Problem solved!

[anagrama]

Problem solved - Thanks

[tone007]

I'd try booting with no startup sequence and poking around to see if there's anything worth the effort before going nuts.

[anagrama]

Hi Tone007.

I did attempt to try and run it as a slave with another workbench hard drive installed but I didnt have any luck. Can I ask how I would go about starting it up with no sequence?  I dont really understand what it means.

Thanks

[tone007]

Hold both mouse buttons while the machine is booting, there should be a "boot with no startup sequence" option.  It'll drop you to a prompt, hopefully then you can list the contents of the partitions.

Even easier would be to boot up with a nice 3.1 workbench floppy to poke around with.

[anagrama]

Ill give that a go within the next hour, im pretty sure I tried to boot 3.1 from the floppy but the hard disk kicked in before the floppy had a chance. Ill give it another go though.

Will update shortly.

[anagrama]

Briliant! I held down both mouse buttons and chose boot with no startup sequence but all I got a dos promt page. I then booted the system with a 3.1 disk and I can access the files that way. Theres all sorts of stuff on it so im going to have a good look now. Thanks for the advice, it was the simplist thing to do yet I didnt even think of it! Priceless after the many hours spent messing about lol

Ill update again shortly

[anagrama]

This is superb, theres a load of wordwriter docs from the games designer whos computer this was... Just reading one now and its to Mark Harrison and in the letter dated 1997 hes talking about Marks work in 2000 AD...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Harrison_%28artist%29

The hard drive is full of programs thats ive never heard of, mostly to do with graphics. Ill have to compile a list and add some images shortly.

[pwermonger]

I received a 4000 Toaster system that had been used by the NY Knicks at the Gym where they practise. The power supply fan had seized and it overheated so they tossed it. I started disconnecting the two IDE hard drives and the power connector instead of disonnecting pulled the port off the drive, showing that the solder had been melted by the heat. I carefully slid the connector back on and plugged in a SCSI drive. booted the 4000, copied both drives contents over to the SCSI, setup a new IDE and copied it all back over. Booted fine and still works, plus has framegrabs from their practices saved on the drives. Not as interesting as one from microprose but still cool and shows how awesome Amigas are to have survived that.