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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: iMacMiga on April 04, 2005, 08:25:03 AM
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I'm having a few problems. A major long time ago (I don't expect anyone remembers we've all drunk a lot of beer or slept, or both, and/or survived christmas & new year at least twice since) I started out with Amigas with a little A600. After a bit of machination and building a custom PSU rig for it I found that the floppy drove was dead and cast it aside in favour of a 1200 with the intention of coming back to it 'sometime'.
Sometime was yesterday when I was donated a working A600 with badly yellowed casing and a pile of games (and Deluxe Paint III - wooohhooo!! ;)). I kinda hacked 2 machines out of one and Robert's your mother's brother it worked. Great.
Now I'd always intended to add a hard disk to it because I get sick of swapping floppies constantly just to boot Workbench. I booted the copy of Workbench 2.05 that came with it (yes on original disks - what treasure!!) and discovered it has no hard disk tools. Drat. I inserted the Amiga OS 3.1 install disk and tried HDToolbox and that seemed to work and I installed and partitioned the drive. I even, probably through more stupidity than anything else found it will boot Amiga OS 3.1 despite only having a 2.05 ROM. Interesting.
Anyway, the hard disk partitions show up on the desktop, as IHD0:NDOS and IDH1:NDOS as you'd expect them to, so it looks at least to the casual observer like that works. The problem comes when I try to format the partitions. The OS 3.1 formatter flat out won't run. The 2.05 formatter asks me to insert the disk IDH0 (normal) then warns it will erase everything (normal) then a dialog pops up that says 'Only Quick Format is allowed' then another that says 'Not enough memory'. The thing will format floppies perfectly well (although not using the 3.1 formatter) and has about 720k free CHIP RAM.
I know 1MB is an awfully small hole to run an OS in, even on an Amiga, but I refuse to believe you need a FastRAM card just to run a hard disk, did these machines not originally ship with hard disks in some guise? Granted mine is a little bit bigger than any sold with an Amiga (1.2GB split into 2x579MB partitions) but it is otherwise a perfectly standard (and working) IDE 2.5" hard disk.
Help. I'm stuck in a loop... :pissed:
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Check how many buffers you are trying to use with those partitions, perhaps the buffers are eating too much memory.
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I installed an HD in my A600 not too long ago, and it took me a weekend to do it :lol:
Once you've gotten the partitions to appear on the desktop, you want to just boot WB 2.05 up, then highlight the partition you want to format, then click on 'Format' in the top menu bar as you would a disk, that should take care of it. :-)
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Hi,
@iMacMiga
Sorry that I cannot help ypou with your problem, but if you own the original WB 2.05 disk set, there should be a disk called "Install" containing the required harddisk-tools.
But BTW are every A600 computers equiped with an IDE interface, so you could add an IDE disk to every A600?
I try to get an A600 via eBay, because it is such a nice little machine and I could sell my ugly A500 if I could get an A600. It would be cool to add a HD to that Amiga, makes it much more usefull.
Noster
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zipper wrote:
Check how many buffers you are trying to use with those partitions, perhaps the buffers are eating too much memory.
Good thinking.
It looks like my 2.05 set is missing a disk as itdoesn't have an install disk. It's not that big a problem as I think 3.1 would work reasonably ok on it if I could get the hard disk working, I just would have to use the 2.05 format app in place of the 3.1 version which obviously doesn't like A600s (probably becuase of the old ROM, or lack of free memory or something).
I'll give that a shot, where would I check the nmumber of buffers? Maybe in HDToolbox?
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All are equipped with an IDE interface, but not all have a kickstart rom installed that lets you use it. You have to have 37.350 or later to use a hard drive.
You'll probably also have to source a hard drive mounting bracket and cable (44 pin - 40 pin I think it was?) if it came without a hard drive initially .
At the moment I'm puzzling over how to get networking going with a 3com 3c589c. I got some version of amitcp and installed it, but have no idea how to proceed from there. Do I have to install the sana-II driver manually & set up some config files?
I'm also trying to find a suitable type of 4mb pcmcia card to use as extra memory (for whdload). Luckily mine had an a601 installed so I have some extra memory up my sleeve - but I need more! Anyone have a list of cards which can be used?
Also, what happened to that Apollo 630 remake? Not going ahead after all?
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BenShep
You have to put the Aminet 3Com driver in the Devs:Networks directory. You have to make this directory first as it doesn't exist under a normal install. There may also be a driver just to place in the devs: directory as well, can't remember. Then you simply type in manually the device name under AmiTCP (I use Miami though). I'll check tonight and send to you the driver if you can't get it running.
Oh, there's also a program to allow for pcmcia resets so you can hot plug the 3Com card. More later....
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I'll give that a shot, where would I check the nmumber of buffers? Maybe in HDToolbox?
Yes, or HDInstallTools (hdinst.lha)
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Thanks Argus.
btw Miami Vs AmiTCP - which is better?
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BenShep wrote:
All are equipped with an IDE interface, but not all have a kickstart rom installed that lets you use it. You have to have 37.350 or later to use a hard drive.
This is not entirely true. The 37.350 is the best revision of the 2.05 rom. But 37.300 will allow the use of harddisk aswell. But on some occassions you can run into trouble when using a harddrive larger than 40MB. 37.350 never has problems.
I have an A600 with the 37.300 rom running a 350MB harddisk without any problems.
37.299 is missing something if I recall correctly.
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Ah yes that sounds right. Oopsy.
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These problems are exactly the reason why we ship our A600 and A1200 hard disks (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=2.5) prepped, formatted and with the OS-Install program for automatic installation.
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I was fearing such an unhelpful post from amigakit.. and here it is.
Surely there is (or should be) some forum rule regarding shameless pimping of a business while contributing nothing (helpful) to the conversation?
It's basically spam.
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Have Amigakit give away it's secret recipe on how to prep a Amiga 600/1200 hard disk? Oh no how could they! :banana:
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Thats a bit unfair - we answer many emails helping Amigans every day and contribute to a few forums. In fact it is a main priority to our make Amiga products more user-friendly that leads us to provide ready-to-go hard disks, network cards etc.
Anyway, apologies for the sparce reply above.
Looking at the problem, Workbench will not allow formatting of the hard disk- have you the correct version of the FastFileSystem in your L: directory?
A standard A600 memory will be fine for formatting of the hard disk drive- although reducing the buffers for the hard disk is an idea. Also check that the drive's geometry is correctly setup in HDToolbox.
If you dont have access to HDToolbox we stock the AmigaOS Installation floppies.
Hope this helps....
@BenShep
If you are having trouble with the PCMCIA card, email and I will send you the AmigaKit Network CD as a lha file email attachment. That has a full installer and AmiTCP to get the card working quickly on the Amiga.
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Dropping the number of buffers worked the trick. It's now formatting happily (although at 1176 cylinders each on 2 partitions it's gonna and ice-age!!).
Tragic thing is I've just realised I have all the parts necessary to build an Amiga 1200 from the spares and dregs from building my 1200T (I have a spare board, set of 3.0 ROMS, and all the casings, keyboard etc.) except a floppy drive and the only spare I have is in the A600!!
Oh by the way does anyone know which way around the A1200 ROMs go in or a page that tells you?
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Be careful with the ROM installation:
OS 3.0 ROMS
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Top ROM: 391524-01
Bottom ROM: 391523-01
Ensure that the first two pins of the socket are not used as you'll notice that the ROM socket is two pins larger than the actual ROM chip. Plugging the ROMs incorrectly can damage them...
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Cheers matey...
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@amigakit - the occasional helpful post still doesn't justify the spam above.
Thanks but no thanks to the cd - half the fun is learning how to do it so I can help others in the future.
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I wouldn't mind a little 'spam' as long as the post is helpfull at the same time. It is good to know what one of the last remaining RELIABLE shops have in stock to help you out.