GVP Harddrive for A500 problemS!!!!

[MickTheLip]

Got a A500 with GVP drive off EBay.Did not work in any shape or form!Looked inside drive completely disconnected from cable and power supply plug was disconnected.Also the switch from games to HDD had a cable loose.Fan also was disconnected.Reconnected everything but fan didn't work untill I reversed polarity!! HDD spins up now but the LED remains dead.Does the HDD light only come on when connected to the A500 or is it broken?If so where could I get it repaired? Any Idea of cost or should I just try and get my money back?

[MickTheLip]

Yes it's the series 2.It came with its own power supply.Yes its got ram onboard not sure how much but there are four modules in situ.Have a feeling its 2megs total.When I put a voltage meter across the switch between games and HDD bootup there is no voltage registering there is this right and even when the switch is set to HDD bootup. The HDD light does not come on at all.Does the HDD have to be plugged into the A500 for it to light up

[MickTheLip]

The HDD spins up as soon as the power is switched on.It continues to spin when the switch is set to games switch or autoboot but there is never a HDD activity light showing.When I try the GVP install disk it cannot find the drive.Is the probability then that the HDDis broken or what?? If I replace the drive I presume I'm limited to 4GIG?

[MickTheLip]

Thanks for your input Tenacious. My problem is that after running the GVP installer I'mpresented with a Workbench screen which shows the HDD as 3 partitions and the GVP install disc Icon DH0:NDOS,DH1:EBSO as near as I can depict it as and DH2:EoSO as near as I can translate.Clicking on GVP Install does nothing.I find by ejecting the GVP disc and reinserting it the disc then opens.The disc drawer opened shows 14 Icons including a Trashcan.So a detailed step by step insruction guide of how to format the partitions and how to install a Workbench onto one of the partitions would be really helpfull and much apreciated.

[MickTheLip]

I've managed to format the partitions.I renamed them as they were but really wierd font.Memory appears to be 4mb so there's a bit of a bonus. The drive is OK by the looks of it but the Install disk or floppy drive is a bit odd.To open a drawer on the install disc I have to eject the disc after clicking the icon I want.Reinserting the disc the Icon is then opened.What I need to do is to find out how to setup the HDD partitions eg.My choice of size and then how to install Workbench.As it's an A500 with 1/2meg upgrade I presume I'll have to install 1.3 Workbench on this machine.If so how do I do that?Is it normal for the fan and drive to be that noisy? OK managed to load Fast Prep.It tells me I've got a Quantum HDD of a gigantic 49mb!It also shows the 3 partitions of 19mb,15mb and 15mb.Definitely looking to get something bigger but in the meantime I can practice with this one.So how do I change the partitions and install Workbench from here on in?If I boot up from the HDD I now get an Amiga DOS release 1.3 window.So It's time for next step in the learning curve!!!

[MickTheLip]

Been playing around with the GVP install software and have found out how to change the partition sizes and how many partitions I would like.Basically now all I need to know is how to install Workbench and any other programes I want onto the HDD I would like to know as well if I'd be better off installing the HDD on my A500+?

[MickTheLip]

The installer disc seems to be running Workbench version 34.20 Kickstart version is 34.5 The A500 has 1.3 Roms I think.I thought the 500+ has 1mb of chip ram A500 has 512K chip ram.When you say copy contents of Workbench from the floppy do you mean drag and drop everything across?When you asked if there is a timeout? I had something like that happening the other day.I have also noticed it has got a lot slower when accessing this site,frustratingly slow at times even using broadband!!!!

[MickTheLip]

I'll have to dig out my Workbench disks to see what I've got!!! The A500 did not come with any Workbench disks at all!!!Infact I'm surprised the GVP install disc actually works the way it was sent to me!The HDD boots to a doss window release 1.3 at the moment with what looks like CLI.So I presume that I could use the Copy you refer to from there Just what would I need to type in to Copy the disks to the HDD?

[MickTheLip]

After typing in what you said I keep get the following.
Can't open DF0:to for input - Erroe code 205