GVP Harddrive for A500 problemS!!!!

[MickTheLip]

Got a A500 with GVP drive off EBay.Did not work in any shape or form!Looked inside drive completely disconnected from cable and power supply plug was disconnected.Also the switch from games to HDD had a cable loose.Fan also was disconnected.Reconnected everything but fan didn't work untill I reversed polarity!! HDD spins up now but the LED remains dead.Does the HDD light only come on when connected to the A500 or is it broken?If so where could I get it repaired? Any Idea of cost or should I just try and get my money back?

[Tenacious]

Is it the Impact Series II? How are you powering it?

I power mine, and the A500, from an old PC power supply.  I don't think the old A500 brick can power both for very long, if at all.

You should be able to upgrade the hard drive to a larger SCSI model.

Did it come with any fast ram?

[MickTheLip]

Yes it's the series 2.It came with its own power supply.Yes its got ram onboard not sure how much but there are four modules in situ.Have a feeling its 2megs total.When I put a voltage meter across the switch between games and HDD bootup there is no voltage registering there is this right and even when the switch is set to HDD bootup. The HDD light does not come on at all.Does the HDD have to be plugged into the A500 for it to light up

[MickTheLip]

The HDD spins up as soon as the power is switched on.It continues to spin when the switch is set to games switch or autoboot but there is never a HDD activity light showing.When I try the GVP install disk it cannot find the drive.Is the probability then that the HDDis broken or what?? If I replace the drive I presume I'm limited to 4GIG?

[Tenacious]

Way to get me off my tired backside.  I haven't been running the system I described, so I dug it out.

When powering the GVP without an A500, the HD spins up but the HD activity light barely flickers. This happens with an unformatted 2.1 Gig Quantum Fireball.  Top switch is set to "AutoBoot".

With the GVP & A500 connected (I powered the GVP first), the activity LED flashes a few seconds and then the screen requests a boot disk.

I loaded the GVP Install disk and ran FastPrep. It let me custom-size five partitions.  I like to set up a couple 100 MB boot partitions to run different versions of the OS.  (I usually will Not allow any to be named "Work:" because many install scripts make bad assumptions about this.)

I installed OS 2.05 (couldn't find OS 2.1) with the FastPrep utility. Fast prep asks if you want to copy disks to each partition as soon as they are formatted. Upon reset, the system booted from the HD.  All is good.

Note: my HD didn't show until I formatted it with FastPrep.

[MickTheLip]

Thanks for your input Tenacious. My problem is that after running the GVP installer I'mpresented with a Workbench screen which shows the HDD as 3 partitions and the GVP install disc Icon DH0:NDOS,DH1:EBSO as near as I can depict it as and DH2:EoSO as near as I can translate.Clicking on GVP Install does nothing.I find by ejecting the GVP disc and reinserting it the disc then opens.The disc drawer opened shows 14 Icons including a Trashcan.So a detailed step by step insruction guide of how to format the partitions and how to install a Workbench onto one of the partitions would be really helpfull and much apreciated.

[Tenacious]

Amiga.org is loading sluggishly on my end.

It seems that you've done everything correctly if you're seeing the icons for the partitions.  NDOS indicates to me that your HD may be failing or can't complete the format process.

Do you have another SCSI hard drive to try?  Did this one come with the GVP series II?

I forgot to mention, my GVP has 2 modules and 2 Megs of fast ram.  Maybe yours has 4 or 8 Megs.  Grin.

[MickTheLip]

I've managed to format the partitions.I renamed them as they were but really wierd font.Memory appears to be 4mb so there's a bit of a bonus. The drive is OK by the looks of it but the Install disk or floppy drive is a bit odd.To open a drawer on the install disc I have to eject the disc after clicking the icon I want.Reinserting the disc the Icon is then opened.What I need to do is to find out how to setup the HDD partitions eg.My choice of size and then how to install Workbench.As it's an A500 with 1/2meg upgrade I presume I'll have to install 1.3 Workbench on this machine.If so how do I do that?Is it normal for the fan and drive to be that noisy? OK managed to load Fast Prep.It tells me I've got a Quantum HDD of a gigantic 49mb!It also shows the 3 partitions of 19mb,15mb and 15mb.Definitely looking to get something bigger but in the meantime I can practice with this one.So how do I change the partitions and install Workbench from here on in?If I boot up from the HDD I now get an Amiga DOS release 1.3 window.So It's time for next step in the learning curve!!!

[MickTheLip]

Been playing around with the GVP install software and have found out how to change the partition sizes and how many partitions I would like.Basically now all I need to know is how to install Workbench and any other programes I want onto the HDD I would like to know as well if I'd be better off installing the HDD on my A500+?

[Tenacious]

I just wrote a lengthy response and something timed out before I could submit it.  Makes me angry to have my time wasted like that!  This happens all the d_mned time!

Is there a time-out in Amiga.org?

[Tenacious]

Glad it's working!

In short, you should be able to boot from a floppy like Workbench and copy it's content to the partion from which you want to boot.

What roms do your A500(s) have.  The roms will limit your OS selection more than chip ram.  The A500+ has 2 Megs of chip ram, right?

[MickTheLip]

The installer disc seems to be running Workbench version 34.20 Kickstart version is 34.5 The A500 has 1.3 Roms I think.I thought the 500+ has 1mb of chip ram A500 has 512K chip ram.When you say copy contents of Workbench from the floppy do you mean drag and drop everything across?When you asked if there is a timeout? I had something like that happening the other day.I have also noticed it has got a lot slower when accessing this site,frustratingly slow at times even using broadband!!!!

[Tenacious]

The A500+ is the better machine, with the trap door 1 Meg memory expansion it can have 2 Megs of chip.  I think it also might have 2.04 Roms.

The A500 can have a possible 1 Meg of chip with an A501 trap door expansion.  A minor modification is required to map the A501 to chip address space.

Either machine can have newer roms installed and run upto OS 3.1 easily.  The A500+ can probably run OS2.1 now.  OS 2.1 is very compatible, usable, and has most of the features of 3.1.

Drag-n-drop might work.  I would use the copy command from a CLI.  Do you have manuals for AmigaDos and Workbench?

[MickTheLip]

I'll have to dig out my Workbench disks to see what I've got!!! The A500 did not come with any Workbench disks at all!!!Infact I'm surprised the GVP install disc actually works the way it was sent to me!The HDD boots to a doss window release 1.3 at the moment with what looks like CLI.So I presume that I could use the Copy you refer to from there Just what would I need to type in to Copy the disks to the HDD?

[Lockon_15]

Let your HDD boots and show prompt (1>). Then insert WB floppy and type:

DF0:c/copy DF0: to DH0: ALL QUIET


This will copy all Workbench content on your boot partition. When you re-gain prompt control, remove floppy from drive and make a reset. In less than 6 seconds you should have Workbench fired up from your HDD drive.