Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Mizar on March 04, 2011, 04:15:14 AM
-
I'm trying to replace my HD in my A1200, and would appreciate some advice. I tried installing an EIDE Western Digital 80GB one, but the system wouldn't recognize it in HDToolBox, and I didn't hear it power up with the system like it should. I read an A1200 hardware FAQ that said most IDE drives will work with the A1200, including EIDE. It described them as Fast ATA. The drive I tried was a Parallel ATA one, though EIDE. Is this a different kind of drive that won't ever work, or do I just need to try a different brand?
I've heard about the Compact Flash drives that can be used in lieu of an actual hard drive, and those sound advantageous. I don't need a gigantic 80 to 320GB drive like the Western Digital ones, so maybe that would be a better option. My A1200 has 68030/68882, 32 MB fast RAM, Surf Squirrel SCSI, and OS3.9 BB1. What all hard drive types are going to be compatible with the A1200?
-
"EIDE" is a term from the 90s and is anything but precise. PATA drives, regardless of generation, are downward compatible in general. There are rare issues which someone more knowledgable on the 1200 might tell you more on.
However, what you might want to check:
- the issues connected with more than 4 GB capacity: http://www.youngmonkey.ca/nose/articles/NewTekniques_9810/AmigaInMotion.html
- jumpers: the drive needs to be set to master; some (rare) don't power up as single slaves without a master present and cable select doesn't work with 1:1 cables.
-
If you didn't even hear it spinning, are you sure you connected it correct? =)
I'm currently using an old 20GB drive in my Amiga 600 withut issues, but I dont know if it's EIDE or not.
Here you can read some more about EIDE, it's apparently quite confusing =)
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/unstdEIDE-c.html
The compact flash things can be found at amigakit or ebay, I'm thinking of buying one for my Amiga 1200 that I've just bought.
-
I'm trying to replace my HD in my A1200, and would appreciate some advice. I tried installing an EIDE Western Digital 80GB one, but the system wouldn't recognize it in HDToolBox, and I didn't hear it power up with the system like it should. I read an A1200 hardware FAQ that said most IDE drives will work with the A1200, including EIDE. It described them as Fast ATA. The drive I tried was a Parallel ATA one, though EIDE. Is this a different kind of drive that won't ever work, or do I just need to try a different brand?
I've heard about the Compact Flash drives that can be used in lieu of an actual hard drive, and those sound advantageous. I don't need a gigantic 80 to 320GB drive like the Western Digital ones, so maybe that would be a better option. My A1200 has 68030/68882, 32 MB fast RAM, Surf Squirrel SCSI, and OS3.9 BB1. What all hard drive types are going to be compatible with the A1200?
What type of drives are you using 2.5" or 3.5" ???
I have never had any problems using 3.5" HDs (I even use two 500GB ones on my main Amiga) but when it comes to 2.5" HDs it seems to be very hit and miss one my A1200s... :(
I recently bought 30GB and 60GB 2.5" HDs to use on my A1200 but neither of them would even spin up... :)
I found a place on the net that sells factory refurbished 2.5" HDs and the guy who owns the company was very interested when I told him about this problem on the Amiga. Anyway he kindly sent me some to to test... :)
The 2.5" ones 4.3GB & 6.5GB ones worked fine but the bigger capacity drives once again refused to even spin up, after much head scratching I reckon it's down to the A1200s motherboard IDE connector not supplying enough current on the +5v line, so I'm going to try splicing the cable and hooking the +5V up to the floppy drives power connector and see it this works... :)
Does anyone out there use large capacity 2.5" HDs (ie: 10GB or greater) in their desktop A1200 and if so could you please let me know the make and model number of them...
Cheers
Franko
-
@Franko:
I'll tell you about my experiences...
I have several "naked" A1200 motherboards. In my test, I power the A1200 motherboard through a 300W AT power supply converted to Amiga power plug. I have a hitachi 40gb 2.5" drive as well as a Seagate 80gb 2.5" drive which I both tried using on all of the A1200 motherboards. I use the standard short 2.5" cable to connect the hard drive.
The results vary...
In most cases, I need to hook up an extra 5V power feed to the floppy connector in addition to the regular power, in order for the drive used to spin up. If an accelerator is connected, then I definitely need to.
It's a hit and miss with various motherboards used for the test, but I think that these newer hard drives definitely require a bit more juice.
Funny thing is, I have no isses when using a standard A500 power supply with the above setup(s). It seems to provide sufficinet power always, no matter what revision of the motherboard I try with those hard drives, with or without an accelerator card attached.
-
Wow, between my 4 A1200s I've never had a problem with any of them supplying enough power for a 2.5" hard drive and modest accelerator. Laptop hard drives nowadays use *tiny* amounts of power. My first guess would be the cable - it's very easy to misconnect the cable to the A1200 board as the pins are "bare". Miss the last row and your drive has no power. Get it backwards or miss it off the other end and you can fry your drive, cable and/or motherboard.
Edit: I'll add to that that 2 of the A1200s also supply a CD-ROM drive, and all work on the standard A1200 PSU, and HDs varying from 30GB to 120GB...
-
is the A1200 power problem really all that serious, or is it restricted to certain motherboards?
I had an 030/50 and 3.5in hdd plugged in for 15 years without a problem.
-
@ x56h43 & Daedalus
Odd thing is I've tried various PSUs A500/A1200 & PC PSUs on two different versions of Rev 1D.4 motherboards and a 1D.1 board and on not one of them could I get any of the drives to even spin up (and no I didn't connect the cable wrong) and I've even tested them on a bare MB (nothing connected at all, not even the floppy) ... :(
Reckon I'll need to try splicing the cables and tapping the +5v from the floppy power connector
@Kephren
I can easily run any 3.5" drive as they don't take the power from the IDE header on the motherboard that's one of the reasons I think it may be the IDE header not supplying enough current to the bigger capacity 2.5" HDs... :)
-
Spin speed and make not capacity are the issues then.
-
Spin speed and make not capacity are the issues then.
Doubt it, as they don't even spin up at all, tried various makes but all with the same result, any drives over 6.5GB just simply wont even attempt to spin up whether they're ATA-33, ATA-66 or ATA-100.. :(
-
Wow, between my 4 A1200s I've never had a problem with any of them supplying enough power for a 2.5" hard drive and modest accelerator. Laptop hard drives nowadays use *tiny* amounts of power. My first guess would be the cable - it's very easy to misconnect the cable to the A1200 board as the pins are "bare". Miss the last row and your drive has no power. Get it backwards or miss it off the other end and you can fry your drive, cable and/or motherboard.
Edit: I'll add to that that 2 of the A1200s also supply a CD-ROM drive, and all work on the standard A1200 PSU, and HDs varying from 30GB to 120GB...
you attatch the red stripe to the ide conecter to pin one side or side further away from the back l dont think u can blow up the hd never happened to me
my 2 2 1/2 orginal commdore cables showing there age try reconecting to mb few times
and sometimes just if cable bent in wrong shape stops even orginal 40 meg drives spining up if dont hear hd spining after 30 secs turn the power of and try again. make sure the
pins on mb are not bent or broken where cable conects
also if your using 2 1/2 ide drive make sure the blanked of hole on the cable
goes to the hard drive pin 1.2 do the powering of the drive if you using cable
designed to fit 3 1/2 drive these are cut of the cable,
also if its a 3 1/2 drive forget about powering from standred 1200 power brick
you need at least 500 psu l powered a blizzard ppc and 3 1/2 of 500 brick
but also had feed from the floppy conector when was in a tower with bvsion card as well
cool you have squrriel scsi loved those really cool addon wish keep mine
-
Zac67: I thought with OS3.9 you don't have to worry about the 4GB+ problem. If I recall, the master/slave concept applies to SCSI. I'm trying to connect this HD to the internal IDE controller, so I probably don't need to mess with any jumpers, right?
Damiga: Yes, I'm quite sure I connected it correctly. The drive's connector had a few extra pins (4- I think), but I connected it the same way as the old one. That is, the IDE lead all the way to the top pin (same direction as the back of the Amiga). Thanks for the EIDE link. That helped clarify some things, such as the IDE/EIDE/ATA/PATA labels really don't tell you any specifics of the modes and standards that would affect if a drive is compatible with the A1200's IDE controller or not. Of course, one certain way to more easily acquire a compatible drive would be to get one from an Amiga dealer who knows what they have works. :-)
Franko: I'm using 2.5" HDs. I recently heard 3.5" can be used with the A1200, but it sounds like that much more fiddling and stuff to worry about. Yes, that's what happened with the 80GB one I tried recently- it didn't even spin up. I would also very much like to know if anyone has a list of what makes & models of larger capacity 2.5" HDs work on the A1200.
x56h34: Interesting, it sounds like the underpowered A1200 power supply could be the real issue. My 1200 has an accelerator, however it has a more powerful power supply. I thought I remembered the distributor included an A500 one. I checked and compared it to my A500's power supply, and it is even more powerful than that. I'm not sure, but it may be an A600 power supply. The 500's is model DSP-A500, output 5V 4.5A, 12V 1A, -12V .1A. The 1200's is model PSM-600, output 5V 6.5A, 12V 2A, -12V .5A. Yet this was not enough to spin up the Western Digital HD. Maybe Seagate and Hitachi are more power efficient? Or maybe WD has a specific IDE/ATA standard incompatibility (though they're supposed to be downward compatible Zac67 was saying)? What's the total voltage requirement to spin up the Seagate and Hitachi drives?
Daedalus: Considering my extra strong PSU, maybe it's not the power. I'm quite sure I hooked the HD up correctly. It had 4 pins extra (in 2 rows) on the front side (front direction of the Amiga) of the HD connector. What make and model HDs do you use on your A1200s?
Khephren: I wonder if there is a difference with A1200 motherboard power. My 1200 is dated Dec. 4, 1995.
-
Doubt it, as they don't even spin up at all, tried various makes but all with the same result, any drives over 6.5GB just simply wont even attempt to spin up whether they're ATA-33, ATA-66 or ATA-100.. :(
That's very, very odd... I've no idea what makes are in my A1200s but I've had several, and have several, and never had a single problem (not counting dead drives of course). I know it's only my experience, but I certainly rule out capacity as the governing factor, and the fact that any machines I have will have an 020 or 030 accelerator and use the small A1200 PSU, I think power isn't really an issue either. Perhaps there is some damage to some traces or something on those boards Franko - are you sure it's supplying +5V on the IDE header?
-
@actung_bab
Well, I've never blown up a drive, but if the cable's connected wrongly you can potentially connect the +5V supply to ground via the drive's electronics, and that's bad.
cool you have squrriel scsi loved those really cool addon wish keep mine
Nope. 2 of my machines have IDE CD drives - one is a laptop drive taking power from the floppy connector and built into the wedge case, the other is a normal 5.25" CD-ROM drive from a PC, built into a custom case with the A1200 motherboard and a couple of extras. This is again powered from the floppy connector, and amazingly it all works, though it is at the limit power-wise.
-
Daedalus: Considering my extra strong PSU, maybe it's not the power. I'm quite sure I hooked the HD up correctly. It had 4 pins extra (in 2 rows) on the front side (front direction of the Amiga) of the HD connector. What make and model HDs do you use on your A1200s?
I'll check out the drives I'm using when I have a chance at home. The 4 extra pins are normally for jumpers etc., so can be ignored once the main 44 pins are connected correctly.
-
I think he was talking to me :-). I have a CDRW drive in an external case hooked up with the Surf Squirrel SCSI.
Under what circumstances would the extra 4 pins on the HD IDE connector need a jumper?
@actung_bab
Nope. 2 of my machines have IDE CD drives - one is a laptop drive taking power from the floppy connector and built into the wedge case, the other is a normal 5.25" CD-ROM drive from a PC, built into a custom case with the A1200 motherboard and a couple of extras. This is again powered from the floppy connector, and amazingly it all works, though it is at the limit power-wise.
-
@ Mizar
Glad it's not just me who's having trouble with some of these drive, reckon I may have found a solution though, gonna test it out today... :)
@ Daedalus
Nothing wrong with the tracks or the +5 volts, tested on 7 different motherboards and 5 different PSUs (even a PC one), been speaking with a guy who runs a factory where they recondition old HDs for re-sale and he's supplied me with a number of HDs to test from different manufactures... :)
Still reckon myself it's the IDE header on the MB not supplying enough current or a difference in the reset timing signals on some of them. I'll be testing out a few "solutions" today and hopefully I'll solve this annoying problem... :)
-
@Mizar
Oops ;) Some drives have a size clipping jumper which make the drive appear smaller for compatibility with older BIOSes. One of mine for example is 120GB, but shows up as 32GB if you use a jumper. One could also be for master/slave use though this is less common in laptop hard drives, and they usually assume to be master.
@Franko
Hmmm... Like I said, very odd! I just can't see how you could have 7 different motherboards which all have issues supplying enough power unless there's something wrong with all of them...
Now that you mention it though, I have the reset line cut on all mine due to issues with the drive not showing up under some circumstances. It's so long since I had an issue that I'm not sure if they were spinning up or not, but cutting pin 1 on the 44-way cable has no negative effect on the drive and resolves issues with reset timing - especially in master/slave configurations.
-
@ Daedalus
Tried the cutting the reset line trick didn't work... :(
The guy I spoke to about the drive explained in detail about the differences in reset timing onboard the logic chips on 2.5" HDs between ATA-33, ATA-66 & ATA-100 types, but he's of the same opinion as me that it's the IDE header not being able to supply enough current to some of these drives... :)
So I'm going to splice some cables and take the +5V motor line from elsewhere on the Amiga MB first to see if that solves it... :)
PS: nothing wrong with any of the MBs they work fine with drives up to 6.5GB but anything 30GBs and over the drive doesn't even attempt to spin up.
Another reason that I believe the problem is with the +5v on the IDE header is that I can connect any size and type of 3.5" HD with a 2.5" to 3.5" cable and they all run fine whether there ATA-33, ATA-66 or ATA-100, simple reason for this is, the 3.5" drives need to be powered from a source other than the MBs IDE header... :)
-
Franko:
I eagerly await your results of if your test gets your 2.5" HDs to work! x56h34 recently said a Seagate 80GB and Hitachi 40GB worked for him with only an A500 PSU. Have any of the drives you've tested been Seagate or Hitachi?
My more powerful PSU has 6.5A on the 5V line, 2A on 12V, and .5A on -12V (as compared to the A500 PSU is 4.5A on 5V, 1A on 12V, and .1A on -12V), yet it didn't spin up the WD 80GB one. I also have the 1230 accelerator card, a high density floppy drive, an external scan doubler, and Surf Squirrel drawing power from it. I wonder if it would spin up with those disconnected. How much current have you tested the HDs with so far?
Daedalus:
Have you checked what brand HDs you're using yet? If it's not a power issue, then maybe I should try either a jumper or cutting the IDE lead on line 1.
-
Doubt it, as they don't even spin up at all, tried various makes but all with the same result, any drives over 6.5GB just simply wont even attempt to spin up whether they're ATA-33, ATA-66 or ATA-100.. :(
When my back heals I will test some to see if the spin up in my A600 for you.
-
@ Mizar
I've tried Toshiba, IBM & Samsung drives, as I say I've tested them with various PSUs including a PC one and on bare motherboard with absolutely nothing connected, all with the same results, no spin up... :(
I think myself the IDE header must have some sort of capacity limiting on it's +5v supply, just about finished making up a new cable to tap into the floppy drives +5V and I'm going to test it shortly, fingers crossed that it works... :)
@ Digiman
That would be great, especially if you can supply the make and model numbers you test... cheers.... :)
-
Ok... I made a cable that supplied the +5V from both the internal floppy drive or from a external PC PSU. Results... still no spin up on any of the large capacity drives (30GB & 60GB) all other drives (6.5GB and under) worked fine with this cable so it's not anything to do with the motherboards IDE header not supplying enough current... :(
Here's a list of the 2.5" drives tested....
Toshiba HDD2181 MK3021GAS DMA/ATA-100 30GB
Result = No Spin Up
Toshiba HDD2183 MK6021GAS DMA/ATA -100 60GB
Result = No Spin Up
Toshiba HDD2134 MK4309MAT DMA/ATA-33 4.3GB
Result = Works 100%
Toshiba HDD2143 MK6411MAT DMA/ATA-33 6.5GB
Result = Works 100%
Toshiba HDD2145 MK8113MAT DMA/ATA-100 6.5GB
Result = Works 100%
IBM DKLA-54230 DMA/ATA-33 4.3GB
Result = Works 100%
IBM WDA-280 DMA/ATA-33 80MB
Result = Works 100%
So it doesn't appear to be a power supply issue and I had thought that it may be because the larger drives were DMA/ATA-100 but the Toshiba HDD2145 6.5GB drive is DMA/ATA-100 and works fine.
I'm at a loss here trying to figure out why these larger capacity drives wont even spin up, they've been tested with different MB revisions, different PSUs, different cables, tried cutting line 1 and very carefully checked all connections and MBs for faults, heck even tested them on totally bare motherboards all with the same result, no spin up... :(
Anyone out there any other suggestions or better still does anyone have the make and models of 2.5" HDs that are at least 20GB in size and that they have working on their set up... :)
-
Franko:
Thanks for your thorough and scientific testing :-). All right, so we can rule out a power or master/slave issue.
That leaves the specific standards/modes, or brand of the drives, that must be the cause. The ATA-100 is the most current standard, I presume? Even though the one ATA-100 6.5GB drive worked, maybe there is something about the standard that only kicks in with double digit GB capacities, and causes no incompatibilities with single digit GB capacities.
You hadn't tried Seagate or Hitachi drives, so maybe the right brand can sometimes be compatible even with double digit size.
Or possibly there is some other difference with the big drives not present in smaller ones. Someone had recently mentioned spin speed as a factor. But I'm not sure how that would matter unless they required such a large startup current that the floppy and PC power supplies you tried still weren't adequate.
Those are all my ideas. So, it looks like I better get a less than double digit GB drive, or less than 30GB at least, if I want one that will spin up. Unless I can find a Seagate or Hitachi maybe :-). Or there's CF drives- I wonder if those work at 30GB+.
-
Those are all my ideas. So, it looks like I better get a less than double digit GB drive, or less than 30GB at least, if I want one that will spin up. Unless I can find a Seagate or Hitachi maybe :-). Or there's CF drives- I wonder if those work at 30GB+.
I tried a 2.5" fujitsu 20gb the other day & apart from not booting from cold, it still spun up and booted if you reset the amiga. It's a pity kickstart doesn't check for a hard drive when the floppy animation is displayed (hopefully aros 68k will).
However the reason I tried it was my 3.5" drive wasn't working & I was trying to work out why. Eventually I tracked it down to the 2.5" cable from the a1200 to the 4xbuffered ide adapter. Although it worked sometimes with the 2.5" drive it never worked with the 3.5" drive. It was rather annoying tracking it down, because each part worked on it's own. I even connected the 3.5" drive to my pc using the 4xbuffered ide adapter and a 3.5" to 2.5" converter and that worked (and I could access it with winuae).
I ordered a flexible 2.5" cable from amikit. So far I've not twisted it, because the ends are connected differently to the original and it sits better if you don't twist it (the 3.5" cable is now folded however so I might have to deal with that next). But at least it's back working & wasn't something more serious.
So my advice if you're having problems is to try another ide cable.
-
Ok... I made a cable that supplied the +5V from both the internal floppy drive or from a external PC PSU. Results... still no spin up on any of the large capacity drives (30GB & 60GB) all other drives (6.5GB and under) worked fine with this cable so it's not anything to do with the motherboards IDE header not supplying enough current... :(
Here's a list of the 2.5" drives tested....
Toshiba HDD2181 MK3021GAS DMA/ATA-100 30GB
Result = No Spin Up
Wow, as it happens, two of my drives are Toshiba HDD2181s, and both spin up fine. Both are also running off standard A1200 PSUs, both also power a CD-ROM drive ad one has a Blizzard 1230IV installed. No power issues... The 3rd is a Western Digital Scorpio 120GB, WD1200B EVE, and as I said before, takes even less current than the smaller Toshibas. I also have a 60GB Travelstar in one but don't have that machine here to tell you the exact model. That one works just fine as well. And, I've managed to run a 40GB IBM Deskstar 3.5" off the standard PSU in one 1200, some manner of Fujitsu 10GB drive and others in the past. The only reason a drive hasn't spun up on me is because it was dead...
Franko, have you tried these drives in any other computers besides Amigas? I.e., are you sure they're not dead?
-
@ Daedalus
Now that is interesting that your HDD2181s work, I have been wondering if the drives themselves were in fact dead, I bought them from a member here and they were shipped from the USA to Scotland so I am now wondering if they have been damaged in transit across the pond... :(
Unfortunately I don't have anything I can test them in other than my Amigas, my sister & nephew who live close by wont let me test them in their laptops (they're the type of people who think opening up a laptop or adding things to it will break it... :()
I really need bigger drives in my Amigas (even 1TB in my main towered A1200 is not enough for me these days) and tiny drives of 6.5GB are just no good to me. The guy whom I've been in contact with who runs an HD refurbishing company did mention he had Western Digital drives and IBM ones, I'll need to send him an email or phone him and see if he can let me test some of these types... :)
On a side note, I've even connected up a 200GB Western Digital 3.5" HD ATA-100 type directly to the Amigas IDE header using a 3.5" to 2.5" cable and drawing the power from the Amigas internal floppy PSU header and it runs fine... :)
So I think you may be right and these drives I've bought are as dead as a dodo... :(
-
psxphill:
My last HD was a Fujitsu 1.5GB, but it was fast enough spinning up to work with a cold boot. The IBM HD I had before that was slower spin up, so I had to reboot like you're saying.
It doesn't appear to be any power issue, and there's a WD HD of the same model I tried (just different capacity) on Vesalia, plus Daedalus has the same model (just different capacity) working on his A1200. So I think you may be right it could be the IDE cable.
Daedalus:
Thanks for checking on your drives. That Western Digital Scorpio is the exact same drive I tried, just different size, the WB800BEVE 80GB. There's also a WB3200BEVE 320GB one listed on Versalia in the Amiga section. Yet the 80GB one didn't spin up at all. The drive was new, it's got to be compatible, the power has got to be sufficient, so I think it's got to be the IDE cable with the problem.
Quoting Franko:
> Using FastATA MKII and ATA3.driver Ver8.x, every drive I have tested (various sizes and
> manufacturers) up to 500GB all work perfectly at PIO4...
> Whereas with the 4xEIDE board on various set ups I've had quite a few problems trying to
> get them to recognise HDs bigger than 60GBs...
Franko:
This is from another thread to do with the A1200 IDE interface. I don't understand, you've been saying nothing larger than 6.5GB has worked, but here you're saying up to 60GB or 500GB works. Is this only with 3.5" drives, or because of an IDE enhancement board?
I'm noticing also, other users are showing 30GB+ drives they have working on their A1200. Such as: rvo nl, psxphill, and Daedalus. Were those Toshiba 30GB and 60GB drives the only ones you tested that didn't work?
Wow, what're you doing that 1TB isn't enough space?
I'd be interested to know if the Western Digital 2.5" HDs work for you too, if you test those.
-
Franko:
This is from another thread to do with the A1200 IDE interface. I don't understand, you've been saying nothing larger than 6.5GB has worked, but here you're saying up to 60GB or 500GB works. Is this only with 3.5" drives, or because of an IDE enhancement board?
I'm noticing also, other users are showing 30GB+ drives they have working on their A1200. Such as: rvo nl, psxphill, and Daedalus. Were those Toshiba 30GB and 60GB drives the only ones you tested that didn't work?
Wow, what're you doing that 1TB isn't enough space?
I'd be interested to know if the Western Digital 2.5" HDs work for you too, if you test those.
Firstly I have nearly 1 TB filled with 25 years of Amiga stuff, DVD ISO images of my favourite DVD movies, CD ISO images of my favourite CDs and I've only got about 180MB of free space left, so I'll need to get some bigger HDs for my towered A1200 pretty quickly... :)
Unfortunately the only large capacity 2.5" HDs I have are all Toshiba drives and the guy whom I can get more from only has Toshiba ones at the moment... :(
However all the other 2.5" HDs I've tested 6.5GB and under have been Toshiba, Western Digital, Samsung and IBM and all work fine... :)
Still can't figure out why others managed to get the same 30GB Toshiba ones to work as they were the exact same model numbers, surely all the ones I've tested can't all be dead... :(
I've tested them with both the 4xEIDE and FastATA MKIII interfaces and still not spin up... :(
Don't have any problems with 3.5" HDs though with any brand or capacity, all 3.5" HDs whether ATA-33, ATA-66, ATA-100 or ATA-133 all work 100%... :)
All my large capacity HDs I use up to 500GB are 3.5" types which as I say work fine no matter what model or brand I've tested but for my desktop A1200 I really want to use 2.5" HDs but 6.5GB is no good for the kind of use I have (really need 30GB drive to be of any use to me)... :(
I'm just waiting for the guy I know to get some other makes in instead of Toshiba drives to see if I can get them to work, it's really doing my head in, never been stumped like this before and I'm getting a wee bit peed of with it now, might just have to settle for low profile 3.5" HDs but I don't really want to... :(
-
Hi Franko/All when i get home i will try out 10,20,40,60,120,160,320GB and 1TB 2.5" on my A1200 but its a Rev 2 board, i know from previous times that the 10,20 and 40 worked without any problems. I am using a ATX to Amiga 1200 connector (from Amigakit) and the psu is a 300 watt one.
The drives are a mix of IBM, Toshiba, WD and Hitachi will post the model number as i test them.
-
I'm going to be installing a new 2.5" WD3200BEVE 298GB drive in my A1200 shortly. I know that model should work, the 32.5 W PSU should be plenty, so if there's problems with this one too it must be the IDE cable or otherwise the master/slave business. I should be able to get another cable locally, so if there's still issues does anyone happen to know on what position I should put a jumper on those 4 extra pins on the HD connector?
-
Be very interested to know if it works... :D
PS:the WD3200BEVE is 320GB not 298GB, how did you arrive at that figure ???
-
Be very interested to know if it works... :D
PS:the WD3200BEVE is 320GB not 298GB, how did you arrive at that figure ???
Actually, it is 298GB. They do the usual marketing ploy of calling it 320GB, but they are actually using the definition of 1GB=1 billion bytes. They say this in the fine print on the box. So, they call 320GB 320,000,000,000 bytes, which is the actual size. But it's not 320GB, because 1 kilobyte is 1024 bytes, 1 megabyte is 1024 KB, 1 gigabyte is 1024 MB, and 1 terabyte is 1024 GB. So 320,000,000,000 / 1024^3 (cubed) is 298.02 GB. However, ironically they use the true definition for a MB for the cache (1,048,576 bytes), which is 8MB, so that is the real value. But if they use the 1 billion byte definition, they get to use a larger number for the capacity. Kind of like how things always seem to cost $99.99, or $49.99, or $9.99, instead of $100, $50, or $10, because it looks like a lower amount, though there's no significant difference (nobody cares about one cent). That's capitalism for you, heh.
-
@ Mizar
True, if you read the definitions on WIKI about how drive sizes are calculated you soon realise that it's all pretty misleading as you explained above... :)
It even points out that Apple and Microsoft use two different ways to calculate the space on your HD so that even if you used identical drives in each manufacturers machines the Windows one will always show it has more space... :(
Ruddy stupid if you ask me I have always used values of 1024 for calculating such things in computer terms as it makes sense to do so in hex but as you say it's like the old under £100 thing (ie: £99.99) somehow makes some folk think they're getting a bargain... :lol:
-
I'm trying to replace my HD in my A1200, and would appreciate some advice. I tried installing an EIDE Western Digital 80GB one, but the system wouldn't recognize it in HDToolBox, and I didn't hear it power up with the system like it should. I read an A1200 hardware FAQ that said most IDE drives will work with the A1200, including EIDE. It described them as Fast ATA. The drive I tried was a Parallel ATA one, though EIDE. Is this a different kind of drive that won't ever work, or do I just need to try a different brand?
I've heard about the Compact Flash drives that can be used in lieu of an actual hard drive, and those sound advantageous. I don't need a gigantic 80 to 320GB drive like the Western Digital ones, so maybe that would be a better option. My A1200 has 68030/68882, 32 MB fast RAM, Surf Squirrel SCSI, and OS3.9 BB1. What all hard drive types are going to be compatible with the A1200?
Western Digital is all I use when I purchase drives There resiliant and Fast!
Thomas can correct me if I'm wrong but I think the easiest way to get a big drive working is prepareing it on WinUAE or other Emu if you have a MAC. Even though its not for the same OS your looking to use you may want to check this forum out on the second page about 1/2 way down Thomas has a tutorial that really helped me!
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=40748&page=2
I use this to connect the drive up to my PC for prep.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812189169&cm_re=USB_to_IDE-_-12-189-169-_-Product
This works with all types of drives and can be a very usefull tool when trying to recover files from another computer.
Hope this helps.
I have a 60Gig I used in my Amiga. And I'm making a 30Gig one for my CD32 Right now.
:D
-
@ Claw22000
It's not the formatting or partitioning that's the problem folk are having in this thread, it's the fact that the drives wont even spin up... ie:the HD's motor won't even start to spin at all ... :(
-
Oh thats easy your are plugging it in upside down.
-
Oh thats easy your are plugging it in upside down.
If only that were the case... :(
-
I'm going to be installing a new 2.5" WD3200BEVE 298GB drive in my A1200 shortly. I know that model should work, the 32.5 W PSU should be plenty, so if there's problems with this one too it must be the IDE cable or otherwise the master/slave business. I should be able to get another cable locally, so if there's still issues does anyone happen to know on what position I should put a jumper on those 4 extra pins on the HD connector?
Amikit sells cables. On Western Digitial drives "NO Jumper" Means Cable select. If you have one drive and a cable with One plug then it will auto to master. If you have 2 plugs on the cable use the one closes to the MB as that is the master plug. Also if you have 2 drives make sure you have the second one set to Cable select as forcing to slave won't work they both need to be Cable select for this setup to work.
I really hope you get this working as I love my A1200 with a huge drive in it! Its like unlimited space!
-
Claw22000:
It wasn't installed upside down. I was careful to note how it was oriented and plugged in. Besides, if it was upside down, you couldn't even secure it to the drive cradle because your screw holes would be facing up.
Amikit sells cables. On Western Digitial drives "NO Jumper" Means Cable select. If you have one drive and a cable with One plug then it will auto to master. If you have 2 plugs on the cable use the one closes to the MB as that is the master plug. Also if you have 2 drives make sure you have the second one set to Cable select as forcing to slave won't work they both need to be Cable select for this setup to work.
I really hope you get this working as I love my A1200 with a huge drive in it! Its like unlimited space!
Yeah I know, it turns out if I needed an IDE cable, I couldn't find one locally, so I would've had to order one through AmigaKit. But there wasn't anything wrong with my cable. I've only been trying to install 1 HD in there. From what some other members had said, it sounded like there could be a chance of a master/slave issue, even though like you say it should normally default to master with one drive and no jumper. So that's why I asked about that, just in case. But, I noticed now that my IDE cable is already cut on line 1 (if the line furthest towards the front of the machine on the cable is #1)- must've been the dealer who installed a previous HD, presumably. So, that's supposed to take care of any potential master/slave issue right there.
The WD3200BEVE 2.5" 298GB drive installed successfully!!! The WD800BEVE 74.5GB one I tried must've been DOA, because I did everything the same when I tried that installation. And that was also a brand new drive. They get destroyed so easily if someone mishandles them somewhere along the line, apparently.
The only problem with it now is, despite having AmigaOS3.9, it only recognizes 7GB of space. Also, it doesn't have an inactivity time shut it down... not sure if it's supposed to do that- stay on whenever the computer has power. Actually, in one spot HDToolBox shows "127.9G", but only 7GB is available for use. Pretty odd. That's still 4 & 2/3 times the size of my last drive, LOL! But, it'd be nice to get it to recognize the rest. Like you say, with a huge drive in there it's like unlimited space, alright! And 298GB is particularly gargantuan!!! UNLIMITED- indeed!
Franko:
So the drive works! You must've had back luck too with the large drives being the DOA ones. Order this 298GB WD model brand new, and with a little luck this time your drive will be intact and will work for your A1200. Then if you compress some of that enormous data, such as the CD and DVD images, perhaps that'd be ample size for you too. I think they are discontinuing this model, however, as I got it at clearance half-price. But there are probably some available still. I saw it on Vesalia recently.
-
mizar
fyi I've never had a problem powering a 2.5 in drive in any a1200 i've ever owned with stock psu even. I've had about 6 a1200s.. I have a cf card now..
-
Franko:
So the drive works! You must've had back luck too with the large drives being the DOA ones. Order this 298GB WD model brand new, and with a little luck this time your drive will be intact and will work for your A1200. Then if you compress some of that enormous data, such as the CD and DVD images, perhaps that'd be ample size for you too. I think they are discontinuing this model, however, as I got it at clearance half-price. But there are probably some available still. I saw it on Vesalia recently.
Cheers Mizar, I'll try and order one today, kinda came to the conclusion that those two disks were DOA after checking through all the specs & technical details there is no real reason that they shouldn't have worked... :)
298GB will be plenty for my other A1200s as I only need the towered one with it's two 500GB HDs to backup my DVDs and CD ISO files. All my other miggies only contain Amiga specific stuff so 298GB will more than do... :)
-
As clawws brought up make sure the the drive is assigned as "MASTER" "CS" or cable select doesnt work with amigas!
-
Actually, it is 298GB. They do the usual marketing ploy of calling it 320GB, but they are actually using the definition of 1GB=1 billion bytes. They say this in the fine print on the box. So, they call 320GB 320,000,000,000 bytes, which is the actual size. But it's not 320GB, because 1 kilobyte is 1024 bytes, 1 megabyte is 1024 KB, 1 gigabyte is 1024 MB, and 1 terabyte is 1024 GB. So 320,000,000,000 / 1024^3 (cubed) is 298.02 GB. However, ironically they use the true definition for a MB for the cache (1,048,576 bytes), which is 8MB, so that is the real value. But if they use the 1 billion byte definition, they get to use a larger number for the capacity. Kind of like how things always seem to cost $99.99, or $49.99, or $9.99, instead of $100, $50, or $10, because it looks like a lower amount, though there's no significant difference (nobody cares about one cent). That's capitalism for you, heh.
Well, since this has only in the past few years made an appreciable difference, the SI unit people have clarified the whole GB=1,000,000,000 bytes thing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibibyte
And so officially, a Gigabyte is 1,000,000,000 (10^9) bytes, just like a Gigahertz is 1,000,000,000 hertz. A Gibibyte is the binary version (2^30), or 1,073,741,824 bytes. So that hard drive is actually 320 Gigabytes, or 298 Gibibytes.
As an aside, I don't like this system, I have the binary system too well ingrained in my mind from >20 years working with it... But it's something I need to be aware of, as with increasing sizes of storage it's only gonna become a bigger issue.
Back on topic: I also tried a WD Scorpio 60GB in 2 A1200s - no issues with the standard PSU, CD-ROM and Blizzard 1230...
-
As clawws brought up make sure the the drive is assigned as "MASTER" "CS" or cable select doesnt work with amigas!
If it's a 2.5" HD, it should default to master and you shouldn't need to add any jumpers at all - in fact, some drives don't even support CS or slave connection...
-
magnetic:
Unlike some of us here, sounds like you've been very lucky in not ending up with DOA drives.
Cheers Mizar, I'll try and order one today, kinda came to the conclusion that those two disks were DOA after checking through all the specs & technical details there is no real reason that they shouldn't have worked... :)
298GB will be plenty for my other A1200s as I only need the towered one with it's two 500GB HDs to backup my DVDs and CD ISO files. All my other miggies only contain Amiga specific stuff so 298GB will more than do... :)
Ah, yes, with just Amiga stuff that size is gigantic alright... to fill that would take downloading half of Aminet maybe, LOL. The only thing is you'll probably have the same problem as me with the Amiga not recognizing but only 2 1/3 % of the drive space :-(. So, we'll have to figure out how to use the rest. I'm reading through the OS Hard Drive Manual, but I'd be surprised if the answer is in there. Your towered A1200 sees all the 500GB in the two drives though, right? They're IDE 3.5"? I wonder what the difference is there.
How do y'all get your 30, 60, 80GB HDs to be fully recognized by OS3.9?
-
@ Mizar
If you use either the 4xEDIE or the FASTATA MKIII buffered interface boards they automatically split the first part of you HDs up into 4GB partitions that use up 8 x 4GBs worth of space... :)
However on my 500GB Drives I use SmartFileSystem and once installed on the HDs RDB you can use any size of HD and any size of Partition... :)
I Only use FFS partitions in the first 4GB space on the Master HD to boot up into OS3.1, OS3.5 or OS4.0 ... :)
-
@ Mizar
If you use either the 4xEDIE or the FASTATA MKIII buffered interface boards they automatically split the first part of you HDs up into 4GB partitions that use up 8 x 4GBs worth of space... :)
However on my 500GB Drives I use SmartFileSystem and once installed on the HDs RDB you can use any size of HD and any size of Partition... :)
I Only use FFS partitions in the first 4GB space on the Master HD to boot up into OS3.1, OS3.5 or OS4.0 ... :)
Are there buffered IDE interface boards still available? I haven't seen any yet. My HD transfer rate is inordinately slow around just 190KB/sec. :-(. I'm not sure why, but maybe one of those boards could fix that.
Ah, SmartFileSystem is the key! I'd heard that can have certain drawbacks, but it sounds essential if one wishes to use a huge HD. It doesn't look like it's on Aminet, where do you get it?
PS. OS4.0 on your A1200, aye? Cool! It must have manageable system requirements for well expanded classic systems.
-
@ Mizar
I've only seen them on eBay these days, I've bought two 4xEIDE boards on eBay over the past few weeks, they only speed up HD access slightly to about 250kb/sc but they make managing an HD and adding extra drives HD/CD/DVD a doddle... :)
The best board though is the FastATA MKIII, but again you'd have to find one on somewhere like eBay but the FastATA MKIII will take you're HD speeds up to around 500 to 600kb/sec (depending on your processor), I've only seen one in the past month on eBay but got outbid on it... :(
SmartFileSystem used to be on AmiNet as it was released into the public domain years ago by the author, however you can still find it here at the authors own website... :)
SmartFileSystem Ver 1.279 (http://strohmayer.org/)
OS4.0 on an A1200 requires a PPC accelerator but without an RTG board as well it's slower than a dead donkey... :(
-
@ Mizar
I've only seen them on eBay these days, I've bought two 4xEIDE boards on eBay over the past few weeks, they only speed up HD access slightly to about 250kb/sc but they make managing an HD and adding extra drives HD/CD/DVD a doddle... :)
The best board though is the FastATA MKIII, but again you'd have to find one on somewhere like eBay but the FastATA MKIII will take you're HD speeds up to around 500 to 600kb/sec (depending on your processor), I've only seen one in the past month on eBay but got outbid on it... :(
SmartFileSystem used to be on AmiNet as it was released into the public domain years ago by the author, however you can still find it here at the authors own website... :)
SmartFileSystem Ver 1.279 (http://strohmayer.org/)
OS4.0 on an A1200 requires a PPC accelerator but without an RTG board as well it's slower than a dead donkey... :(
You seem to be implying that my slow 190KB/sec. rate is normal, but in that IDE interface thread it was said it should be more like 2MB/sec. or higher with an 030 and original A1200 IDE interface. I have an 030/40MHz, 882/50 MHz.
Yeah, I remember the FastATA MKIII sounded like the best from the other thread. I guess I'll have to add that to my list of items that I want that can only be aquired secondhand, along with a PPC accelerator, RTG board, and PCI/Zorro-II slots. ;-)
Cool... when I downloaded SFS the slightly older main archive link was directed from Aminet. Don't know why it didn't show up in my Aminet search the other day.
-
I just went for a SATA SSD drive using an IDE44 to SATA adapter but it won't work as a master, now I'm going with this option IDE PATA DOM (http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Kingspec-44PIN-IDE-PATA-DOM-16GB-MLC-SSD-Disk-Module-/250794537338?pt=AU_Components&hash=item3a6484f17a#ht_3828wt_1139)
5.1MB p/s here I come :)
-
Are there buffered IDE interface boards still available? I haven't seen any yet. My HD transfer rate is inordinately slow around just 190KB/sec. :-(. I'm not sure why, but maybe one of those boards could fix that.
Ah, SmartFileSystem is the key! I'd heard that can have certain drawbacks, but it sounds essential if one wishes to use a huge HD. It doesn't look like it's on Aminet, where do you get it?
PS. OS4.0 on your A1200, aye? Cool! It must have manageable system requirements for well expanded classic systems.
I just switched from SFS to the new FREE PFS3. I don't know alot about different file systems but it seem alot of people are raving about this on. I even when to the trouble to pull my drive out and completely reinstall it.
I believe you can get it on AMINet.
-
Well, since this has only in the past few years made an appreciable difference, the SI unit people have clarified the whole GB=1,000,000,000 bytes thing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibibyte
And so officially, a Gigabyte is 1,000,000,000 (10^9) bytes, just like a Gigahertz is 1,000,000,000 hertz. A Gibibyte is the binary version (2^30), or 1,073,741,824 bytes. So that hard drive is actually 320 Gigabytes, or 298 Gibibytes.
As an aside, I don't like this system, I have the binary system too well ingrained in my mind from >20 years working with it... But it's something I need to be aware of, as with increasing sizes of storage it's only gonna become a bigger issue.
Back on topic: I also tried a WD Scorpio 60GB in 2 A1200s - no issues with the standard PSU, CD-ROM and Blizzard 1230...
Whoops, I didn't see this one yet. Whoah, what they did is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard of! Why don't they just go and change a definition from what it's always been, to say nothing of different from what computers actually use. They had no business trying to change Gigabytes into something they're not. Their Gibirishbytes is what they should've made into the absurd marketing definition, and left Gigabytes alone. I've never even heard of all those Gibi, Mebi, etc. nonsense words before. What's next, we start calling apples oranges, and vice versa?
:angry:
Of course you don't like it, how could anyone in their right mind like that. That's entirely worse than when they changed the meaning of the word planet. I say we all should band together in a united front against official stupidity!!! I say it's 298 Gigabytes, and 320 Gibirishbytes! And so does my computer, so there.
:furious:
As for the WD Scorpios, it's no wonder they don't cause any power issues even with the standard PSU. I think they're exceptionally power efficient, just like they're so quiet. They're designed for use in battery powered computers afterall.