Newbie installing Workbench 2.1

[MontrealCL]

I've reformatted my hard drive and am trying to install WB 2.1 from the supplied disks that came with the machine.  Everything goes well (except for the few cannot read from block xx on certain disks, but with a few retries, it seems to work), but when I reboot my system, instead of the workbench appearing, I see written on top: AmigaDos, and I get a "1>" prompt...

HELP!!!

[HopperJF]

It seems that because of the errors and your insistency, it has skipped the files containing errors which seem to be quite crucial!

My only advice is to look for another set of disks!
Sorry I couldnt be of more help! :-(

[that_punk_guy]

Your Workbench disks are dead. The Amiga will retry a certain number of times before giving up and skipping the task, that's why it appears to have worked but hasn't.

You ought to have backups, but I'm guessing you don't. ;-) Whereabouts in the world are you? You may find someone here will be able to help you out.

Edit: Heh, the dude with the gigantic sig beat me to it ;-)

[MontrealCL]

Yes backups... unfortunately the previous owner didn't think it was necessary to make a backup of the originals.  I just got my Amiga about a month ago, and have been trying my best to get this thing working, but with the amount of bad disks that I received, it's nearly impossible...

I live in Montreal, Canada!

[HopperJF]

You should see the ridiculous signatures on other boards I visit, I fit in quite well over there  :-)

[HopperJF]

MontrealCL wrote:
Yes backups... unfortunately the previous owner didn't think it was necessary to make a backup of the originals.  I just got my Amiga about a month ago, and have been trying my best to get this thing working, but with the amount of bad disks that I received, it's nearly impossible...

I live in Montreal, Canada!

The carelessness of the way some Amiga users treat there disks bothers me a lot, and surprises me as well as totally irritating me.
I've seen photographs of Amigas with disks on ebay a few times, with idiots putting disks right on top or infront of a TV, or next to some speakers.
"All disks are working" - they wont be much longer!!  :pissed:

[Thomas]

1. make sure you install WB onto the boot partition. The installer lets you choose which partition to install to. If you choose the wrong one the boot partition stays empty and presents you the DOS window. (If it doesn't let you choose, you wrongly selected Novice mode. Never use Novice mode in Installer. Novice mode is for experts only. As a novice always use Advanced or Expert mode).

2. if you used the correct partition, at the DOS prompt copy the Startup-Sequence from your Workbench Disk to the S directory of your HDD.

3. Anyway, make Backups now. Use good DD floppy disks, format them and use DiskSalv's salvage function to copy the files over. Use the Install DF0: command in a Shell window to make the Install and the Workbench disk bootable.

http://de.aminet.net/aminetbin/find?disksalv

Bye,
Thomas

[BoingBoss]

Hi MontrealCL,

If you email me a picture of your original WB 2.1 disks (so I know that you do indeed own them) I will ship you a copy of my WB 2.1 disks.  Just mail me 5 blank disks and $4.95 for S/H (includes padded mailer envelope and First Class Mail).  I was having the same problem this weekend with one of my Amiga 2000 computers.  I found out that I had failed to remove the SCSI terminating resisters from the hard disk when I installed a new CD ROM drive.  So my Amiga thought that the hard disk and the CD ROM drive were the same and would not boot half the time.  I too was installing WB 2.1.  I now have a WB 1.3 Amiga 2000, a WB 2.1 Amiga 2000HD, and a WB 3.9 Amiga 2500.  I have the best of all three Workbenches.   :-D