A500 Help with Harddisk

[Vittek]

Hello all!

First sorry if this has been asked before, but even with massive searching I haven't found anything..
So I'll try asking here.

I just recently got an Amiga 500 (After forced to sell mine years back.. damn parents)

And it came with a harddisk, I have no idea how big or what kind, all it says its "Skyline" on the top of the case.
Well of course I tried to install it in WB with the 2 disks that came with it, but in the "HD Tool" Drawers are only stuff like "Mount DF1" "Unmount DF2" "RAD INstall" and likewise things.. Noone of these actually access the HD, Only "PArk" does which, my guess, manually parks the HD heads, which it does, so the HD works and is recognized by the Amiga.

But there is no HD icon found on my WB desktop..

Could anyone help? Or point me to a site which maybe featers the howtos?

Any help would be much appreciated, I could also give more infos if needed!
Thanks

[Plaz]

Does the hard drive boot or are you booting from floppy?
Does your Amiga screen boot with a "1.2" screen or "1.3"
if the floppy is removed and the hard drive is not recognised?
1.3 is needed to auto boot a hard drive. I will look around
and see if I can find any other info on the Skyline.

Does it look anything like this?
GVP HD500

Plaz

[Vittek]

It says 2.0 Rom in the idle boot screen.. Along with (37.175)

And I use WB 2.05 I think.
No the HD Looks comes in its own steel case, with a black front. IT's pretty heavy too, I could take a picture if needed.

Thanks for your input Plaz!

[Tomas]

Maybe you need to repartition it and format it with some kind of software.

[Vittek]

Yeah that's what I'm trying to do. But on the disk that came with it.. are tons of weird options.. like I wrote above like Mount DF1, EDstartup etc.. I can post a whole list if needed.

[melange]

If you are getting the idle boot screen, then the HDD is not bootable(yet).  Can you hear it spinning up?

Hold down both mouse buttons after reset and go to the early boot menu.  Do you see a HDD there?  If so try and boot from it by selecting it.

I have also seen A500 HDD's with switches on them to disable them so they won't boot (for compatabilty with floppy games).  Don't see a kill switch anywhere?

[Vittek]

No I don't see the HD in the boot screen, but it does spin up when I turn the amiga on.

I guess I need to format it, but how? All the programs that came with it are more or less cryptic..

Ok here's a list with the programs found in the "HD Utilitis" folder on the install disk:

Mount DH1
Mount DH2
Mount DH3
Install RAD
UM
LockDH0
Unlock DH0
ED Startup-Sequence
ED HD-Startup
ED Mount List
Create Install Disk

[melange]

Have you got the OS Install Floppy disks?

You should have some HDD tools that will actually help on the Install Disk from the Original OS Install disk set.  I think it's in a draw called HDtools.  HDToolbox is the program to use to partition and make sure you select "Make Bootable" for the boot partition of the drive whilst partitioning.

[Vittek]

Yeah I got the original WB 2.05 disks.. it is somewhere on there?

[melange]

Should be on the disk labelled "Install"