Stopwatch cursor issue in Workbench

[JimJagger]

Hello,

I'm new to the forums but I'm a very old friend of the Amiga.  I recently broke my A1200 out from the loft and set it up to show my kids.  The core machine is working fine but I'm struggling to utilise my old hard drive.

I've managed to get it to boot into Workbench but the cursor is stuck on the stopwatch, making it impossible to click on anything.  It must have been 25 years since I had this running so I can't recall much about why this might be happening.  Can anyone offer any tips?  The core machine appears to boot up fine via the floppy drive.

https://ibb.co/z2nVCGx

It's worth noting that I get the same issue when I tried this with an old Amiga 600 too.

My ultimate goal is to extract old DPaint artwork from the hard drive and transfer it to a PC.  That will likely be my next task once I've cracked this.

Thanking you all in advance.

Cheers,
Jim

[JimJagger]

Thank you for your reply. 

I waited about 5 minute initially but I've just booted it back up and will leave it a little longer, just in case.  It's quite likely that the 17 year old version of me would have put an enormous image on my desktop.

I minimised the window but couldn't see anything else behind.

[JimJagger]

Thanks again.  I'll try leaving it on for a good while, just in case it is doing something in the background.  I was a little nervous of doing this initially as the machine is so old.  I don't suppose there is much else I can do.  I was hoping I might have forgotten something obvious but I guess not.

I'm sorry I can't offer more information.  I appreciate you trying to help though.

[JimJagger]

That's amazing info.  Thanks for your help - especially the idea of booting from the Workbench floppy.  I need to get back in the loft to dig out the rest of the disks but I'll let you know how I get on.

With regards to additional hardware, I used to have a couple of chained disk drives that aren't yet hooked up.  I can certainly dust those off and hook them up if you think they'll help.  There's certainly no harm in trying.

I'm afraid I'm a bit out of my depth when it comes to Shell (certainly was at the time).  I'll gladly brush up and investigate though.  I was probably about 17 the last time I used the machine so I can't imagine I would have done anything too complex with my set up.  It's quite possible that I poked around where I shouldn't have done though!

[JimJagger]

Thanks for everyone's help so far.  I finally managed to get back in the loft and dig out an old Workbench floppy.  Unfortunately the WB3 disk didn't work but I managed to find a WB2 one that did and I was able to boot into Workbench without locking up.  however, as soon as I tried to browse the contents of my hard drive, the stopwatch reappeared and was stuck busy again - it did show more contents than booting directly from the HD though.

Would this suggest that my hard drive is busted? Are there any tools or applications within WB that I can use to examine the drive or try to repair it? My Shell knowledge is very limited but I tried poking around with a few commands. Given that DF0: displayed the contents of my floppy drive, I tried to access CC0: but it kept returning the contents of my floppy drive.  Is that normal, or does that suggest more issues with the HD?

Typing 'Info:' into shell shows a CC0: of 29k, 0 errs and a status of read/write.  I'm pretty sure this drive was about 300MB

Despite my delayed response, I really appreciate the help you have provided so far - it's just hard to set aside time for personal projects with the kids off school!

Thanks,
Jim

[JimJagger]

Thanks for the feedback.  Yes, sorry if that wasn't clear about the harddrive.  It plugs into the side slot and has the power adapter from the floppy drive socket into the drive itself.  I'm pretty sure that part is set up correctly.  Does that mean the drive would be DF1?  I'm guessing so.  That would make sense.

I have some old DPaint artwork on the drive that I was hoping to view and ultimately transfer to a PC.  I don't need the harddrive for the Amiga itself - other than to reminisce and noodle about with.

I'm sure there have been plenty of posts of people trying to convert/transfer files so I'll have search of this site to find the best method for me.

Thanks again,
Jim

[JimJagger]

Thank you.  Unfortunately I feel I'm a little out of my depth here.

I might experiment with Amiga Explorer to explore data on floppy disks that I can copy across - https://www.amigaforever.com/ae/

[JimJagger]

Thank you for your response, and apologies for taking so long to respond.  I've been dabbling on & off with the file transfer (once I acquired the cables).

I tried leaving the hard drive on for about 48 hours in total - but no luck I'm afraid.  I believe the drive was store on end (with the connection pointing upwards).  I'm still too afraid to give it a tap but I may resort to that next.  (I love the sound of the drive in your videos from the blog - the slow whir and gentle grinding brings back so many memories.)

I'll keep pottering around with the drive but I've also started hunting for local (or not so local) Amiga groups that I can attend.  I'm based in Edinburgh but have found one in Lincoln (where my mother lives).  Once lockdown eases I'll aim to take my gear down there and see what we can do.

Yes, your drive is almost identical to mine.  I have the same connector at the back and it plugs into the PCMCIA slot.

Thanks again!
Jim