A4000T booting

[reidster]

I recently pulled an A4000T off of the shelf to find that my meagre amount of Amiga knowledge cannot get it to start up.  I was told by others that had witnessed its operation that it had been working fine when it was replaced with a Videonics board.  I connect the keyboard, mouse, power, and a monitor (I tried one connected through the DB-9 RGB connector, as well as one through the DIN RGB connector)  Neither monitor displayed anything more than a flicker.  The riser with the video output port on it is properly grounded.  The hard drive graces me with a suspicious seeking sound after the system has had power for a few seconds.  After several minutes, still nothing is displayed.  Is this consistent with a failing hard drive?  If the hard drive is indeed the cause, what disks will I need to revive this beast with another SCSI drive?

Reid

[reidster]

I tried holding down both mouse buttons, that only seems to make the hard drive seek longer.  Not even a flash appears on any of the three monitors I've tried (1084S, 2002, and an unidentifiable one with a DIN port)  removing the video hardware and SCSI hardware doesn't help.  Right now there's a Video Toaster 4000 and two Kitchen Syncs in it, as well as a fourth card with SIMMs on it.  I've removed the video hardware, the SCSI hardware, and everything at once.  The hard drive definitely sounds like it's dying.  If I can get my hands on another SCSI drive to install, what will I need to do to get Amiga OS running?  A boot disk?

[reidster]

if composite output being through that DB-23 to composite adapter that I don't have, no I haven't tried it.  If you mean through the outputs on the Kitchen Sync breakout boxes and the Video Toaster, they don't give me any signal.  The Kitchen Syncs have external controls whose LCDs light up and display copyright information.

Initially I suspected that the CPU card might be loose.  I'm still not certain, but the lighting up of the hard drive and the constant seeking sounds, as well as the floppy drive lighting up seem to indicate some life.  What are the other possible causes of this problem?  A dead lithium battery?

[reidster]

The power led does go dim momentarily after power on.  Regardless of what I've removed, the floppy drive light comes on and it clicks.

[reidster]

seems like I'm in a fix...  I have one Video Toaster 4000 disk, and the Video Toaster 4000 Toolkit.  Everything else has apparently been lost or discarded.  I plan on bringing the whole works home on Monday so I can actually get somewhere with it.

[reidster]

The DB-9 connector I speak of is the RGB connector on the back of the monitor.  I am using the DB-23 connector on the A/V riser.  I have already tried reseating it.  The two video cables I have available are the DB-23 to DB-9 cable and a DB-23 to DIN cable.  Two of the Commodore monitors I have have  DB-9 RGB connectors, the other has a DIN RGB connector.

[reidster]

ok, I've tried the "barebones" setup as described.  nothing new.  with the hard drive disconnected, the clicking continues indefinitely.  Inserting a floppy causes the light to come on momentarily, then the computer just sits there.  

With the room finally quiet, I discovered that the hard disk seeking continues for about 20 seconds, stops, hard disk light goes out.  Inserting a floppy at this point does nothing.

I found a bunch of disks today, nothing useful I'm afraid.  I have a driver disk for the DKB 3128 ram board and 46 Video Toaster 4000 disks.

cable wise, I have a DB-23 to DB-9, a DB-23 to round 6 pin connector.  I do not have any sort of composite or RF adapter.  I've tried 4 Commodore monitors now.