  It's quite likely that the 17 year old version of me would have put an enormous image on my desktop.

I minimised the window but couldn't see anything else behind.

[TribbleSmasher]

There are endless possibilities, really.
When your harddrive LED is on, the computer might try to repair the harddrive (validating). Or you put something in the WBStartup folder that needs to quit first by itself.
Or you have a setup that is waiting for a specific hardware or connection ....

[JimJagger]

Thanks again.  I'll try leaving it on for a good while, just in case it is doing something in the background.  I was a little nervous of doing this initially as the machine is so old.  I don't suppose there is much else I can do.  I was hoping I might have forgotten something obvious but I guess not.

I'm sorry I can't offer more information.  I appreciate you trying to help though.

[TribbleSmasher]

If the machine is booting well from a Workbench floppy disk you can certainly have a peek onto the harddrive partitions, maybe you find the culprit.

[Matt_H]

Welcome back!

Did you used to have other peripherals hooked up? CD drive, etc.? If those are absent now, any startup software that was expecting them might be hanging.

Others mentioned booting from floppy—the fact that that works is a good sign. You can also hold down both mouse buttons early in the boot process to get to Early Startup Control. From there, you can boot with no startup sequence to get into a command Shell. Whether via shell or floppy, you’ll want to look at the startup-sequence and user-startup scripts, along with the WBStartup drawer. I suspect the issue is in one of those locations. It might also be something in Devs:DOSDrivers. Let us know which avenue you want to investigate first and we’ll talk you through.

[JimJagger]

That's amazing info.  Thanks for your help - especially the idea of booting from the Workbench floppy.  I need to get back in the loft to dig out the rest of the disks but I'll let you know how I get on.

With regards to additional hardware, I used to have a couple of chained disk drives that aren't yet hooked up.  I can certainly dust those off and hook them up if you think they'll help.  There's certainly no harm in trying.

I'm afraid I'm a bit out of my depth when it comes to Shell (certainly was at the time).  I'll gladly brush up and investigate though.  I was probably about 17 the last time I used the machine so I can't imagine I would have done anything too complex with my set up.  It's quite possible that I poked around where I shouldn't have done though!

[zipper]

Welcome back!

Did you used to have other peripherals hooked up? CD drive, etc.? If those are absent now, any startup software that was expecting them might be hanging.

Others mentioned booting from floppy—the fact that that works is a good sign. You can also hold down both mouse buttons early in the boot process to get to Early Startup Control. From there, you can boot with no startup sequence to get into a command Shell. Whether via shell or floppy, you’ll want to look at the startup-sequence and user-startup scripts, along with the WBStartup drawer. I suspect the issue is in one of those locations. It might also be something in Devs:DOSDrivers. Let us know which avenue you want to investigate first and we’ll talk you through.

Boot without startup-sequence, first <Assign Env: RAM:> to suppress Env requester and then <LoadWB Endcli> to launch the default Workbench which you then can check for problems.

[Matt_H]

Boot without startup-sequence, first <Assign Env: RAM:> to suppress Env requester and then <LoadWB> to launch the default Workbench which you then can check for problems.

(Minor edit to LoadWB command)

This is a good test because if you get the stuck busy pointer (the stopwatch) it tells us that the issue is with something in WBStartup.

The absence of additional floppy drives shouldn’t cause the issue you described *unless* there was a particular disk you always had inserted in one of them and the system is trying to find something on it. Ordinarily there should be a System Request window asking for the disk in question, so the fact that there isn’t one suggests to me that this is unlikely to be the issue.

[JimJagger]

Thanks for everyone's help so far.  I finally managed to get back in the loft and dig out an old Workbench floppy.  Unfortunately the WB3 disk didn't work but I managed to find a WB2 one that did and I was able to boot into Workbench without locking up.  however, as soon as I tried to browse the contents of my hard drive, the stopwatch reappeared and was stuck busy again - it did show more contents than booting directly from the HD though.

Would this suggest that my hard drive is busted? Are there any tools or applications within WB that I can use to examine the drive or try to repair it? My Shell knowledge is very limited but I tried poking around with a few commands. Given that DF0: displayed the contents of my floppy drive, I tried to access CC0: but it kept returning the contents of my floppy drive.  Is that normal, or does that suggest more issues with the HD?

Typing 'Info:' into shell shows a CC0: of 29k, 0 errs and a status of read/write.  I'm pretty sure this drive was about 300MB

Despite my delayed response, I really appreciate the help you have provided so far - it's just hard to set aside time for personal projects with the kids off school!

Thanks,
Jim

[TribbleSmasher]

Revisiting your provided picture, something occured to me:
Your harddrive is not internal, but this Overdrive external connected to the PCMCIA slot!
That explaines the CC0 has 29kB in size, as the plug contains a "fake disk" with the driver.
Some of those Overdrives required an adapter to the floppy port for stealing 12V to supply the usually big harddisk. Do you have this too?

I guess the hd is indeed near death. If you really need the data on this drive you should get an adapter of some sort to create an image of it before try and rescue files.

As a replacement you would need a cheap CF card adapter and a small (1-4 GByte for example) industrial CF card that would fit internally. It will be a little bit slower than the external one but delivers more comfort. Just make sure you pick a compatible CF card.

[JimJagger]

Thanks for the feedback.  Yes, sorry if that wasn't clear about the harddrive.  It plugs into the side slot and has the power adapter from the floppy drive socket into the drive itself.  I'm pretty sure that part is set up correctly.  Does that mean the drive would be DF1?  I'm guessing so.  That would make sense.

I have some old DPaint artwork on the drive that I was hoping to view and ultimately transfer to a PC.  I don't need the harddrive for the Amiga itself - other than to reminisce and noodle about with.

I'm sure there have been plenty of posts of people trying to convert/transfer files so I'll have search of this site to find the best method for me.

Thanks again,
Jim

[TribbleSmasher]

The problem with the external harddrive is the connection. You basicly loose the easy way of transfering files via the PCMCIA to CF cards.
You can still boot a floppy disk that is almost empty and only consists of some commands (dir, copy, info) and a startup-sequence in folder s.
But without some routine this could be an annoying and frustrating experience.

It would be the best if you can get some personal help from an user nearby.

[JimJagger]

Thank you.  Unfortunately I feel I'm a little out of my depth here.

I might experiment with Amiga Explorer to explore data on floppy disks that I can copy across - https://www.amigaforever.com/ae/