SO MANY problems for a poor newbie!

[cgutjahr]

watcher wrote:

The floppy drive is incompatable,

That's not correct. With the correct driver (which is part of the OS), the floppy can read and write PC-formatted DD disks. This will be your chance to move stuff from/to the PC until you get net access working.

I also have a 2.5" hard drive but i dont have the Workbench HD disk to get it working

Ouch. Do you have *no* Workbench disks at all, or is just the "install" disk missing?

If you have *some* Workbench disks, it is very easy to install the OS manually (we can tell you how to do this). What you need is the bootable disk just labeled "Workbench" and a tool called "HDToolBox" (can't remember on what disk this one resides).

If you don't have any (Workbench-/OS-) disks, you'll have to find somebody willing to send them to you. Without them, you're stuck.

Also when i opened up the A1200 there's no where to put the HD! there's a space and 4 holes but they wont hold the drive! Am i missing some kind of mounting bracket?

Yes. The mounting bracket is no real problem though, just wrap a lot of paper around the disk and tape it tightly to the motherboard, this should do the trick for now - welcome to the world of Amiga style upgrades The bigger problem might be the cable, I don't know if this is a standard cable or a custom job.

Call any dealer and ask for the cable, otherwise call your preferred Amiga dealer and ask for a "HD upgrade set" for your A1200.

[cgutjahr]

watcher wrote:

The WB disks i have are: Amiga Workbench, Locale, Storage, Amiga Extra's and Amiga Font's. Which is all of them but i thought the HD util's etc were on another floppy?!

Thinking about it, I'm afraid you're right. To make sure, check the "Workbench" disk for a tool called "HDToolbox".

And what is the name of the program that allows the amiga to use PC formatted disk's?

It's a driver, not a program. It should be located on your "Storage" disk. It's called (IIRC) "PC0", simply activate it by doubleclicking it. If you want to activate it permanently, copy the file "PC0" to the "DEVS" drawer on your Workbench disk - this drawer contains device drivers that shall be activated each time the machine boots.

From now on, whenever you have a disk in your floppy drive, there will not be just one but *two* icons: "DF0" and "PC0". If you insert an Amiga disk, doubleclick DF0 to access the disk. If you insert a PC disk, use PC0.

Now you can copy files to your Amiga (the driver is from 1992 and therefore only supports 8+3 filenames, but this is no real problem)!

You have two options now:

Ask somebody to send you a "zipped ADF image" of the "Workbench Install" disk. Download "ADFBlitzer" and UnZip from Aminet. Transfer all three files to your Amiga, use Unzip to depack the zipped ADF, use ADFBlitzer to write the ADF back to a disk. Now you have a complete set of workbench disks and can use the standard installation method. I can't help you with the "Workbench install" disk, as I don't have one here, but I'm pretty sure others will be able to help. This method will only work if a zipped ADF image of the install disk will fit onto a DD disk.

The other option would be that somebody supplies you with "HDToolbox" which is basically the only thing you really need from the install disk. You'll have to install manually then, but that's pretty straightforward.

Also is there a generic driver for my PCMCIA CD-ROM drive?

No. What type of PCMCIA CD-ROM is it?

Driver disks for "OverdriveCD", "Squirrel" and "SurfSquirrel" can be found at the Big Book of Amiga Hardware under "Drivers & Installation/SCSI". These are DMS disk images, so you'll need a tool to write DMS images back to disk. Check Aminet, there are probably several hundreds of those ;-)

[cgutjahr]

leirbag28 wrote:

Here is a simple solution to all your problems:

Connecting an Amiga HD to the PC only makes sense if the HD is partitioned and formatted already. You can't do that under WinUAE IIRC.

watcher's HD is not partitioned yet.

[cgutjahr]

watcher wrote:
Ok i know im a pain in the arse but....
Is there an easier way of extracting the LHA files?

Im completely new to the amiga and i hav'nt got a clue! Im used to clicking on icon's etc but using command prompts is beyond my knowledge!!!

Don't forget that you are dealing with an OS that's twelve years old. OS 3.9 has way better support for archives (no need to bother with the command line anymore).

Do not bother doing any "cool" stuff with OS3.0/3.1 - just install it, install the neccessary CD-ROM driver and then replace it with OS3.9 as fast as possible ;-)

I have been trying all afternoon but i still cant get it to work and im beginning to feel that i've just wasted alot of money trying to get an amiga set-up that im to thick to use

What's your exact problem? Do you have the Workbench "install" disk now? If not, we can give you step by step instructions, just tell us what you don't manage to do. Once you have the install disk (and a driver for your CD-ROM), the rest is damn easy.

[cgutjahr]

watcher wrote:

The only problem's remaining are the HD Tools of which i have none!

Do you have the install disk and HDToolBox is missing or are you still missing the install disk?

and also im having alot of trouble getting hold of drivers for my CD-ROM! It's an AMACOM 16-BIT PCMCIA CD-ROM that only requires basic generic driver's for my PC, so was kinda hoping that there is just a basic set of drivers for all PCMCIA CD-ROMS on the amiga!

Ouch! I'm afraid there are no amiga drivers for standard PCMCIA CD-ROMs. The few PCMCIA drives available for the amiga are all custom solutions.

And without them i wont be able to install OS 3.9! (in the post to me as we speak!)

Yes you will. It will just become more complicated. You only need to install OS3.9 *once*, you can back it up later on and restore from your backup in (the unlikely) case your boot partition gets messed up.

Here's my suggestion:

Install WinUAE on your PC. Install OS 3.9 under WinUAE.
Partition and format your HD on your real Amiga. Now you have two options to move the WinUAE 3.9 install to the real Amiga HD:

1. Connect the Amiga HD to your PC.

(Works only if you use WindowsXP or (IIRC) Win2000). Simply copy the finished installation to your HD and put the HD into the Amiga. Requires buying another IDE cable (to connect 2.5" HD to 3.5" IDE).

2. Transfer the files through Nullmodem

Requires a Nullmodem cable and two terminal programs. Takes ages but works.

[cgutjahr]

watcher wrote:

http://uk.aminet.net/pub/aminet/disk/misc/hdinst.lha

Will it solve my problem?

Yes, it should, as it seems to be a HDToolBox-Replacement. Note that you should stick to whatever HD-Prep tool you use to partition a disk. Do not use other HD-Tools on a disk you prepared with HDInstTool.

I have been telling you all that i have Workbench 3.1 but i just checked the disk's and there 3.0!!!

Now you have a problem. OS3.9 requires OS3.1 - if you want to use 3.9, you'll have to buy 3.1 Kickstart ROMs first (and replace the original ROMs on your motherboard with the new ones).

[cgutjahr]

watcher wrote:

The Kickstart ROMS are 3.1 as i bought them and installed them myself, but the version of WorkBench i have is 3.0! So can i use OS3.9 with the 3.1 ROMS?

Yes, OS3.9 only requires the ROMS.