Amiga 2000 hardware questions

[WhiteDwarf]

I pulled out the Amiga stuff out of my closet last night.

First off, I have this EZ-VGA thingy that allows me to hook up a VGA monitor to my AMIGA 500 and 2000.

The monitor looks great when I use this to connect to the A500.  I have 2 Amiga 2000's, and the screen flickers to death and the image quality is very poor on both the A2000's.  Is the VGA unit I have only supposed to be used with the A500?

I bought some A2000 stuff off eBay many years ago.  I got a HD controller.  All it says on the card is that it's made by Commodore, and it says "Hard Drive for A2500"

Do I need software to format a drive through this card?  If so, where do I get it?  How do I even know if the card is working?

I also have a MiniScribe HD that used to be connected to a Data Flyer unit that had a 50 pin SCSI connector.  The drive has two cables coming out of it, a 34 pin connector and a 20 pin connector.  I for the life of me can't remember how this connected to the 50 pin plug on the Data Flyer.

I notice the Commodore HD controller I have has a 34 pin plug, and 2 20 pin plugs.  Are these for connecting this type of HD?

One of the Amiga 2000's booted up to the HD just fine, then after I played with it a bit, upon powering up, the SCSI HD spins for a bit then stops...  What happened?  Now I have to boot from a disk...

[Amiduffer]

Any SCSI harddrive will work with that C= card. The way to find out if it works is to put a harddrive on it, plug it in, and fit the card in the zorro slot.

All you need is your workbench installer disk to format it with.

[WhiteDwarf]

The card was plugged into this slot: http://usera.imagecave.com/Whitedwarf/A2000/A2000.JPG

The A2000 has 2.0 ROMS, and I have workbench 1.3 & 2.1 disks.

I imagine I have to use the workbench 2.1?

I don't know what the Zorro slot is, sorry...

[Amiduffer]

WhiteDwarf wrote:

The A2000 has 2.0 ROMS, and I have workbench 1.3 & 2.1 disks.

I imagine I have to use the workbench 2.1?

I don't know what the Zorro slot is, sorry...

The slot you circled is called a Zorro slot.

Yes, with 2.0 roms you use WB 2.1.

Go here for tech info on your card. LINK to BBOAH

Oh, just in case, heres a site for intstaller disks, if you need it. Installer Heaven

[WhiteDwarf]

Great, thanks for youR help!

Any idea why the EZ-VGA adapter works with my Amiga 500 and not either of the 2 A2000's?

[zipper]

Have you trimmed the pot? My A500 and A4000 need totally different trim settings.

[amigakit]

The EZ-VGA is a rebadged MV1200

After a quick Google, here is the manual in PDF form:

http://www.rabayjr.com/Download/MV%201200%20manual.pdf

[Lemmink]

The drive you describe is an MFM type. It is from the computer stoneage. The controlercard you have is probably an A2090. That card supported this kind if drive beside SCSI ones. The everage A2090 does not allow autoboot from HD. You have to boot from floppy till the controller comes to live, then the HD will carry on the bootprocess. There were modified Version of the A2090 later on that could boot alone. See here for info about the A2090 http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=1159

[WhiteDwarf]

I turned it forever LOL...

[amigakit]

Please read the PDF manual that is posted above - there are many other jumpers.

[WhiteDwarf]

Ok, I'm having more success with the Amiga 500.

I was able to find the right HD, hook it up to the Data Flyer and bingo, everything works!

I'm listening to some tunes my brother and I made on MED player 13 years ago, lol!

How can I get this HD backed up?

I can only hook up one on the Data Flyer...

If I load WINUAE or something on one of my PC's, will I be able to copy the entire HD and have the backup a bootable one as well?

Now I need to go find a couple old save from Dune II and that will make my day!

If I sound like a kid at Christmas, I am!

Anyone know a good way to get these MIDI sound tracks from my Amiga 500 to a PC?  I'd love to make an Audio CD of these for my brother...

I'll play with the A2000 another day...

[Amiduffer]

Find a PC running Win 2000 or less.

Put a DD floppy in the PC

Format it at 770k

Boot up Amiga

Open the Storage drawer, move PC0 into DEVS/DOSdrivers

and you should be able to move files back and forth from the Amiga to the PC.

If you have CrossDos or MessyDos, you can use those too.

Glad that the Amiga can still make you happy.  :-)

edit: hmm. backup the HD. One way is to use the HDBackup program that comes with your WorkBench. Be sure to have a lot of floppies. Check out www.aminet.net for other backup programs. I like Abackup personally.

If you feel daring, try and hook up an external CDRW to the 500 through the DataFlyer and install this makeCD