Amiga DVD Rom?

[werthers93]

I have an external DVD drive from an old Sony Vaio that has a pcmcia connection.

Is it possible to install this onto my A1200?

If yes how would I go about this? I have fitted a 4gig hard drive onto it and would like a new operating system from workbench.

[x56h34]

Not possible due to several reasons:

- A1200's PCMCIA port is a 16-bit one
- Even if it were CardBus (32-bit, such as your external device) you'd still need a driver in order to make your external DVD drive work with AmigaOS 3.x

[werthers93]

Thats the operating system I want to get onto it. At the moment I'm using the workbench (3.1 I think).

Is there any other way of getting an operating system on? I dont really want to fork out on a Squirral and I want something that looks okay next to the original casing.

thanks, Mark

[x56h34]

If it's 3.1 that you want to install onto the hard drive, then all you need is a working internal Amiga floppy drive, as 3.1 comes on floppy disks.

[werthers93]

sorry i meant 3.9, I already have 3.1 installed. I just want to connect a CD/DVD drive.

[InTheSand]

Hi,

You could try searching eBay for a second-hand Squirrel SCSI interface, or some other Amiga-specific CD-ROM and interface for the PCMCIA port...

Or, if you have a CompactFlash card, a cheapo CF-PCMCIA adaptor plus a CF card reader and a PC, it's easy enough to transfer it that way.

Another alternative is to take your Amiga's drive out and connect it to the PC, doing the transfer of OS3.9 files or even the full installation of OS3.9 from within WinUAE, but you will probably require an adaptor for that.

 - Ali

[leirbag28]

@werthers93

There might be a cheap or free easy way.

Just plug in the Drive to your PC via an adaptor if your HD is 2.5.............if its a full size 3.5 drive then no worries.just make it slave.....................go the the BIOS settings.........and make sure it is seen.

Then load up Windows and use WinUAE.....you should be able to boot off your AmigaHD if you have Workbench 3.1 installed..now just drop the OS 3.9 CD into your PC and it should show up on Workbench.........if it does not.make sure you have the CD0 icon in DEVS or that you installed IDE fix.............buit anyway.you can also just copy the entire OS3.9 CD onto a drawer in one of your Workbench Partitions...........that way you have the whole thing on the A1200 HD..now put the HD back in the A1200 and install from there.

WinUAE can be quite cool eh? :-)


EDIT:  forgot to add..................if You have any Compact Flash cards with the PCMCIA adaptor and a Laptop with a PCMCIA port.............then just put the CD in the Laptop........and copy the whole OS 3.9 installation onto the Compact Flash card (hopefully you have a 128mb or larger) and now just stick the CF card wit PCMCIA adaptor in your A1200 and your good to go!  Who needs a stinking CDROM drive? :-)

By the way, you may need to first install Fat95.lha and CFD.lha into your A1200 first to be able to read the compact flash card............get it on Aminet.

[Macabre]

its likely that a peecee pcmcia drive uses 32bit ipv 16bit pcmcia.

And then the driver problem ....

if its only for transfer ...just by a cheep pcmcia network card, and install miami --you can copy this on 720kb ms-dos disks and double click pc0: in storage-- and ftp it over to youre amiga (is faster then samba!)

What i did ?

i used a peecee external case for the power of mij dvd-drive and created an external IDE connector near the pcmcia poort but face down for a ide flat cable.
I created a 2.5" to 2.5"+3.5" splitter and put the hd to master (standard for laptop drives) and the cd-rom to slave.
Works great and much faster then pcmcia storage on a amiga!

And no more driver conflicts (Overdrive and Ethernet) + both to gether

[werthers93]

It's an old 2.5 laptop hard drive in my Amiga, so it should already have a 2.5 to 3.5 cable if my memory serves me correctly.

Think I'll try it the WinUAE way.

Thanks for that.

[darksun9210]

the other option is to ignore PCMCIA totally, tear the drive out of the pcmcia drive box, its probably a standard IDE drive anyway, and find an adapter off the net to give it a standard 3.5" ide drive connection....

[werthers93]

There might be a cheap or free easy way.

Just plug in the Drive to your PC via an adaptor if your HD is 2.5.............if its a full size 3.5 drive then no worries.just make it slave.....................go the the BIOS settings.........and make sure it is seen.

Then load up Windows and use WinUAE.....you should be able to boot off your AmigaHD if you have Workbench 3.1 installed..now just drop the OS 3.9 CD into your PC and it should show up on Workbench.........if it does not.make sure you have the CD0 icon in DEVS or that you installed IDE fix.............buit anyway.you can also just copy the entire OS3.9 CD onto a drawer in one of your Workbench Partitions...........that way you have the whole thing on the A1200 HD..now put the HD back in the A1200 and install from there.

WinUAE can be quite cool eh?

Right,

Ive finally got round to doing this. Ive got a copy of OS 3.9 but it is in zipped format (WinRAR). Does anyone know how I can get this onto the Amiga drive I have booted up through Windows? To be honest I dont know where to start.


Thanks,

Mark.

[tonyvdb]

"Ive finally got round to doing this. Ive got a copy of OS 3.9 but it is in zipped format (WinRAR)."

Thats piracy you know Your not going to get alot of help with this one from users on here :-o

[amigakit]

Another way of using CDs with an A1200 is a Subway USB and External CD drive

[K7HTH]

tonyvdb wrote:
"Ive finally got round to doing this. Ive got a copy of OS 3.9 but it is in zipped format (WinRAR)."

Thats piracy you know Your not going to get alot of help with this one from users on here :-o

Not publically anyway!!