Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: watcher on March 05, 2004, 06:00:18 PM
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Where do i start?
Basically, my A1200 has just arrived from ebay! :)
I have fitted a set of 3.1 ROMS and a Blizzard 68030 50Mhz accelerator with 32MB RAM. My problem is that i cant actually get any software onto it!!!! I only have workbench 3.0 so i ordered OS 3.9 but that is on CD and i havnt got any drivers for my PCMCIA CD-Rom! I cant get net access till i have put on OS 3.9, which i cant do without drivers (on the net!!). I have a Compact flash PCMCIA adaptor that doesnt work as the drivers for it are on the net!!! I have these all stored on my PC but no way of getting them to the Amiga! The floppy drive is incompatable, the cd doesnt work, and neither does the CF card! I cant even set up a network to transfer the files i need as the software is.....on the net!!!!!
:-?
I also have a 2.5" hard drive but i dont have the Workbench HD disk to get it working :(
Also when i opened up the A1200 there's no where to put the HD! there's a space and 4 holes but they wont hold the drive! Am i missing some kind of mounting bracket?
Pleeeeeeaaaaaasssssssseeeee help me!! :(
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Soo many questions, such little time:-)
Also when i opened up the A1200 there's no where to put the HD! there's a space and 4 holes but they wont hold the drive! Am i missing some kind of mounting bracket?
Sounds like it. There is supposed to be a hard drive brack to hold the 2.5 hard drive.
About the rest, do you have ANY Workbench floppys?
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watcher wrote:
The floppy drive is incompatable,
That's not correct. With the correct driver (which is part of the OS), the floppy can read and write PC-formatted DD disks. This will be your chance to move stuff from/to the PC until you get net access working.
I also have a 2.5" hard drive but i dont have the Workbench HD disk to get it working :(
Ouch. Do you have *no* Workbench disks at all, or is just the "install" disk missing?
If you have *some* Workbench disks, it is very easy to install the OS manually (we can tell you how to do this). What you need is the bootable disk just labeled "Workbench" and a tool called "HDToolBox" (can't remember on what disk this one resides).
If you don't have any (Workbench-/OS-) disks, you'll have to find somebody willing to send them to you. Without them, you're stuck.
Also when i opened up the A1200 there's no where to put the HD! there's a space and 4 holes but they wont hold the drive! Am i missing some kind of mounting bracket?
Yes. The mounting bracket is no real problem though, just wrap a lot of paper around the disk and tape it tightly to the motherboard, this should do the trick for now - welcome to the world of Amiga style upgrades ;) The bigger problem might be the cable, I don't know if this is a standard cable or a custom job.
Call any dealer and ask for the cable, otherwise call your preferred Amiga dealer and ask for a "HD upgrade set" for your A1200.
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cgutjahr wrote:
With the correct driver (which is part of the OS), the floppy can read and write PC-formatted DD disks.
Don't forget, if in the short term you can't find any DD disks, use a HD one and cover the extra tab with a bit of sellotape. It's not a good idea for long-term storage but will work in the short-term to get the files transferred.
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Thanks for all your reply's!
The WB disks i have are: Amiga Workbench, Locale, Storage, Amiga Extra's and Amiga Font's. Which is all of them but i thought the HD util's etc were on another floppy?!
And what is the name of the program that allows the amiga to use PC formatted disk's? But remember if it's on the net i can only get it through my PC which means the Amiga won't be able to read the disk to run the program to allow it to read the disk!!!!!! (so confusing when i read it back!)
Also is there a generic driver for my PCMCIA CD-ROM drive?
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And what is the name of the program that allows the amiga to use PC formatted disk's?
it's on storage and it is in devs somwhere and the name is PC0
if i remember corectly.
:-)
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a much better driver for reading PC formated disks is fat95 on aminet:
http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/~aminet/disk/misc/fat95.lha (http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/~aminet/disk/misc/fat95.lha)
this lets you read long file names. i've used it for years. works great!
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watcher wrote:
Thanks for all your reply's!
The WB disks i have are: Amiga Workbench, Locale, Storage, Amiga Extra's and Amiga Font's. Which is all of them but i thought the HD util's etc were on another floppy?!
Sounds like you are missing the "Install" floppy which has the hard drive utilities like HDTools:-(
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watcher wrote:
The WB disks i have are: Amiga Workbench, Locale, Storage, Amiga Extra's and Amiga Font's. Which is all of them but i thought the HD util's etc were on another floppy?!
Thinking about it, I'm afraid you're right. To make sure, check the "Workbench" disk for a tool called "HDToolbox".
And what is the name of the program that allows the amiga to use PC formatted disk's?
It's a driver, not a program. It should be located on your "Storage" disk. It's called (IIRC) "PC0", simply activate it by doubleclicking it. If you want to activate it permanently, copy the file "PC0" to the "DEVS" drawer on your Workbench disk - this drawer contains device drivers that shall be activated each time the machine boots.
From now on, whenever you have a disk in your floppy drive, there will not be just one but *two* icons: "DF0" and "PC0". If you insert an Amiga disk, doubleclick DF0 to access the disk. If you insert a PC disk, use PC0.
Now you can copy files to your Amiga (the driver is from 1992 and therefore only supports 8+3 filenames, but this is no real problem)!
You have two options now:
Ask somebody to send you a "zipped ADF image" of the "Workbench Install" disk. Download "ADFBlitzer" and UnZip from Aminet. Transfer all three files to your Amiga, use Unzip to depack the zipped ADF, use ADFBlitzer to write the ADF back to a disk. Now you have a complete set of workbench disks and can use the standard installation method. I can't help you with the "Workbench install" disk, as I don't have one here, but I'm pretty sure others will be able to help. This method will only work if a zipped ADF image of the install disk will fit onto a DD disk.
The other option would be that somebody supplies you with "HDToolbox" which is basically the only thing you really need from the install disk. You'll have to install manually then, but that's pretty straightforward.
Also is there a generic driver for my PCMCIA CD-ROM drive?
No. What type of PCMCIA CD-ROM is it?
Driver disks for "OverdriveCD", "Squirrel" and "SurfSquirrel" can be found at the Big Book of Amiga Hardware (http://www.amiga-hardware.com) under "Drivers & Installation/SCSI". These are DMS disk images, so you'll need a tool to write DMS images back to disk. Check Aminet, there are probably several hundreds of those ;-)
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God you guy's are life saver's!
Thanks for all your help!
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ooohhh! It all worked a treat!
I also found this great program for formating 720K floppies when using Windows XP! (normally it will only let you format 1.44MB) here's the link!
http://www.softpile.com/Utilities/Disk_Utilities/Review_05155_index.html
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You can also use:
FORMAT A: /T:80 /N:9
in either the RUN command or Command Prompt to format a 720k disk in XP (Or indeed any version of Windows).
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If this is a cheeky or illegal request then i apologise!
Could someone email me an NON-COMPRESSED IN ANY WAY program for unzipping *.lha files? As ALL the programs i find for unzipping things are all zipped!!! :) (there is a small problem there!)
Thanks!
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Heh, it's a bit of a catch 22. But the creators of LHA had the oversight to make their package executable.
http://uk.aminet.net/pub/aminet/util/arc/LhA.run
That's the link to LHA on Aminet.
Just run it from Workbench.
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@watcher
Here is a simple solution to all your problems:
First...get WinUAE for your PC.........then download AIAB (Amiga IN A Box) and install it into WinUAE...........its super easy...........Now take your A1200 harddrive and connect it to your PC.......Yes! thats right connect it in the IDE chain..........now from WinAUE add the hard drive to AIAB's configuration..................and whalla!! everything you download on your PC you can just drag and drop into your A1200's hard drive...............then once you've downloaded all and everything you wanted........put the drive back into your A1200 and you have all you need............you can always go back and connect it if you want to add more stuff............
Also you can back up your entire HD into WinUAE and if your A1200 HD gets messed up for some reason......yo have it backed up in WinUAE plus..........you can also burn your HD contents onto CD for safe keeping!
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hhmmmm, ok i have downloaded the LHA program and run it, but (and this is embarrasing) could someone five me an example of what i need to type to extract a file in the Floppy drive?
Because when i run the program i get an "output" window with loads of instructions which i kind of understand, and it said "paused. press any key to continue" which i do but after scrolling down several pages of instruction's i get the message "lha failed returncode 20" and after that nothing i type has any effect!!
help! :(
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Open a shell (in System)and
a) put lha into your path
copy lha to c:
b) change to the target directory:
cd mydir
c) extract files:
lha e pco:#?.lha
This will extract ALL files on disk PCO to the current dir (#? is a wildcard).
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This is a really handy topic! Though I pretty much know how to HD-up a bog-standard 1200, I forgotten a few little obviosu things.
Got a boxed A1200 off eBay a few months ago, and going to be putting an HD in that. :-)
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leirbag28 wrote:
Here is a simple solution to all your problems:
Connecting an Amiga HD to the PC only makes sense if the HD is partitioned and formatted already. You can't do that under WinUAE IIRC.
watcher's HD is not partitioned yet.
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Ok i know im a pain in the arse but....
Is there an easier way of extracting the LHA files?
Im completely new to the amiga and i hav'nt got a clue! Im used to clicking on icon's etc but using command prompts is beyond my knowledge!!! :(
I have been trying all afternoon but i still cant get it to work and im beginning to feel that i've just wasted alot of money trying to get an amiga set-up that im to thick to use :(
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hey, i'm new to it as well and i managed to get lha working
/me nods to vince_AC
double click on the hammer icon with LHA written under it, and then it should say some crud like, enter command arguments, it's should say LHA already, so you should have this typed in b4 you press enter
LHA X filename.lha
(replacing filename, with the filename :-) )
that's it! [that's the simplest method of using lha, i've never had to use anything else, though this method will extract to the current directory and then you will have to move it somewhere...
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Even better: go to Aminet and download a GUI frontend for LhA- this will work ontop of the LhA program you have already installed and create a nice 'n' easy WIMP interface.
You can then click your way to success.
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Some Links on Aminet:
http://uk.aminet.net/aminet/dirs/aminet/util/arc/AnArchiver.lha
http://uk.aminet.net/aminet/dirs/aminet/util/arc/ArchEdge.lha
http://uk.aminet.net/aminet/dirs/aminet/util/arc/ccb.lha
http://uk.aminet.net/aminet/dirs/aminet/util/arc/CruncherI_v18.lha
http://uk.aminet.net/aminet/dirs/aminet/util/arc/DFace111.lha
And on, and on and on...
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(Of course, you need to still use "LHA X filename.lha" to extract the archive containing the archived GUI wrapper, but after that it's smooth sailing)
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iirc wasn't it Lha E x filename.lha ?
as for front ends .. I always used GuiARC
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You can use that; one keeps the path structure of the archive, the other doesn't, but I cannae remember which does which though!
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I always use xadmaster.library with Voodoo-X GUI :-)
It only can depack archives, not pack, but sure it rules! It can depack over 120 packer formats including DMS and filesystem images like AmigaDOS disks, C64 tapes and disk images, Fat16, ISO9660 ISO etc etc :-D
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watcher wrote:
Ok i know im a pain in the arse but....
Is there an easier way of extracting the LHA files?
Im completely new to the amiga and i hav'nt got a clue! Im used to clicking on icon's etc but using command prompts is beyond my knowledge!!! :(
Don't forget that you are dealing with an OS that's twelve years old. OS 3.9 has way better support for archives (no need to bother with the command line anymore).
Do not bother doing any "cool" stuff with OS3.0/3.1 - just install it, install the neccessary CD-ROM driver and then replace it with OS3.9 as fast as possible ;-)
I have been trying all afternoon but i still cant get it to work and im beginning to feel that i've just wasted alot of money trying to get an amiga set-up that im to thick to use :(
What's your exact problem? Do you have the Workbench "install" disk now? If not, we can give you step by step instructions, just tell us what you don't manage to do. Once you have the install disk (and a driver for your CD-ROM), the rest is damn easy.
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Hi
I managed to figure out what i was doing wrong!! It was a VERY silly and difficult to explain mistake! :)
The only problem's remaining are the HD Tools of which i have none! and also im having alot of trouble getting hold of drivers for my CD-ROM!
It's an AMACOM 16-BIT PCMCIA CD-ROM that only requires basic generic driver's for my PC, so was kinda hoping that there is just a basic set of drivers for all PCMCIA CD-ROMS on the amiga! And without them i wont be able to install OS 3.9! (in the post to me as we speak!)
Any suggestion's
Thanks
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There are not that many PCMCIA CDROMS for the Amiga: There are the Archos and Zappo ones I know of. They require specific drivers.
Most CDROMs are IDE or SCSI which ARE supported. So unless AMACOM write Amiga drivers, its pretty useless for the Amiga.
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poo
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Ok, so how would i add a CD-Rom to a untowered A1200 with a Blizzard 1230 Accelerator?
Thanks
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Thinking about it, if i had a PCMCIA LAN card, is there a way to network my A1200 to my PC so i could use it's CD drive? I once did this with my Atari ST but it was VERY slow as i was using the serial cable, but the PCMCIA should be alot faster, no?
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watcher wrote:
The only problem's remaining are the HD Tools of which i have none!
Do you have the install disk and HDToolBox is missing or are you still missing the install disk?
and also im having alot of trouble getting hold of drivers for my CD-ROM! It's an AMACOM 16-BIT PCMCIA CD-ROM that only requires basic generic driver's for my PC, so was kinda hoping that there is just a basic set of drivers for all PCMCIA CD-ROMS on the amiga!
Ouch! I'm afraid there are no amiga drivers for standard PCMCIA CD-ROMs. The few PCMCIA drives available for the amiga are all custom solutions.
And without them i wont be able to install OS 3.9! (in the post to me as we speak!)
Yes you will. It will just become more complicated. You only need to install OS3.9 *once*, you can back it up later on and restore from your backup in (the unlikely) case your boot partition gets messed up.
Here's my suggestion:
Install WinUAE on your PC. Install OS 3.9 under WinUAE.
Partition and format your HD on your real Amiga. Now you have two options to move the WinUAE 3.9 install to the real Amiga HD:
1. Connect the Amiga HD to your PC.
(Works only if you use WindowsXP or (IIRC) Win2000). Simply copy the finished installation to your HD and put the HD into the Amiga. Requires buying another IDE cable (to connect 2.5" HD to 3.5" IDE).
2. Transfer the files through Nullmodem
Requires a Nullmodem cable and two terminal programs. Takes ages but works.
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There's a nice towered A1200 on ebay at the moment! Maybe i should have just bought that insted!!!
But im now thinking of towering my A1200! Where the hell do i begin!!!!??????
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oh ok, i now feel very foolish!
I have been telling you all that i have Workbench 3.1 but i just checked the disk's and there 3.0!!!
Does this make a difference to the HD toolbox i need? Is it already included with 3.0 and if so on what disk?
Thanks
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I have just looked through the WB 3.0 manual and it said that the "HD Toolbox" is in the "Tools" drawer on the "Extras" disk..........but ONLY on HD equiped systems!!!!!! My A1200 did'nt originaly come with a HD so im stuffed!!!
There must be somewhere i can download it from!!
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Hi
I managed to locate this on aminet!
http://uk.aminet.net/pub/aminet/disk/misc/hdinst.lha
Will it solve my problem?
Thanks
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watcher wrote:
http://uk.aminet.net/pub/aminet/disk/misc/hdinst.lha
Will it solve my problem?
Yes, it should, as it seems to be a HDToolBox-Replacement. Note that you should stick to whatever HD-Prep tool you use to partition a disk. Do not use other HD-Tools on a disk you prepared with HDInstTool.
I have been telling you all that i have Workbench 3.1 but i just checked the disk's and there 3.0!!!
Now you have a problem. OS3.9 requires OS3.1 - if you want to use 3.9, you'll have to buy 3.1 Kickstart ROMs first (and replace the original ROMs on your motherboard with the new ones).
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[/quote]
Now you have a problem. OS3.9 requires OS3.1 - if you want to use 3.9, you'll have to buy 3.1 Kickstart ROMs first (and replace the original ROMs on your motherboard with the new ones).
[/quote]
The Kickstart ROMS are 3.1 as i bought them and installed them myself, but the version of WorkBench i have is 3.0! So can i use OS3.9 with the 3.1 ROMS?
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watcher wrote:
The Kickstart ROMS are 3.1 as i bought them and installed them myself, but the version of WorkBench i have is 3.0! So can i use OS3.9 with the 3.1 ROMS?
Yes, OS3.9 only requires the ROMS.