Just bought GVP HD8+ hard drive!

[AmigaBruno]

I've just bought a GVP HD8+ hard drive from eBay for my Amiga A500 Plus. According to the eBay listing this has a 42Mb hard drive fitted, but no RAM is included,

Obviously, I could probably fit a larger hard drive, or even a second hand drive to this unit. What kinds of hard drives are compatible?

According to the details on http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/impact500mk2 , this unit will accept up to 8Mb of RAM, but I felt I should check on here exactly what types of RAM are compatible. I seem to remember that 9Mb RAM is the limit for an Amiga A500 Plus.  Where is this RAM available fairly cheaply?

[AmigaBruno]

I have the same controller on my A500+, and second the SCSI card reader from Mechware.  I also have an external CD-RW connected to mine.  It works great.  If I am not mistaken, the A500 HD+8 uses the 30 pin simms.  I have 8 meg in mine, which is the max, using 4 2 meg simms.  I have several 1 meg simms, however, with the 1 meg simms, you can only have 4 meg, as there are only 4 simm slots.  The 1 meg simms are pretty common.  I bought the ones I have on ebay, they were 4 1meg simms for like $13, so not bad.  The 2 meg ones would give you more ram, but are not as common, at least not as I have seen on ebay.  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.

I've had a look at this SCSI card reader on your link as well as others in this topic, but I don't know how to fit it. I could be confused because it looks like it should be external, but the only place to put it may be inside the GVP case I've just bought. I know that I need 30 pin SIMMS, which I think can only be either 1Mb, or 4Mb each, but the time or refresh rate is also important and I may need to make sure exactly which model I've bought before choosing any. The eBay seller says he has no suitable RAM chips for this unit at the moment. The A500 Plus has the "obese Agnus" which can have 2Mb chip RAM. If you plug in a full 1Mb trapdoor upgrade such as the A502 (not A501 or compatible 512K expansion) or compatible unit (not many are available) then this brings it up to 2Mb chip RAM, but I don't know if any RAM fitted elsewhere would be counted as chip RAM.

I'm really amazed that you can plug in an external CD-RW drive to this unit! Please tell me what kinds of CD drives are compatible. This purchase will let me experience a whole new side to the classic Amiga, which I never went through before without a hard drive, any more RAM than 2Mb or a CD drive. I was persuaded to go the PC route to get online and set up a website. I got the PC on a year's credit, but when I checked recently in archived magazines I think I could have afforded the necessary upgrades to my A1200. I was also involved with a private club or association where they kept talking about PCs only and someone said to me "You don't really know about computers, only the Amiga!", but I had used other systems as well, including CP/M, other 8 bit computers, MS-DOS at a college and under an Amiga emulator, and MS Windows in cybercafes.

In the near future, I hope to get my ADF transfer kit working again, then my Amiga will be really flying with more games and applications, and I'll be creating more graphics, and programs! I hope to apply any knowledge I gain to Linux, AROS, and Aeros as well.

[AmigaBruno]

just for curiosity
how many $$ you payed for ur GVP unit?

I paid £70.01, including £10 for courier delivery. At the moment this is US$106.79.

I don't plan to buy any RAM chips for the moment, but the $80 mentioned earlier sounds quite expensive compared with some searches I've just done. One factor in the price may be the refresh rate or speed, given in ns. Does this GVP unit require an exact figure in ns for the RAM chips, or if it's higher or lower, would that work?

[AmigaBruno]

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.  

That sounds great! I PMed you sometime last night my time, but I'm still waiting for your reply. Basically, I wanted to know how much money you want for "shipping +1 beer". BTW, I'm a home brewer and can give you some information about a fantastic new type of kit and my best results.

[AmigaBruno]

Unfortunately, it seems I've oinly got about 5Mb space left on this hard drive after installing a few programs such as Aztec C V5.06, Magic WB, and Deluxe Paint III, From what I can make out, Monkey Island 2: Lechuck's Revenge is taking up more space than anything else. It seems like a great game though, so I don't want to delete it.

I now think that I need to fit an extra or replacement drive to this unit. I wonder which hard drives are compatible. I think they would have to be either external with a DB25 connector or internal with a 50 pin SCSI connector. I think the maximum capacity is 4Gb, or that the maximum partition size is 4Gb. Can anyone suggest some suitable hard drives for this unit?

[AmigaBruno]

I would go with a SCSI card reader and use a compact flash for the hard drive.  Easy to change to a different OS or whatever, by merely unplugging/plugging in a new flash card.  Mechware has some great stuff.  You could check with him to see if he has any more of the card readers.

Unfortunately, it seems I can't afford any of the SCSI card readers from Mechware, but I'm working on some schemes to get some more money in the near future.

Meanwhile, I could run out of hard drive space in the next few days. I'm having problems with Manx Aztec C V5.05, which keeps generating error messages that it either can't find the input file, multiple input files have been specified, or it can't open stdio.h or stdarg.h. I've managed to turn one C source code file into an executable program, but I'm not sure how I did it. All the include files locations have been specified in the script the installer generated itself, called aztec.sh . Lattice C comes as 6 ADF images, but Manx Aztec C is only 4. Do I actually need to install all the 6 ADF images onto my hard drive?

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?

[AmigaBruno]

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!!  

I'd already given up all hope of getting an IDE adaptor before I bought this. I'm afraid I don't know what ROM version is in this device. How can I find out?

Unfortunately, earlier today I had one failed boot from this drive when a requester popped up with the message "Not a DOS disk in drive dh0:", but it's only happened once so far. I've also checked my installation disk, but it appears on the Workbench as NDOS and won't boot up either.

I think the Amiga can be an expensive hobby, but it doesn't have to be. There's also the free bonanza of previously very expensive software, as well as lots of books and magazines converted into PDF files. This has saved me over £2,000 since I bought my Amiga A500 Plus just before Christmas last year!

BTW, I'm still waiting for a reply to my personal message to you. The message included some details about home brewing. This is Amiga related, because it improves the results you get while doing artwork, and I started doing home brewing when I had my original Amiga A500. You live about halfway between two suppliers of home brewing kits. One is in London.

[AmigaBruno]

Disaster! Only about 5 days after receiving this hard drive unit, it has now become unbootable! :cry:

I must have tried over 10 times just now to boot from it, after downloading a copy of SAS C, then transferring it to Amiga floppy disk. I was looking forward to installing it, then finding out if this would find the files it needs and actually work, when I realised that my hard drive was taking longer than usual to boot up. The power light and the hard drive access lights still come on and the extra RAM is still there, but eventually the Amiga displays the insert floppy disk boot screen. :furious:

Using X-Copy I've found that there are only a few sectors on the GVP installation floppy which aren't corrupt, so the disk can't be salvaged. I'll have a look round for some GVP software which may fix it. At the moment, drive dh0: doesn't register as being there at all!



I'll contact the seller on eBay to tell him that the drive has failed after only 5 days of normal use and I want him to do something about it.

[AmigaBruno]

Don't panic: The Install floppy is available here: http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/impact500mk2#s_impact500mk2
It's in DMS (Diskmasher) compression format. And it will fit on a 720k IBM format disk.

Cant really blame a 20yo hard drive for packing it in if that's what happened and its not the unit.. I've got a few spares here and I'd happily send them to you if you paid postage.  But I'm guessing you're not in Australia.

There's a couple of problems with this. I've never used DMS format so far and do I have to copy it onto a 720K IBM format disk? I could use CrossDOS, which I've downloaded.

Of course, I can blame a 20yo hard drive for packing it in after 5 days, because I bought this item as used from eBay, meaning it should work for the time being, not fail after 5 days! I'm not sure what the time limit is, though.

I really want to salvage all the software and data on this hard drive if possible. I suppose all the software which was already installed is available online if I know where to look. It included some software supplied free with the Amiga by Escom/Amiga Technologies, including Wordworth, Digita Organiser, Turbocalc (with tutorials), a database program, Personal Paint, Monkey Island 2, and several smaller games probably written in AMOS, because AMOS system files such as RAMOS were included. The main data I've generated is a DPaint III graphic of a superhero type character which took several hours to draw, so I don't want to lose that.

I'm in London, UK.  Your "few spares" offer sounds interesting, although you don't give any details. I've been having problems finding a compatible hard drive which I can afford. It took 12 days for a package to arrive here from Alaska, so I suppose a package from Australia would take longer.  Please give me a description of what you're offering and tell me how much the postage would be.

Thanks for all your help.

[AmigaBruno]

I've told the eBay seller that this drive has failed after only 5 days. His reply is that he can't give any warranty on these old drives, but he's offered a replacement hard drive so long as I pay the postage. Unfortunately, I still don't know if I can salvage the software and my DPaint graphic from the failed drive.

Meanwhile, I'm watching a SCSI drive on eBay which is 3.5 inch, 50 pin, and measured in Mb, not Gb. This is for a reasonable price and more than one is available. I'm fairly sure this is compatible, although I'm not sure if the height will allow it to fit into the GVP unit. Does anyone know what height would be too high? I don't want to post a link to the listing on here in case that causes these drives to sell out without me buying one.

[AmigaBruno]

If the seller has a SCSI 50 pin replacement drive I'd take him up on it. Sounds like he's a reasonable chap/gal.  No need to get into the rulings of what "used" means on ebay as its pretty cut and dry. Warrantee is a different thing.
I'd be verifying that the problem is with the drive though(If you aren't absolutely sure). Checking and re-seating the connections on the drive and the mainboard. (If you're ofay with that sort of thing), especially if you have stuff on it that you want off.
As to the IBM floppy transfer.  Yes using cross dos or WB 2.1 or above (MD) will do it for you. With a single floppy it's going to be a challenge but not insurmountable. And there is lots of doco on the web and here on how to set up a cut down WB floppy and do the floppy shuffle.  It used to be the only way in the late 80s. (This all assumes your floppy drive is good) And you have a good understanding of the Amiga and WB.
As to the hard disks I have I can't remember all of them. I have a 1.2GB Quantum FB, I know that, and one around 130MB and one around 50-80. I'd have to go out to the garage and pull down the containers and go through them. Postage to the UK is going to take around 12 days and I guess around $50 (30 pound uk) but you can check that online if your inclined to go ahead.
Yes the drive needs to be the standard 1 inch height.  If you get the older double height it 'aint gonna fit.

Let me know if your interested. But I'd take the seller up on his offer once I'd verified the actual drive was faulty and not the unit.

The seller hasn't said that it's a 50 pin SCSI drive, just that it's come out of an A1200, so I've asked him to confirm that it's a 50 pin SCSI not an IDE, or how I can use it with this unit. I'm worried in case this unit is requires a half height drive, but I get a full height or "1H" drive from somewhere. I have no actual measurements of what is meant by these terms. He seems to be an Amiga expert, so I assume there's an answer that will tell me how I can use it. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about electronics to verify that the problem is with the hard drive, not the rest of the unit. I recently bought an electronic projects kit and have been testing resistor values to build my first circuit. I suppose this means I could open up the GVP unit and check all the resistors to see if one has blown out. I don't think I know enough to check any other components, though.

I've been transferring ADF images onto Amiga floppies in df0: , so I can't help wondering why I should transfer anything onto an IMB/MS-DOS format 720K floppy disk. I think a better idea would be to convert the GVP installer software to ADF then transfer it to df0: . Is there a reason why I shouldn't? I hope I can then do something like an AmigaDOS install dh0: and see if that gets it up and running again.

Please check what spare hard drives you've got. So far, I haven't got a price for postage from the seller for a replacement hard drive. I have got a very reasonable price for a 50 pin SCSI hard drive, with a larger capacity than 42Mb, though. I hope that after receiving your information, as well as the seller's information and P&P, then I can make a decision about the best course of action in the next 1-2 days.

[AmigaBruno]

Okay I had a look out back and I'm right out of parrots......  I got a slug!
Sorry just went all Monty Python there for a sec.

Seriously, I've got a 50MB, 105MB and 240Mb all Quantum Prodrive LPS. (made in Japan) These each weigh 450g.
I've also got a 1.1GB Quantum DSP3107L which is Malaysian made but it's 500g so the postage will be more.

The 2 Quantum Fireball 2.1GB units I' rather keep for myself.
 
So if your willing to pay the postage from Oz, around $25 (16GBP) with tracking and postpack. I'll bubble wrap your choice and send it to you.  They all have 2.1 OS on them. I'm guessing your A500+ is std 2.1 ROM ?
I tested each drive on my A500/A590 for a little while and they work fine(apart from the standard SCSI HD whine. Arrh Compact Flash cards, so nice and quiet).
As with all old HDs all it takes is one drop and "crunch" paper weight.  But the Quantums do head park and seem to be very resilient. IMO.  No guarantees..

Anyway, let me know if you want me to send one over the water.

Cheers

Thanks for all this information!  I know from recent investigations that although Amiga A1200s have internal IDE interfaces, they're sometimes fitted with adaptors to take SCSI drives.  I wanted to send you a PM to ask you if a certain SCSI hard drive was compatible, but it seems I can't PM you through this site, only through messagers I don't use, or at least using another identity. This drive seems such a bargain they may sell out if I post the link on here. Out of your offered drives, the Quantum  240Mb sounds best. A$25/|£16 is fine. The only problem is waiting 12 days or longer for it to arrive. My ROM is Kickstart 37.175 , the standard for the A500 Plus. The eBay seller has an eBay shop, has made loads of sales and I've bought from him before, so I know he's OK and an Amiga expert.  I may buy the bargain SCSI drive, then the 240Mb one from you later. I'll wait and see what the eBay seller tells me about what drives he has available.

[AmigaBruno]

If I could offer any help or perhaps an alternative I would recommend the following -

4.3GB Fujistu SCA80 £9.99 inc delivery (eBay.co.uk BIN)


and this adaptor

50 /68 / 80 SCA SCSI adaptor £2.69 including postage (eBay.co.uk BIN)


This combination works for me on my GVP HC8 and HD500 setups.  It also works on my GVP Combi 040 and A590.

Limitations

I have done a lot of setups using the GVP based devices and I have noted some limitations - as to why they are they I am unsure.

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)

I have found that should I have say a partition setup outside a 3.67GB area it is not mounted and unusable. If I have a partition that spans past this 3.67GB barrier most of the time its not mounted (and unusable) but on the very odd occasion that it is all writing to that partition is corrupted.

I have tested this under FFS / SFS and NSD - (have not tested this with PFS3)

On my A590 however (using SFS / NSD and Version 7 ROM a full 8.1GB HDD works flawlessly)

If you are ever to buy a SCS HDD, remember to ensure that it is LVD and or SE - do not buy HVD based SCSI drive as this simply will not work for you.

OK, thanks. This drive seems to be the largest size allowed with the Amiga, or perhaps it needs to be formatted as two partitions of 2Gb each. My Kickstart ROM is 37.175 or 2.0 , so I can't run Workbench 3.X at the moment. Unfortunately, I don't know anything about or may never even have heard of SFS or NSD. I suppose they're systems for more advanced Amigas than I'm used to. I'm afraid I have no real idea what you're talking about in the third paragraph under the heading "Limitations" which starts "I have found that...", but it sounds like some kind of error caused by having a drive which is larger than the designers of the A500 and A500 Plus imagined ever being used with those computers.

I've copied and run the GVP installer software, which only mentions AmigaDOS and FFS formats. More details of what I discovered with this software in a separate post. I've also unscrewed and looked at the whole unit, but not tested it with a multimeter yet.

The bargain SCSI 50 pin hard drives I found are still available on eBay. There are still 10 units available, meaning no more have been sold so I've decided to post the link on here so that people can tell me whether or not these are compatible with my GVP SCSI unit. They're 80Mb, so the designers of this hardware should have imagined that people may upgrade to that capacity so I doubt it would cause problems by being too big. I'll be watching this and will buy one if they're about to sell out. I hope that someone tells me whether or not they're compatible before then. I was trying to work out if they're too high to fit in the GVP case.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/170986450162?ssPageName=STRK:MESINDXX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1436.l2649

Unfortunately, I don't know about the different types of hard drives mentioned in your final paragraph.

[AmigaBruno]

I've downloaded a copy of the GVP installation software, converted it from DMS to ADF format, then copied it across to my Amiga onto a floppy disk in df0: . I took some notes, but not all that detailed. Here are the results.

Throughout all my attempts to use GVP Fastprep and GVP Expertprep, I found that my GVP unit and/or hard drive was listed as SCSI device 6 and a Quantum hard drive of 0Mb capacity. AmigaDOS and Workbench fail to recognise that there is any device dh0: .

I thought I may have lost all the data on my hard drive, and it was totally corrupted, so the only way to use it again was to format it. Most of, or nearly all of the options are ghosted.

The error messages I've had include the following.

This setup is illegal. All partitions must have at least one cylinder! Try again.

Mounting volume DH0:
Formatting volume DH0:

An error occured during AmigaDOS format. AmigaDOS format failed!

I thought I'd made some more notes, but I haven't. I'll go through this procedure again soon, but just from memory, here's what else happened.

I think the Fastprep and/or Expertprep software detected a ROM and which version the ROM was.

There's another program, which I think is called GVPScsiCtrl, which I ran from the Shell. The options include -m to mount a device and -r to rescan for devices not detected at startup. When I typed -r the hard drive read light came on, but nothing else happened.

That's all I can tell you at the moment. I'll run this software again in the next couple of hours and take some more detailed notes. It seems that a component in the GVP unit may have failed, which somehow allows the hard drive read light to come on, but prevents the drive from being read. All I can do is check the resistors. I know someone who can repair electronic devices, including laptops and notebooks and is a member of a group which gives free advice and free repairs. Another member of the group is an Amiga enthusiast who owns three A1200s. He recently visited me with someone else to help me get my flat reorganised and tidied up. I pointed out the Amiga, which had floppy disks covering up the name Amiga and asked if he knew the name of it, which he did. In that case, perhaps he can help repair the GVP unit.  I'll let you know.

[AmigaBruno]

@AmigaBruno

Hello there, my apologies for perhaps confusing you with detail, I will try and clear this up for you.  but first if I may, I would not recommend those 80MB SCSI HDD's at that price - it is also touch and go if it fitted within the GVP HD8+ casing.  To be sincerely honest, I would sooner send you a prepared one for postage cost before I let you suffer those prices.

I should also mention that POWER is very important here, the original GVP A500HD8+ provides 4amps on the +5 rail buy ONLY 0.5amps on the +12v rail.  if you try to run a HDD that requires more +12 volt power (like newer SCSI drives) you will destroy the PSU.

Please check your GVP Power Supply, if you are unsure - just take a picture and post it here I am sure either I or a fellow member can help.

_____________________


Now, In ALL my experiments the GVP controller (without GURU-ROM) appears limited to only being able to access 3.67GB of data storage.  It can see larger drives and with HDToolsBox you can even create partitions - however any partition that is outside the first 3.67GB does not mount, nor does any partition that spans past this amount.

I.e. Partition HD3: size of [ 1.1GB ] starting at 3GB to 4.1GB spans past this 3.67GB clipping area.  I am unsure why, I have been informed that this should not be, however I have tried many disks and many GVP controllers and the above holds true for the following -

Geforce - 040 / Combi 040
Impact A2000 HC
Impact A2000 HC Series II
Impact A2000 HC+8 Series II
Impact A500 HD8+ Series II

I have tried the above on various A2000 / A4000 motherboards as well as an A3000 motherboard.

Now, this isn't a problem, after all one could have a couple of disks and that should easily be most Amiga software published - most certainly all of the best software.

That aside, its very easy to set up a large hard disk to only use the first 3.67GB of space.  I would be more than happy to help you - it maybe daunting at first - but once you get the hang of it - it truly is easy.

_____________________


Now, FFS or Fast File System (available with KS2.x) can partition up to 4GB of data in one fat chunk however with the GVP controller this can cause problems, so I would suggest perhaps two or three partitions something like

DH0: 512MB (System) - Workbench Install
DH1: 2.1GB (Games)
DH2: 1GB (Work)

This will certainly give you a great start to getting the most from your A500.  I purchased a couple of PC SCSI cards so I could prepare HardDisks on my PC under WinUAE - its much MUCH quicker - if you would like I can help you with your hard-disk.

_____________________


Now a little more information that I think will help you.

SFS - Smart File System
This allows for VERY large partition, 128GB I believe, it also requires a minimum 020 processor - however CPU aside it is 20% faster access than FFS.

PFS3 - Professional File System 3
Now open source (for the most part) PFS3 supports larger Hard Disks as well as large Partition sizes (about 100GB) - it also has optimizations for stock 68000 CPU's all the way up to 040 and 060 processors.  Like SFS, PFS3 also provides a speed boost in both accessing the device and transferring data.  However this increase is down to the controller, the device and the CPU of the host system.

NSD - New Style Device
This is an older method now - however a lot of devices support this interface (some by a little hacking) to allow direct commands to the device.  this allows for larger disk sizes to be supported.


There, I hope that helps, if there is anything thats too complicated or you would like more detail on, please just ask =)

I think that what's good about the 80Mb SCSI hard drive I posted the link to is that it's old, but unused, the price  is only £15, and postage is free. This is compared to other hard drives costing more, with a classic Mac OS installed, and where the postage is about as much, or even more than the hard drive itself. If you search for "SCSI hard drive 50 pin Mb", then you'll see what I mean. Thanks for your offer of a prepared hard drive for postage only. How much?

My GVP power supply details as printed on the sticky label are as follows.

DVE switching power supply
Model No. DSA1502
Input 100-250V
47-63Hz 0.32A
Output +5V 2A
+12V 0.5A

I hope this tells you something.