Just bought GVP HD8+ hard drive!

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Bruno,

Congrats!  It's a great controller.    I took these pictures just a few days ago mainly to document how I'd mounted my VXL-30 along with Indivision ECS and MegaChip, but they show the GVP hard drive controller as well, which I've upgraded with 4.15 ROM ($10 from tjlazer on ebay), 4MB of 30-pin SIMMS ($10 on ebay), the MechWare card reader and 4GB CF card and "no PSU mod".  Everything fits fine with a little jiggling, I still need to either fill where that slider switch was or cram it back in there on mine.  But yes, everything fits and works great if you go with the card reader.  

Also nearly any external CD drive should work, as long as you get the right cable.  I got an external CD-RW drive for mine for $2 off ebay, but the 25-pin to 50-pin Centronics connector cable cost an extra $8!    Just FYI you may have to fiddle with the termination a bit if you go this route.  Search out some of my previous threads and learn from my frustration, LOL.  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Also, If I am not mistaken, the A500+ only has 1 meg of chip ram.  Mine has 1 meg, and with the trapdoor 512K module plugged in, has 1.5 meg of chip ram.  At least that is how mine is set up.

For the A500+ you should get the 1MB trapdoor expansion (there's usually a ton of them for sale on ebay, look for ones that are specifically for "A500+").  This would give you the full 2MB.  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

I don't plan to buy any RAM chips for the moment

If you change your mind PM me.  I've got a couple spare 1MB chips that came out of mine when I upgraded to 4MB that you could have for the cost of shipping + 1 beer.  

Or hunt down a pair of 4MB chips on ebay, I see them all the time going for old Macs.  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

As for compatible SCSI hard drives, I think the ones that would be compatible would be either internal 50 pin or external DB25 and low capacity in the Mb range, or certainly not over 4Gb. Am I right?

Correct.  You could use others (like IDE drives) but you'd need additional adapters for that.  Capacity limits are based on what ROM version you have in the device.  4.15 is the latest, if you don't have that you can pick up a copy from tjlazah on ebay or amibay for $10.  I believe it supports up to 4GB drives, with 2GB partitions.  I wouldn't risk going any larger than that.  There's also a GuruROM available but finding it is like hen's teeth!

More info here:  http://babel.de/amiga.html

Amiga is an expensive hobby!!  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

While the GVP HC8 can find pretty much any properly terminated device on the SCSI chain, I have found a limitation of use to 3.67GB of storage (without a Guru ROM)

Random question - you don't happen to know of any sources for a Guru ROM, do you?  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

I only just realised that Mechware is out of SCSI-Flash Card adaptors.

He's out of the more commonly used type, but does have plenty of PCD-60B's available, which is what I'm using in my GVP sidecar case.  Had to remove the faceplate and top cover (both just pop off) to get it to fit, but she does fit in there.  

http://a4000t.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=65_79&products_id=250

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Reasonable enough compared to the cost of most Amiga things these days.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

There is way too many new comments on this post for me to follow, but just a couple quick thoughts:

- I haven't had any problems using a 4GB CF card on mine.  It's partitioned 300MB OS/1.8GB Work/1.8GB Games.  Always keep partitions under 2GB if using FFS.  Haven't had any issues that would limit me to 3.67GB, but I believe without the GuruROM you're limited to using a total drive capacity of 4GB or less.

- Since I bought my unit from Europe and was never able to find a North American power supply, I modified it using the instructions on this page:

http://members.iinet.net.au/~davem2/overclock/a500hd.html

to draw power from the A500's internal connector.  This worked fine for both the 80MB drive my unit came with and my MechWare SCSI card reader.  I wouldn't try to run a newer, more power hungry drive this way, however.  Maybe one that's slower though (5400 RPM) as opposed to 7200 RPM might work.  Same thing if you're using the GVP power supply - try to stick to a less power-hungry drive like Zetr0 says, or a CF card.

- You can find out your ROM version by looking at the GVP motherboard.  It's the only socketed chip on the board and should have a sticker on the top.  Alternatively I believe SysInfo reports the ROM version, as well.

- I don't recall what version of HDToolbox works with Workbench 2.0, but again my .02 cents is to upgrade to 3.1 (ROM is about $15 on ebay or AmigaKit, disks can be downloaded from lots of places).  I found the 3.1 HDToolbox much easier and more intuitive to use than the GVP ExpertPrep/FaaastPrep utility.

Good luck!

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

I don't think there's anything wrong with your unit, you've just got a crashed hard drive.  It happens dude, you've got 20+ year old hardware.  A quick search on ebay shows 846 active listings for "50 pin scsi hard drive", many starting at under $20.  Good luck!

I still have that extra 2MB of memory I was going to send you BTW, damned UPS wanted to charge me $30 to send it though, which is pretty ridiculous considering you can probably get it locally for under $10.  If I can ever make it to the post office they might be able to slow-boat it over to ya for a more reasonable rate, in which case I'll shoot it over to ya.  Na Zdorovie!

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Please explain exactly what you mean by a crashed hard drive. I'm still waiting for the replacement from Zetr0, anyway.

So, you never sent the 2Mb of RAM! I've been expecting it to arrive any day for weeks now. I didn't think you were going to send it by UPS, just US Mail or whatever it's called. I don't know about any compatible RAM I can buy locally for under $10 or about £7.50. I don't know about any problems you have getting to a post office, as you live in Washington DC. I can walk to a post office in just a few minutes. Over here, a lot of post offices are being closed down. Is the same thing happening over there?

I work 12 hours a day.  Post offices aren't open at 2am when I get out of the office, and one needs to sleep sometimes.  Sorry, and it sounded like you didn't need it as badly when you mentioned that it already had 2MB in it.  But seriously, you need to put a little more effort into this.  You don't know what "crashed hard drive" means?  Seriously?  Google it!  Use ebay.  Type in "30 pin simm"  There's 134 listings for them!  And didn't your mother ever teach you it's rude to nag people when they're offering you things for free?  Bah, I give up!