Need help setting up some Amiga kit

[MarkAshley]

I've recently decided to get back in to the Amiga. I've bought a vanilla A1200 from eBay, and now want to add a CD ROM and hard disk.

Despite the fact that I used to have a fully loaded A1200, I'm embarrassed to say that I can't for the life of me remember how I set it all up! So what I need to know is:

- How do I partition/format the hard disk for OS3.9? I seem to remember having a Workbench Install disk before, but I don't have this any more.

- How do I get the CD recognised? I think I previously used a DOSDriver (?) for this but I can't remember how I did this.

- One final question, the A1200 seems to take quite a long time to get to the purple kickstart screen (with the animated floppy disk), it's roughly 30 seconds. Not unusable but longer than I remember. Is this normal or is something wrong?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Mark

[Vincent]

30 seconds is perfectly normal if there's no hard drive connected.  If there is one connected then it shows up almost immediately (unless the HD is bootable).

Someone else can answer the other 2 questions more cohesively than I can, so I won't bother confusing you :-)

[MarkAshley]

Vincent wrote:
30 seconds is perfectly normal if there's no hard drive connected.  If there is one connected then it shows up almost immediately (unless the HD is bootable).

Someone else can answer the other 2 questions more cohesively than I can, so I won't bother confusing you :-)

Ahhh that would explain it, there's no hard drive (yet).

Hopefully somebody can answer the other 2 before my hard disk cable arrives

[Dandy]

MarkAshley wrote:
I've recently decided to get back in to the Amiga.

Welcome back then, Mark!

MarkAshley wrote:
- How do I partition/format the hard disk for OS3.9? I seem to remember having a Workbench Install disk before, but I don't have this any more.

You'll have to use the "HD-Toolbox" for this, that comes with OS 3.9.

MarkAshley wrote:
- How do I get the CD recognised? I think I previously used a DOSDriver (?) for this but I can't remember how I did this.

There are various CD-filesystems: IDEFix, CacheCDFS, AsimCDFS (commercial) and some others (don't remember the names).
You have to install one of them properly and then it should work...

[MarkAshley]

Thanks Dandy. IDEFix sounds familiar, but at the time I had the IDEfix hardware. I'm just using a cable now so I'll try AmiCDFS.

I managed to remember how to mount PC0 and format a CrossDOS floppy, so I'll download AmiCDFS at work today in preparation for when my IDE cable arrives.

Mark

[Thomas]

AmiCDFS does not work alone. The built-in driver for the internal IDE bus does not recognise CD-ROM drives. You *need* the IDEfix software to recognise the drive. The IDEfix hardware is not needed.

Once you have installed OS3.9, you no longer need IDEfix as OS3.9 comes with its own ATAPI driver.

Please note that a stock A1200 is not sufficient for OS3.9. You need at least 6MB of fast RAM.

An accelerator would be handy, too, because OS3.9 needs some more CPU power. Without it you might be disappointed by the speed.

Bye,
Thomas

[MarkAshley]

Thomas wrote:

AmiCDFS does not work alone. The built-in driver for the internal IDE bus does not recognise CD-ROM drives. You *need* the IDEfix software to recognise the drive. The IDEfix hardware is not needed.

Once you have installed OS3.9, you no longer need IDEfix as OS3.9 comes with its own ATAPI driver.

So this is the order I need to do things:

1. Boot from a Workbench floppy and mount PC0
2. Put in my CrossDOS disk with IDEfix on it and run IDEfix to get my CD drive recognised
3. Put in my OS3.9 CD, run HDToolBox to partition my hard drive
4. Format the partitions
5. Install 3.9
6. Boot from hard disk and CD drive will automatically be recognised???

Thomas wrote:

Please note that a stock A1200 is not sufficient for OS3.9. You need at least 6MB of fast RAM.

An accelerator would be handy, too, because OS3.9 needs some more CPU power. Without it you might be disappointed by the speed.

Bye,
Thomas

Will it not even install with chip RAM only? I do plan on getting an accelerator with additional fast RAM when I can afford it.

Thanks
Mark

[Thomas]

Well, it's probably not that easy. IDEfix probably needs to be installed and that does not work on a floppy disk. You might need to partition the Drive, install a basic OS3.1 and install IDEfix just to access the CD-ROM drive.

But as you already know how to transfer files from PC to Amiga using CrossDOS, you can drop IDEfix and follow these steps:

Insert the OS3.9 CD into your PC's CD-ROM drive. Copy everything from :\OS-VERSION3.9\EMERGENCY-DISK to A:\. ( is the drive letter of your CD-ROM drive and A is the floppy drive with a 720kb disk in it.)
Copy :\EMERGENCY-BOOT\STORAGE\DOSDRIVERS\CD0 and CD0.info to A:\DEVS\DOSDRIVERS.
Now go to the Amiga and boot with the Workbench disk. Mount PC0 so that the data from the PC disk can be read. Open a Shell window and enter the following commands:

copy df0:c/(copy|install|ed) df0:system/format ram:
cd ram:

now insert the PC disk and enter

copy pc0:#? ram:boot all
ed ram:boot/devs/dosdrivers/cd0

If Ed asks you to insert the Workbench disk, just click on Cancel. Change the DEVICE and UNIT lines to read DEVICE=scsi.device and UNIT=1. Press Esc and enter X to save the changes.

scsi.device represents the internal IDE bus and unit 1 addresses the drive which is jumpered as slave (unit 0 is the master).

Now insert a new empty disk which will become the OS3.9 Emergency-Disk. Enter the following commands:

format drive df0: name Emergency-Disk noicons
install df0:
copy ram:boot/#? df0: all

Now insert the OS3.9 CD into the Amiga's CD-ROM drive and reboot. The Emergency-Disk should boot OS3.9 from the CD. Now you can partition the HDD as you like and install OS3.9 on it. No need for OS3.1 or IDEfix any more.

Will it not even install with chip RAM only?

There are only 2MB of chip RAM and it needs more just to boot. If it would complete the boot process without running out of memory, you won't not be able to start any programs.

Bye,
Thomas

[MarkAshley]

Wow, that's great, thanks Thomas. Can't wait to get my acellerator and try it out

Thanks!
Mark

[Thomas]

Well, you could try it without. I tried it with WinUAE and it does indeed boot into Workbench. However, the background pictures does not load and there is only 78kb of memory left. You can't even run HDToolbox to partition your HDD.

Edit: no, that's not true. If you close AmiDock, thre are more than 400kb left and HDToolbox runs fine :-)

Bye,
Thomas

[MarkAshley]

Hi Thomas

I just tried what you suggested and as you described it successfully booted OS3.9 from the CD! So I really wanted to say a big thank you for your help.

As you expected, I had less than 512k of chip ram remaining after booting. Even HDToolBox wouldn't run  :-o  So I've just ordered a Blizzard 040/40 + 32mb from amigakit.com - can't wait!!!!!!!!!!