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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Software Issues and Discussion => Topic started by: sargeantinio on July 17, 2011, 12:51:57 PM

Title: help please
Post by: sargeantinio on July 17, 2011, 12:51:57 PM
hi guys
i now have aan amiga a600 ,problem is it doesnt come up with the purple screen with disk going into drive
instead it goes to workbench screen
how do i change this?
also it loads all my games ok exept all my champ manager gameswhich i have loads of
wondered if there was any connection ,it gets most of the way through disk 1 then crashes
but i know these games work ok
any help is appreciated thanks
Title: Re: help please
Post by: Thomas on July 17, 2011, 12:56:23 PM
Quote
it doesnt come up with the purple screen with disk going into drive
instead it goes to workbench screen
how do i change this?


Open the case and remove the harddrive.
Title: Re: help please
Post by: sargeantinio on July 17, 2011, 01:12:33 PM
could you be more specific please, im no expert
Title: Re: help please
Post by: TiredOLife on July 17, 2011, 01:16:53 PM
Why would you want to stop it booting to Workbench?
What games exactly?
Do you have extra ram installed?
Title: Re: help please
Post by: J-Golden on July 17, 2011, 01:18:50 PM
First off, welcome to the wonderful world of AMIGA! :)

The reason you do not get the purple "insert Disk" screen is that you have a hard drive in your A600.  This isn't a bad thing, by the way nor is it a malfunction.

If you don't want the Hard Drive to load, you can either insert a disk at startup.  This will attempt to load the disk information instead of booting from the hard drive.  This does not disable the Hard Drive so it will be running in the background and is accessible.

Also, you can hold down both mouse buttons at startup.  This will bring up the early startup menu where you can choose to disable the Hard Drive.  Do a soft reset and now you will get the purple "insert disk" screen.  You will continue to get this until you power off the A600 and start it again (hard reset).  The down side is that you now have no access to the Hard Drive if you needed to load files from it.

Hope this helps you out ;)
Title: Re: help please
Post by: J-Golden on July 17, 2011, 01:32:10 PM
Oh right!  Champ Manager issues.

Could you be more specific on what happens when it crashes?

You said you have a lot of this game.  Do you get the exact same error no matter which disk you use?

If you are getting the exact same problem every time, the issue could be one of the following:

- The A600 is PAL and the game is NTSC (or other way around)

If you look at the disk, they usually say what region the game is in.  If the Keyboard on the A600 is anything other than the standard English format, it is very likely a PAL system.

If this is your problem, you will need a program that will temporarily change your system into the format you need.  Two that I know of are Degrader and Re-Lo Kick.  They are mainly used to get by issues using older games on newer systems, but they also have the ability to do what you need.

- The game requires more memory then you have available.

If you try to load the game after disabling the Hard Drive (mentioned in my previous post) and then it works, it is a memory issue.  To Mount and access the Hard Drive uses memory and sometimes that is the culprit.

The Hard Drive check is the easiest to do so I would try that first.

Let us know what you find out!:)
Title: Re: help please
Post by: sargeantinio on July 17, 2011, 01:51:02 PM
well that sounds helpful ,it is failing at same point each time and it does keep saying not enough memory
when i held both mouse buttons down it brought up these options
df0
cc0
dh0
dh2
dh1
which one helps me disable hard drive?
Title: Re: help please
Post by: sargeantinio on July 17, 2011, 01:57:32 PM
oh and it also says advaced options below these:)
Title: Re: help please
Post by: Franko on July 17, 2011, 01:58:35 PM
Dh0... :)
Title: Re: help please
Post by: sargeantinio on July 17, 2011, 02:07:16 PM
well that didnt change anything do i need to mess with advaced options first ??
Title: Re: help please
Post by: J-Golden on July 17, 2011, 02:14:59 PM
Quote from: sargeantinio;649991
well that didnt change anything do i need to mess with advaced options first ??
Hmmm, try disabling ALL the drive except DF0: (Disk-Floppy-0 meaning the first floppy)
 
Since it is looking like you are mounting several partitions (DH0-2 and maybe even CC0) you will want to disable ALL of them as each one will take up a bit of memory, IIRC.
 
GOOD LUCK!
 
PS- Advance Options are for other things that you may want to look up on the web and get more info on before you mess around with them.
Title: Re: help please
Post by: sargeantinio on July 17, 2011, 02:20:59 PM
ok ive disabled evthing except df0 now it's asking me to insert volume df0 in any drive
Title: Re: help please
Post by: J-Golden on July 17, 2011, 02:40:54 PM
Hmm, ok, then just reactivate CC0 and see what it does.

If that doesn't help, go ahead and restart the A600 with all Hard Drives active and no floppy inserted in the drive.  Let workbench load up.  Left click anywhere on the screen and this should pull up your memory stats across the top.

You will two different types of memory listed; Graphics and Other.  List what you have here and we can go from there.
Title: Re: help please
Post by: sargeantinio on July 17, 2011, 02:48:01 PM
right ok
graphics memory 734640
other is 0 memory
Title: Re: help please
Post by: Franko on July 17, 2011, 02:52:00 PM
Quote from: sargeantinio;649995
ok ive disabled evthing except df0 now it's asking me to insert volume df0 in any drive


If you're getting that message then it looks like the floppy disk drive is either broken/ faulty or the cables for it (power and data) may not be connected up properly... :(

If I were you I would open it up and check the floppies cabling to find out if the floppy drive is actually working or not... ;)

I notice from your first post you mention that it does read disks but with errors occurring, this could be (it does happen) down to the small pin switches at the front opening of the floppy drive being dirty...

Sometimes when these disk detection switches get dirty they become intermittent and the vibrations when reading a disk is enough for the switch to lose contact resulting in errors... :(

A little squirt of contact cleaner or WD40 on these switches and pressing and releasing them numerous times is usually all it takes to fix this problem... :)
Title: Re: help please
Post by: J-Golden on July 17, 2011, 02:53:30 PM
So Now that I'm "home" from "work", I can get onto Lemonamiga and Lall of Light.  The box cover says you need 1 Meg of ram to play the game.  This would be your Graphics memory, not your Other memory.

So if you are seeing less than 1,000K (1 Meg.) memory, you are going to have a tough time running the game.  If it says something close to 1, then it should work with disabling the Hard Drives...

Also, if you get to upgrading your system, this game is hard drive installable so that would be a bonus to getting the extra Graphics memory...
Title: Re: help please
Post by: sargeantinio on July 17, 2011, 03:16:15 PM
ok but could you please try to
give me a step by step guide how to disable hard drive please
imagine your trying to explain it to your mum lol
Title: Re: help please
Post by: J-Golden on July 17, 2011, 03:24:39 PM
What I have already given you will disable the Hard Drives.  Did you try disabling everything except for DF0 and CC0?  If you did and you still get the memory crash, they the problem is that the A600 does not have enough memory to run the game. :(

Sorry.

There are things you can buy to upgrade the memory in your A600, but that is a whole other thing to deal with.  Let us know how it all turns out.  IF you are looking for upgrade for it, look around or Google "A600 Amiga upgrade" or something like that.

Good LUCK!
Title: Re: help please
Post by: Franko on July 17, 2011, 03:28:15 PM
Step By Step Guide "Mummy would understand"... :)

If you mean without physically disconnecting the cables then... :)

Reset (or when you power on the Amiga) hold down both mouse buttons until a screen called "Early Startup" appears...

Then click on "Boot Options" (left mouse button)

Now on the screen that's appeared using the left mouse button click on all the items that say "Enabled" to change them to "Disabled" except for the one that says "DF0" (leave that one at "Enabled")

Then click on "Use" and then click on "Boot"

It might also be handy to already have the floppy disk you are going to use already inserted in the floppy disk drive... :)
Title: Re: help please
Post by: klx300r on July 17, 2011, 03:42:31 PM
Quote from: Franko;650003
..A little squirt of contact cleaner or WD40 on these switches and pressing and releasing them numerous times is usually all it takes to fix this problem... :)

don't use WD40 as it's leaves a greasy residue and attracts alot of dust/debris...I've been using Jigaloo (orange can) for quite some time now & it's alot better as it leaves no greasy residue and it smells nicer
Title: Re: help please
Post by: Franko on July 17, 2011, 03:51:19 PM
Quote from: klx300r;650011
don't use WD40 as it's leaves a greasy residue and attracts alot of dust/debris...I've been using Jigaloo (orange can) for quite some time now & it's alot better as it leaves no greasy residue and it smells nicer


Gotta agree with that, WD40 can be rather messy but how many folk have a proper can of contact cleaner in their home... ;)

White spirit can do the trick (though not as effectively) but at least it evaporates totally, slightly more "unusual" but very effective is "Brute" mens deodorant, cleans contacts really well, evaporates totally and give your Amiga (especially when it heats up) a nice smell like it's ready for a night on the tiles... :D
Title: Re: help please
Post by: sargeantinio on July 17, 2011, 08:33:58 PM
well thanks guys
after your patience and instructions even my mum could understand lol
i now have been able to load champ manager
im happy:)
Title: Re: help please
Post by: Cammy on July 18, 2011, 04:27:51 AM
If you don't feel like performing surgery on your floppy drive, you can use a floppy cleaning kit, which cleans those dirty heads for error-free floppy fun. Check these out:

UK: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Floppy-Disk-Drive-Cleaner-Wet-Dry-Cleaning-Kit-/190406236846
US: http://cgi.ebay.com/Gemini-3-5-3-1-2-Floppy-Disk-Drive-Cleaning-Kit-NEW-/200614297787
AU: http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Halloa-3-5-Floppy-Disk-Drive-Head-Cleaner-Kit-/260775532907
HK: http://cgi.ebay.com/3-5-Floppy-Disk-Drive-Cleaner-Wet-Dry-Cleaning-Kit-/160623234636
Title: Re: help please
Post by: sargeantinio on July 18, 2011, 07:17:56 PM
well thanks for all your help guys
has been very informative:roflmao::hammer:
Title: Re: help please
Post by: Piru on July 18, 2011, 08:29:55 PM
Quote from: Franko;650003
WD40

Say... Have you ever created any maps for Doom?
Title: Re: help please
Post by: Franko on July 18, 2011, 08:54:07 PM
Quote from: Piru;650353
Say... Have you ever created any maps for Doom?


I know you claimed the other day that you do have a sense of humour but that one has completely flew over my head and right out the window !!!