Amiga 1200 Bootup Question...

[silent]

Hello all. I've been reading through the posts and have relearned a lot of what I've forgotten plus learned a bunch of new stuff.  What a wonderful knowledge base!

The last time I used my A1200/40HD was back in 1997.  I was dialing into the net and using PINE for reading my email.  I also remember using a browser but since I knew very very little about how the net worked, my friend Brian set up everything for me.  When my ISP made some changes, that pretty much rendered my A1200 useless for surfing the net since I had no idea how to reconfigure it.  I understand getting an Amiga online is much easier than it used to be.

I went downstairs to my old computer desk and disconnected everything from the 1200 and brought it upstairs.  I took it all apart, thoroughly cleaned everything, and reassembled it.  It powered right up!  I forgot that my brother had installed an 030 accelerator (Microbotics 1238 XL or some such name) with 8 megs of ram.  I heard the hard-drive spool up but the 1200 insists on just sitting there with the kickstart screen.  I was able to boot off some floppies and play FA18 and some demos but I'm miffed as to why the the 1200 will not boot off of the HD.  What could have happened and does anyone have any ideas on how to fix it?  I had some cool games and stuff on the drive and I sure hope it isn't toast by now.  Thanks for the help and suggestions.  I'm going to continue reading through the forums and try to figure this out on my own but I'd appreciate anyone with some knowledge guiding and directing me on how to get this awesome little machine working again.  I'm wanting to put a wireless card in it and use for surfing the net again.

Erin

[SamuraiCrow]

Your hard drive may be getting old and taking a little longer to spin up than usual.  Try waiting until the hard drive has spun up and then hold down control and the left Amiga and right Amiga buttons on the keyboard.  This will do a warm reboot.  Since your hard drive is already spinning it should recognize the hard drive.

I had a hard drive that was brand new do this same thing.  Installing Kickstart version 3.1 will remedy that as there is a longer spin-up time allowance in the newer Kickstart ROM.

[jj]

reset the amiga and hold down both  mouse butons   is there anything listed like dh0: or hd0:  ?

[wlemonds]

When you took it apart, did you removed the HD? If so, make sure the red wire on the ide cable is on the 1 pin on the MB and on the HD.

[murple]

Check the cables are all connected properly and tightly. Worst case, a 4 gig 2.5" IDE drive will cost you around 10 bucks on ebay. If you have a different cable, try to change it. Ive had drive problems caused by damaged SCSI or IDE cables before. My guess is a loose or reversed connection though.

As for getting on the net, a $25-30 3c589 ethernet (3c589 is a chipset by 3Com, found in various cheap PCMCIA net cards by 3Com and others) is sufficient. Then download a TCP stack off AmiNet (there are a few to choose from). I got mine on the net pretty easy, though I dont use it for much except installing AmiNet programs.

[silent]

I want to thank you for your help and suggestions.  I've been out of the Amiga loop for so long...sheesh.  I booted off of some floppies tonight and watched some demos - it was wonderful...memories and reminders of just how awesome this machine really is.  

The HD is indeed spinning up...I can hear it and I've done numberous reboots.  The HD light flickers like it's trying to do something but still nothing.  I did some more looking and I do have the kickstart 3.1 ROMS and I had purchased the WB3.1 disks.  I remember this machine used to boot up all the time.  I have guitar tabs and pictures on it as well as a bunch of my favourite mods.  

I haven't tried the suggestion yet of holding down both mouse buttons and checking what comes up on the list.  I tried HDTools tonight and it scans but can't find anything listed.

I spoke with my brother tonight and he had turned on the 1200 a couple months ago and it didn't find the HD then.  It spins up just fine and sounds wonderful but for some reason the 1200 just won't see it.  

I'll do the mouse trick and report back to you.  Thanks for the help!

Erin

[eaglelil]

Did you check the jumpers?

Make sure it is set to Master.  If it is, try moving the jumper to Slave, Cable Select, etc. one after another.  As you switch the jumper each time reboot and see if that does anything.

Good luck.

[marcfrick2112]

eaglelil: IIRC, the jumper should always be on Master, if the Amiga had a CD-ROM, that would be set to 'Slave', 'Cable Select' should only be used with PC's, and even then it needs a specific IDE cable....

silent: does the HD light come on for just a few moments, or does it go for some time? Try removing, then replacing the IDE cable a few times... failing that, I think the HD might be dying....