Amiga 600 problems

[Ren]

A few weeks ago I got an Amiga 600 on eBay. It came with Seagate 9051A 40 mb HD (which BTW, was just sitting inside on a piece of paper, no cradle).

The kickstart version is 2.05 (37.300). Anyway, I tried booting it with a few disks (which work ok on another Amiga) but no go. After the disk is put in, the screen goes purple for a few seconds and then the insert disk animation appears again.

I tried the HD in a PC running winUAE (configured with the same version of kickstart ROM) and it booted ok. However, when I put it back in the A600, not only it doesn't want to boot but it does not come up in the Boot Menu (only get DF0 & CC0, even if I do plug in an external floppy).

I can hear the drive spin in the A600 but unfortunately I can't see what its doing since the wires for the keyboard LEDs are broken off.

Obviously there is an issue with the DF0 (will try cleaning it, if that doesn't work I'll replace it) but could there be anything else wrong with the A600?

I was thinking maybe its not possible to boot off the HD on with 37.300 roms, but it did work on the emulator and also this page mentions that its possible ( http://www.gregdonner.org/workbench/wb_205.html ).

Any suggestions please? I'm thinking of trying the external floppy inside A600 and see if that works.

[Ren]

The hard drive is definitely ok since it was working when I hooked it up to PC (abeit with an 3.5<=>2.5 adaptor and different cable).

Actually it is very likely that the cable could be damaged. As as mentioned before, the HD was inside the A600 with being attached to the cradle (because there wasn't any!) and the machine wasn't well packed (just single layer of bubble wrap inside a big box so it was free to move around). In fact when I got it, the keyboard pop off the case, but I was able to snap it back in.

Anyway, thanks for your suggestion and I'll check the cabling.

[Ren]

Ok, I tried a different IDE cable (from anotehr Amiga, which I know works) but no go. Then, I've replaced the floppy drive and the little A600 did boot up ok.

And out of about 30 attempts I did manage to boot off the HD just once (usually it doesn't even come up in the Boot Menu). I did notice that the HD sounds like its initilising (you can hear the heads move) for a second or two after the Insert Disk screen appears.

I do remember reading somewhere that some earlier version of Kickstart had problem with booting off the HD since the OS delay for IDE drive was too short (which was latter fixed in following versions). Is this true? And if so, would that be the case here?

[Ren]

I suggest looking for another 2.5" hard drive, and while you're at it, get an A500/A600/A2000 3.1 rom too, and if you have the $$$, a high density floppy drive as a replacement for the faulty one would be nice too, but it's up to you. ;-)

I had a look on eBay Australia and found someone selling PCMCIA HDs. Would they work with the A600? It would save me the trouble of finding/making the cradle for internal drive.

Replacement floppy is a definite (found a place in Oz which has new A600s for $A35 which is very reasonable) but I don't think I'd get 3.1 Roms considering the prices of them I've seen. If anything I'd rather get them for the A1200 (its got 3.0).

When you say HD floppy do you mean a PC drive or a special Amiga drive?

[Ren]

that_punk_guy wrote:

Ren wrote:
I do remember reading somewhere that some earlier version of Kickstart had problem with booting off the HD since the OS delay for IDE drive was too short (which was latter fixed in following versions). Is this true? And if so, would that be the case here?

This happens when the HD hasn't spun up to operating speed fast enough to be recognised before the OS tries to boot. If this is the problem, you should be able to boot if you warm-reset the Amiga (Ctrl + Left-Amiga + Right-Amiga at the same time) a few seconds after you switch on the power. If that doesn't help, then something else is causing your problems.

Actually I tried that but it didn't help. Each time I did that I could hear the HD reinitilise. Anyway, I will wait until I get a new floppy for the A600 before I do anything with the HD.

[Ren]

Where in OZ? Got a web address? Thanks.

http://anythingamiga.com/catalog/index.php

It be under Classic Amiga/New Hardware.

They also have 2nd external drives.

[Ren]

RedWarrior wrote:
Hey Ren- I feel your pain, I just went through a similar ordeal with my A600... (find my post, might be helpful)

But after much stuffing around it turned out to be as simple as a jumper on the back of the HDD!

If it works on your PC under WinUAE... make sure u put your jumpers back before u put it back in the 600!

No doubt you've had a hundred other suggestions, hope this one helps.

Ahh, I would have never thought of that. Thank you very much for that, I'll give it a go.

Except that the HD in the A600 never had any jumpers on it, but I should have a few laying around.