Amiga 500 won't detect expansion/hard drive

[danbeaver]

I'm sorry, did you happen to check to see if the hardware is detected by ShowConfig?  Does the ram show up in WorkBench?

Usually an unpowered expansion will prevent booting at all, so of the hard drive is attached does it have another power source?  If yes, does the hard drive spin-up?  Of course have you checked for good/clean contacts on the expansion port?  Any LED flashing from the HDDs access?

If no hard drive showing up, have you unplugged it and just checked for the ram alone?

[danbeaver]

ShowConfig is in one of the directories and will show hardware in a rather terse fashion. But WorkBench will list all added memory unless the hardware is so old you need an "addmem" command. I'm afraid I haven't touched an A500 in 22 years so you will have to find that manual online. It is bound to be out there.

All I can tell from what you have written is that power spins up the disk. Find the boot floppy for the device and look at the software it uses; this and the manual will help most.

[danbeaver]

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