Amiga 600 HDD Options ?

[mrmig600]

First of all this is my first post on Amiga.org although i have browsed the site for a while.

Recently i took the plunge after playing with UAE to buy an amiga 600 [Bog Standard Spec]. I am now wanting to have a hard drive of some sort in my machine and was considering a few options and i wondered if anyone could help me with my dilemma   :S.

I have lying around a PCMCIA card reader with an old 1GB Sony Memory Stick, and was wondering whether it is possible to connect the PCMCIA adapter to my A600 and use this as a basic hdd to boot Workbench, a few games, and some music apps. Another option i was considering was maybe a cheap 2.5" IDE Drive [http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=622953]  but was a little confused on whether this would be compatible with my Amiga.

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated, as i am new to miggy hardware.

Thanks in anticipation.


Other info : Mig is 37.300

i have looked at all of the other posts and seem to be going around in circles regarding my question.

Again, thanks in anticipation.

[motorollin]

Welcome! Any 2.5" HDD will work in your A600. But by default you will only be able to use 4GB of it. If you want to use more, you will need to either install IDEfix and SFS, or upgrade your ROM chip to 3.1 and use OS3.9 (but that would involve upgrading the CPU and memory on your A600).

--
moto

[MickTheLip]

I'm not 100% sure but some A600's do not have a rom capable of installing a HDD or the workbench dics do not include the HDD installer.If I'm right(anybody??)you may have to upgrade the rom and also get a set of Workbench discs with the installer.If you go for the upgrade to Workbench 3.1 then I think you loose compatability with older games.

[Tomas]

MickTheLip wrote:
I'm not 100% sure but some A600's do not have a rom capable of installing a HDD or the workbench dics do not include the HDD installer.If I'm right(anybody??)you may have to upgrade the rom and also get a set of Workbench discs with the installer.If you go for the upgrade to Workbench 3.1 then I think you loose compatability with older games.

I believe you should be able to manually just copy the files over, providing that you have software to partition the HD with.

[little]

If you go for the upgrade to Workbench 3.1 then I think you loose compatability with older games

I have read here that you can install the 3.1 roms and use WHDLoad to "downgrade" your kickstart when loading games. Anyhow if you install a hard disk you are bound to install WHDLoad (whose primary use is to install floppy games into the hard disk).

[motorollin]

MickTheLip wrote:
I'm not 100% sure but some A600's do not have a rom capable of installing a HDD

All A600s come with 3.0 which supports hard disks, but only 37.3 and up support booting from HDD. The OP is using 37.3 so it will be ok.

MickTheLip wrote:
If you go for the upgrade to Workbench 3.1 then I think you loose compatability with older games.

I disagree with this. I haven't noticed any difference between 3.0 and 3.1 when it comes to compatibility with old games. Some very old games written for 1.3 don't like 3.x, but I don't think 3.1 will be any different to 3.0 in these cases.

--
moto

[motorollin]

little wrote:
I have read here that you can install the 3.1 roms and use WHDLoad to "downgrade" your kickstart when loading games. Anyhow if you install a hard disk you are bound to install WHDLoad (whose primary use is to install floppy games into the hard disk).

Yes that is true, WHDLoad eliminates compatibility issues. But remember that the OP is using a vanilla A600, which means a 68000 processor and 1MB of RAM - WHDLoad needs at least a 68020 and 2MB of RAM.

--
moto

[rkauer]

 ROM version 37300 (like yours) will work with hds up to 40 Mb (not Gb, Mb is the word).

 Anything bigger than that is a guessing game. I know! I have tested 3 differents hds on my kickstart 37300 A600 (all 3 works ;-)). But again, it's a guessing game, be warned.

 Using version 37350 ROMs and you'll be able to put any hd up to 4Gb.

 Using WHDLoad in a plain A600 (without accelerator or even a memory expansion)? Doubtfully you'll be able to play a single game. Even ECS ones!

 A tip: buy a PCMCIA memory expansion card (1 up to 4Mb) and hook it into the A600. At least you'll be able to play hd installed games (not whdload!).

[Fixer]

I ran WHDLoad on A600 with 2mb chip once; no other expansions.

Some games work, some don't.

[alexh]

Most games work, but it may take some tweaking of the tooltypes (PRELOAD) and also removal of excess buffers etc. from startup sequence.

[mrmig600]

sorry i havent replied earlier, working some bad hours at the moment. thanks a lot for your replies, theyve helped lots.