A1000 Xetec Hard drive questions

[quarkx]

Hi, all. If you have been reading my blog, You know I got in a super sweet haul in over thee weekend of all boxed A1000 stuff.
I set it all up and I am having problems with my Xetec  FT10-000 Hard drive system. (whitch consists of a fasttrack scsi controler and a external hard drive box)
Basicly in a nut shell, when I turn everything on (and I am turning the hard drive box on first, then the Amiga) the little sound comes on, followed by the insert kick start screen. I insert the kick start disk, and then the screen turns grey. The amiga's light is flashing, but nothing happens. This happens aslo if I disconect the external hard drive too and just leave on the FastTrack Scsi adapter. If I unplug the adapter, the Amiga boots fine. I would tend to believe the drive has given up the ghost, but if it were just the drive, shouldn't the Amiga ask for a workbench disk if the scsi Adapter was on it?
I talked to the ex-owner, and he hadn't set it up in 20 years, so he couldn't remember anything except he had to play around with the Side until it was level with the Amiga to make sure of proper connection. I have spent a day trying to do this. any thoughts? Suggestions?

[TjLaZah]

Not sure but since this is also for the A500, is it installed the correct way on the bus?  ie is it upside down?

[TjLaZer]

Not sure but since this is also for the A500, is it installed the correct way on the bus?  ie is it upside down?

http://www.amiga.org/forums/showpost.php?p=448005&postcount=3

[quarkx]

picture 3 is the correct way (this "Kit" was made for an A1000) you can only instal it one way, otherwise the Stand or "leg" under it would stick way up in the air. According to the cataloge the FT0-000 is the A1000 (which I have) and the FT0-500 is for the 500. I would suspect that in that thread, he was using the 500 model, and didnt bother to "flip" the inside board around for the a1000.
I have opened it up and pulled the RAM extension card off and set the jumpers for "Non-autobooting" in hopes that this will at least get me to a "insert workbench" screen. If that happens, then I know the propblem is the drive is dead, and not the controller. I have a few scsi drives here to replace it with.

Maybe I shouldn't be saying this yet, but this is only Temperary. By Christmas, I hope to have for sale in my on-line store a special IDE -Compact flash Adapter card Specificly made for the A1000 (simular to the 68K IDE, but more profesionally made). In it you will ALSO have the ablility to chose Kickstart 1.0,1.1,1.2,1.3, as the creator is tryinig to get 1.0 in there, because one program he likes will only work on 1.0. The beauty of this card is that just with the CF, there is no IDE cables and it all fits back in the case with no modding, a side benifate is that with the extra IDE header you can try to fit a CD rom in the A1000. I was trying to get RAM to be added, but right now, that is a no go, maybe next revision. Thats the fun of having a true Amiga hardware maker in your user group

[save2600]

You've got a real hunk of junk there and you should send it to me quick before it melts
your A1000 down to rubble. OK, just kidding  :-)

Does that adapter look clean to you? Pins clean and straight? Sounds kinda like the
SCSI adapter is bogging down the bus. Have you done the grounding mod on the
A1000's daughterboard and those few PAL chips notorious for expansion bus problems?
MANY of those internal/external A1000 expansion systems came with or recommended
people install faster PAL chips on the daughterboards. It's likely the previous owner
had that done to their machine and have since sold off their Amiga stuff in pieces.

And on a serious note, if/when you get tired of that SCSI expansion system for your
A1000, I could give it a loving home you know :-)

[quarkx]

You've got a real hunk of junk there and you should send it to me quick before it melts
your A1000 down to rubble. OK, just kidding  :-)

Does that adapter look clean to you? Pins clean and straight? Sounds kinda like the
SCSI adapter is bogging down the bus. Have you done the grounding mod on the
A1000's daughterboard and those few PAL chips notorious for expansion bus problems?
MANY of those internal/external A1000 expansion systems came with or recommended
people install faster PAL chips on the daughterboards. It's likely the previous owner
had that done to their machine and have since sold off their Amiga stuff in pieces.

And on a serious note, if/when you get tired of that SCSI expansion system for your
A1000, I could give it a loving home you know :-)

LOL, well, the box is just as big as the original A1000 box, so shipping would be a ton.
Seriously, I was looking at the connection card about an hour ago, thinking there might be some "broken" solder points. As you know the solder points on the card connection are really thin/small and with it flexing abit, it just might be one of the issues, but it is hard to tell. If I had really good soldering skills, probably the best course of action would be to at least heat up all the connections and make sure they are all good. I can honestly say, these cards look like they were all made by hand and not profesionally machine soldered.

[Pyromania]

Why not just use a CF card with adapter on your A1000. Should be a smaller cleaner and faster setup.

[quarkx]

Why not just use a CF card with adapter on your A1000. Should be a smaller cleaner and faster setup.

Because this is a Scsi adapter, not IDE.
A SCSI CF adapter is almost $100 compared to an IDE CF adapter is only about $5. That is why were are in a development phase for a IDE solution, the cost for SCSI is way out there, and MOST HD solutions for a A1000 are SCSI at this point in time.
And the fact That this Scsi came with the set up.
An IDE solution for an A1000 is not easily found these days unless you go to the hobbiest sites and get in line for a very small production run. We plan to make a profesional solution at a affordable cost (under $30 Canadian for a COMPLETE solution) that will require NO modification of your A1000 or case. If you chose to add a regular IDE hard drive or CD drive with this solution, you will likely have to loose your RF shield or modify it and the case in some way.
Even though this is being made exclusivly for an A1000, a side benifate is that it will work on an A500 or a cdtv unit. Its a shame we can't get ram on it at this time also.

[rkauer]

The problem looks like in one or more solder joints or a weak contact on the edge connector.

 First case it's just a matter of passing a hot air over the solder to re-melt it.

 For the second case you need a very small pliers to make the connector apply a bit of more pressure.