Installing Workbench onto a GVP Impact Series II A500-HD+?

[MickTheLip]

I've had various options of what to type in.The following has finally seemed to have cracked it.

1> DF0:C/Copy DF0: to DH0: ALL QUIET

The difference seems to have been C not c and spacing.
Something has at long last been (by HDD light activity) been copied across to the HDD.I'll now reboot it to see what happens!!!!

[MickTheLip]

Job accomplished it now boots through Worbench and shows 4967872 free memory.So it appears I have the RAM in the HDD being accessed as well as the i/2meg trapdoor RAM.It would also appear the Workbench is version 34.28 Kickstart Version 34.5 and also has Virus X 4.01 by Steve Tibbett installed and running on it.Dread to think how out of date that must be now.I've rebooted several times now and it is rebooting everytime with no problems.What really gets me is the noise the drive makes.Sounds like a hovermower.Thanks every body for all your input and list of reading material that will obviously be of immense help!!!

[MickTheLip]

Spoke too soon Icons do not open when clicked on and pointer freezes.Damn! Damn! DAMN!Second time I rebooted and clicked on DH0 icon and it opens but cannot open any of the drawers.Rebooted refuses to open DH0: again and pointer freezez. Something is definitely wrong here  but each reboot ends either at trying to open DH0: or trying to open one of the drawers?

[MickTheLip]

Diging about in my Software I managed to find another 1.3 Workbench disc and so I formated the HDD and reinstalled the Workbenmch 1.3 Unforunately still the same sorts of problems.Begining to think it's hardware problems.The A500 disc drive appears to be a bit sporadic and I'm thinking the Keyboard is on the blink as well. Some keys appear to lack function as well!The HDD needs a bigger HDD anyway so it looks like s complete stripdown to check everything is in place in the A500 or not.I also wonder if the trapdoor memory upgrade is also causing problems by clashing with the HDD onboard memory?

[Tenacious]

You have been reporting a loud hard drive and strange floppy behavior all along.  Unless you are running a strange trap-door memory card, like the one from ICD, there should be no memory conflict with fast memory.

Replacing the hard drive would solve one problem.  Mating the GVP to the A500+ might solve the other if its floppy is more reliable.  Yes, you can still load Workbench 1.3 to the HDD while running 2.x roms (for compatibility with both roms).

As you may notice from other threads here, replacement floppy drives are in short supply.  Maybe a cleaner disk will help.

This would be a no-brainer for me.  The A500+ with greater memory and newer rom would make better use of the GVP

[countzero]

The maximum fast ram on an A500 is 8 mb. If I were you, I would max out the HD+ memory and get rid off the expansion slot memory. Then you may consider upgrading chip mem.

The FFS which comes with kick 1.3 is not very friendly with large HDDs / partitions. I remember having a really hard time getting a 1gb drive to work with both an A590 and Gvp HD+ and finally giving up. It worked a treat with kick 3.1. Just my two yens.

[MickTheLip]

Been exploring this A500 I got in a lot with the GVP HDD.After discovering the state of the HDD. I suppose it should not come as too much of a surprise to have found the A500 is a real heap of problems to!!! In fact the whole writeup for the sale was very economical with the truth.As far as testing went what on earth did they test? The only thing that I've found in the lot without a problem is a Robo Shift interface for Mouse and joystick auto swap.

[MickTheLip]

I've got another GVP HDD of 105mb coming the next day or so.It has 4mb of memory on board and 2 4mb chips spare. So one way or another it gives me more options to find out what is faulty and what needs replacing!!!In the meantime I'm about to commit surgery on the A500 powerpack(faulty cable with frayed wires!!!)and the A500.Will try out the HDD on the A500+ to see what happens in the meantime.Got my A2000 delivered yesterday so now got another toy to play with!!!