Missing CD drives

[DomN76]

Hello

Clueless, so humour me

Just got my hands on a towerised a1200 with 2 optical drives, both of which are mechanically functioning (i.e. the draw opens when you press the button)

In Workbench, however, there are only 3 things to click on - 2 floppy disk symbols (one of which I presume is the hard-drive, the other representing the empty floppy drive) and the Workbench icon

Am I right in assuming that the optical drives should also be accessible through icons in workbench?

Am I also correct in guessing that there is some missing & expensive peice of hardware inside the beige box?

As I would only use the drives to transfer files from my PC, would it be cheaper to use something like this:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/AMIGA-PC-NETWORK-TOOLKIT-BRAND-NEW-AND-SEALED_W0QQitemZ5843960690QQcategoryZ191QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Thanks people  :roll:

[Kinster]

I've not got access to a real amiga these days, but iirc the CD icons will not show up unless a disc is present and the drive is mounted.

[DomN76]

Okeydokey... any clues as to how to mount the drive?

[AmigaPete]

The Amiga doesn't show icons for devices until there is some form of media. In other words, the CDROM icons won't show up until a disc is inserted. The same is true for floppies, so one of the floppy icons that you think represents the floppy is not it. Most default systems will have an icon for the System drive (hard disc) and RAM drive. The one floppy image will be the RAM drive, but I'm not sure what the other floppy image could be. It could be anything because the AmigaOS allows one to easily change the icon image to anything. You should be able to decipher a bit more information from what the icons are named. Just double click on it and see what happens.

Not sure what you mean by "some missing & expensive peice of hardware inside the beige box?". If it works then it should be good to go.

There are a number of ways to transfer files from Amiga to PC and vice versa. If the files are small (<713kb) you can just format some floppies using PC DOS 720kb and copy files using Windows Explorer (on your PC) and Directory Opus (if you don't have it it's freeware now - just search in Google,  download and run). Of course this assumes that you have CrossDOS installed and running on your Amiga (it should be if it's a 1200).
You can also network your Amiga to your PC by any number of ways. That thing on ebay that you linked to looks like a serial cable (null modem) and transfer software. If you want to do it this way then I suggest Amiga Forever. It doesn't come with a null modem cable but they are very easy to find, and cheap. There are also NICs available for the 1200. This way gets you the fastest transfer speeds, but it is also the most expensive.

Hope this helps,
Pete

[Tomas]

I would rather get cloantos amiga explorer instead of this network toolkit. Amiga Explorer is included in the amigaforever package as well i believe.

http://www.amigaforever.com/ae/

[Kinster]

DomN76 wrote:
Okeydokey... any clues as to how to mount the drive?

my memory fades...  You need to mount it via a mountlist file in storage/dosdrivers/ or devs/dosdrivers/ and you will need an installed CD Filesystem such as AmiCDFS or summat.

If you bought a complete setup, then I would assume the previous user would have had a CD filesystem setup, else why have two CD drives fitted - try typing "mount CD0:" in a shell and see what happens.

[DomN76]

Thanks people

I will try investigating further

Apologies for the lack of specifics

[DomN76]

Ok, double clicked on the floppy icons:

RAM disk: 100% full, 0k free, 13k in use
Empty: 0% full, 1,188m free, 305k in use

I'm guessing 'Empty' is the HDD. There is, appropriately, nothing in it

Putting a CD into either drive results in no further icons appearing, unlike the floppy drive, which behaves as described above

When I type Mount CD0: in a shell box, nothing happens, it just goes to the next line, no error message

I used the format disk utility thing and it listed the following things that could be formatted:

CC0: - 20k capacity
DF0: - 880k capacity (the floppy drive??)
DH0: - 32m 12% used (the CD-RW I had in the drive??)
DH1: - 1189m 0% used (the HDD drive??)

Typing Mount DH0: gives the error message 'unknown command' or similar

Is there anything special I need to do before the system will recognise a CD? Is it possibly the fact I used a CD RW not a CD R?

Any genius insights people?

[twizzle]

if you have got os3.1 + open w/bench + devs / dos drivers

if you have 2 cd drives you should see 2 cd icons
if not  open storage and drag 1 cd0 icon to dos drivers drawer
( they are usualy named cd0 )

you now have to re-name them cd2 now click it and in the information at the top alter the unit=0/1 change to unit=2

if you then double click the cd icon it should say that this devices is mounted.

then do the same again rename to cd3 on info unit=3 it should now work.

i have just had to do the same thing to mine today.

 bye mike

[DomN76]

Thanks Mike

The only thing in devs/ dos drivers is 'pipe' which is apparently already mounted

Copied out of the store(there was 1, CD0, not 2), renamed and changed info,but still doesn't work

[bludger]

DomN76 wrote:
Ok, double clicked on the floppy icons:

RAM disk: 100% full, 0k free, 13k in use
Empty: 0% full, 1,188m free, 305k in use

I'm guessing 'Empty' is the HDD. There is, appropriately, nothing in it

It sounds very much like the previous owner did a quick format and minimum re-install.

Can anyone spell  Idefix ?

See the Readme for installation instructions.

 :rtfm:  :rtfm:  :rtfm:  :rtfm:

[DomN76]

Amiga Pete,

What do I need Directory Opus to do?

I'm having some trouble getting a floppy formatted at 720kb

[DomN76]

Just re-read the ebay listing carefully:

"the scsi controller has been removed and sold separately"

which is what makes the CD drives work!

Can anyone tell me which one of these might do the trick?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8741056038&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1

or

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8741798451&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1

[Lando]

Neither of those will work.  The first is just an adapter, not a controller and the second (Squirrel SCSI) plugs into the PCMCIA slot, which since your A1200 is towered, probably won't be accessable (unless there's a right-angle adapter in there).  I would just get a 4-way IDE adapter or 2.5" to 3.5" 2-way IDE cable like this one on Ebay with IDEFix, ditch the SCSI drives and get a cheap £2 IDE CDROM.

[Lando]

DomN76 wrote:
Ok, double clicked on the floppy icons:

RAM disk: 100% full, 0k free, 13k in use
Empty: 0% full, 1,188m free, 305k in use

I'm guessing 'Empty' is the HDD. There is, appropriately, nothing in it

Putting a CD into either drive results in no further icons appearing, unlike the floppy drive, which behaves as described above

When I type Mount CD0: in a shell box, nothing happens, it just goes to the next line, no error message

I used the format disk utility thing and it listed the following things that could be formatted:

CC0: - 20k capacity
DF0: - 880k capacity (the floppy drive??)
DH0: - 32m 12% used (the CD-RW I had in the drive??)
DH1: - 1189m 0% used (the HDD drive??)

Typing Mount DH0: gives the error message 'unknown command' or similar

DH0 and DH1 are both the hard drive - it's been partitioned into two partitions.  DH0 is your Boot partition which has Workbench on it.  DH1 is empty and you would generally store your programs, games etc on this partition.

Unlike Windows machines which usually just stick everything together on the same partition, Amigas usually have two or more partitions to keep the Operating System files separate from the user's data.

CC0 is your PCMCIA slot and, yes, DF0 is your floppy drive.