how to install a hardrive on a a500 with 1.3 workbench?????

[tonto2k]

Hi,

I have a gvp impact series II hd+ with 8mb ram and a 540mb scsi hard drive, and a 286 add on card.

I can't find the faaastprep installation disk to install the hardrive. I am new to amiga but I have read a little on these forums and I was looking for hd_toolbox but couldn't find it??

Is it only available on newer workbenches? I have a 2.05 workbench disk but when I booted it up I got an error message about incorrect kickstart rom?

Any help would be apprieciated

tonto.

[lempkee]

you cant use wb 2.05 as that requires kickstart 2.x or higher.

and as far as hdtoolbox goes, u cant use that either, what u need is the floppies that came with your hdd (the GVP) , normally theese are self installing ones, ie just insert the floppy and make it boot, then it should prep the hdd, its too long ago for me to remeber everything in detail sadly, but check your hdd software closer.

[doctorq]

As lempkee said you should take a look at your install disk that came with the GVP harddrive. There is a program on it called Faaastprep, which you just double click and it will load. Choose "Binddrivers" from the pull-down menu, and you should see the activity led light up. Now just select automatic or manual setup, and you should be able to set the partition sizes, format partitions, copy files etc. Just remember that you should set the switch on the harddrive to autoboot, or else you won't be able to recognize the disk.

Have fun

@lempkee

There is actually a HDToolbox for OS1.3. It can be found on the install disk for the Commodore A590 harddrive, but pretty ugly with only 4 colours.

-- EDIT --

Just read your post again. The install disk can be found here http://www.gvp-m.com/a500hd8.dms . You would of course need to extract the disk before you can use it.

[lempkee]

doc: wow there is? i have forgot about that lol , i used to have an a590 until i bought an a1200 in 92....man...

anyway thanx for helping out with the GVP stufff, cheeeeeeers

[Quixote]

;-) Another location where one can fing install disks for obsolete hardware is here.  They specialize in just such stuff as that.  They've gone to the trouble of obtaining permission from the software's owners, so it's perfectly legal, too.

[Markus_Bieler]

or GVP-M Drivers

[tonto2k]

Hi everyone and thanks for the replies.

I have downloaded the a500hd8.dms driver file from the site Markus_Bieler mentioned. Now all I have to do is get it on my amiga?

is this hard? could I use an amiga emulator and format the drive with that?

tonto.

[julzinka]

well *.dms is like a disk image .. u could use the "amiga forever" software the u can copy stuff between your pc and amiga via nullmodem cable . u´ll alsow have to copy the "dms" program to your amiga. then when u have that file on your amiga u write "dms write a500hd8.dms" and it will extract the dms to df0: ..