**Need Setup HELP** with Classic Amiga 2000 HARD DISK (Bridgeboard)

[darkage]

Im pretty sure the marketing spill for the ISA XT CF card you got, mentions that it can co-exist with MFM/RLL controller cards.    It has a large selection of different addresses for this purpose.

Edit - Ive still have a full height 5.25" MFM drive in my parents garage.   Sounds like a jet taking off.   THink it has a bad sector towards the end of the drive, since on my a500 it would corrupt at the exact same % full.

[darkage]

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[darkage]

(Spinrite has gone windows,many gens ago,  and no longer has any old legacy DOS stuff,  I'd even pay for a DOS version if it saved me time doing manually)
.

I think I have v5.0 of spinrite and its on a boot USB.   The frontend loader runs in windows where you can prepare boot media, but it boots with a dos replacement.  maybe pc dos. or something.  

Im not sure if MFM drives are supported anymore.  

Best to direct message author on twitter - https://twitter.com/sggrc
He still runs his weekly podcast - Security Now.    
He's pretty old school so you may be able to offer pointers for PC side of things.

Spinrite isnt like a tradiational data recovery tool, its more of a brute force rewrite/correction tool.   If you have bitrot, spinrite will rewrite the data so its has a stronger magnetic signature on the disk.   it might be able to fix obvious partition table issues perhaps.    If there is mechnical issues, then spinrite could make issues worse.

Gotek is a exact floppy emulator can write back to the disk just like a normal floppy, do surface scans,  run copying tools  yeah XCopy!!!

[darkage]

I actually am thinking of a plan B.  Since the Gotek is virtual writeable floppy, I could just image blank Floppies into the Gotek (Correct?).

Create blank .ADF within Winuae and then transfer over to USB if you need a blank virtual disk to copy stuff too or use  disk copying software with.

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=62232

Yes the STM microcontroller onboard the Gotek is reflashed to handle Amiga format disks.     Its actually really simple to reflash, just needs a TTL to USB convertor.  I did mine took 10mins to do, using the website you listed.

You could buy one off aliexpress.com very cheap if you need a unmoddified one for your PC.  They are $18.50 USD

[darkage]

286 bridgeboard here if you need to upgrade

http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?89538-Amiga-Parts-amp-Pieces-for-sale

[darkage]

BTW. I took your advice and contacted Spinrite Sales email.  They replied that they handed over my email to Support.

The GRC sales email is monitored by Steves assistant.   Normally get faster replies if DM (direct message) via Twitter.   see how you go.   He still have a old school NNTP server which you can access.  Some people still monitor it.

[darkage]

What do you have hooked up to the lo-tech card ?

If its hdd, please note -

Hard Disk Device is Not Detected

Only hard disks supporting ATA-2 command set can be used.

https://www.lo-tech.co.uk/wiki/Lo-tech_ISA_CompactFlash_Adapter_FAQ

Older IDE hard drives have more chance of working then later model IDEs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_ATA#EIDE_and_ATA-2

If not already I would test with a CF card attached.


It might be more productive if you can provide less posts that are rich in straight to the point information.   I find it hard to follow this mega thread with what you have done and not, etc.   You could probably create a book from the thread

Also I would make an account at the following forum, http://www.vcfed.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?3-Technical-Support

they might be able to help with PC/XT side of things ?

[darkage]

I couldn't resist ....( if any of you don't like this bad attempt at humor, just PM me, the image can be removed)

Wasting time waiting and flipping floppies.  4 or 5 more to go.

haha should really create an ebook and sell on Amazon  

lots of forgotten knowledge there.  

only 4 / 5 floppies, ha I use to go to a monthly computer meet, with my a500 and I would always have 100 to 200 blank floppies on hand.   would normally be 7pm until 1am at the meet.   didnt have a 2nd floppy drive, so lots of disk swapping.    

those were the days.

[darkage]

BTW.   I wrote many posts ago, that I read that a Low Level Format would only refresh the tracks on the disk and not wipe out the contents.
 NOT TRUE AT ALL (at least for the WD BIOS LL Formatter).  
I just checked the Drive after the LL Format, and even the Amiga Paritition which I didn't FORMAT Logically, is nothing but "00 00 00 00 00 00 00"
So NOT DOING that LL-Format go me my school paper back.

I've must of missed that post.   Low Level format zeros the drive AND changes its geometry to what is specified which is normally the factory default settings.    Regular format just zeros the drive.

[darkage]

FYI - You can get ready made coin battery replacements with ready pcb.  Using a tiny breadboard I would consider a temporarily install.

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1093

[darkage]

[ KICKSTART 1.2 ROM Installed ]

One neat hack, is that you can use a 1MB Eprom and burn 3 Kick start images to a single chip,  and install a 3 way switch or jumper to select between the starting addresses for each kickstart.  

http://bax.comlab.uni-rostock.de/en/hardware/amiga500/kickstart-eprom/

Ive tried it with my programmer and it works fine.  (:

[darkage]

FYI - Someone is building & selling your XT CF ISA card on another Amiga forum.  Probably a good place to ask questions about it if you need to in the future.

http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?81846-Fully-assembled-XT-IDE-CF-adapter!-Taking-orders!

[darkage]

Wasnt Kickstart 2.04 the highest available at the time for a A2000 back in the day ?

[darkage]

think your missing some machines from your picture..

just need a a500, a600, a1000, a1200, a3000, a4000  

[darkage]

You said your A2000 is equipped with 68030 and Kickstart 3.1.

Try if Bridgeboard hangs up at loading PC MBR when running on 68030.

Looking at the first page of this thread, sysinfo says 68k and picture inside case I dont see a accelerator..    OP was talking not too long ago about the topic of accelerators but I dont think he has one..  just a standard 68k.

[darkage]

Darkage,

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