Amiga 1000 boot problem(s)

[mingle]

Hi,

After finally getting hold of a Kickstart disk (thanks to adz) I booted my Amiga 1000, but seem to have a problem, or problems:

When I first power on the Amiga the power LED flashes rapidly 4 times, before a 5 second pause, after which the 'Insert Kickstart hand' screen appears. Then I insert the kickstart (1.3) disk and it boots from the kickstart floppy

After the kickstart disk loads (which it seems to do without any problems) the Amiga does a reset, but instead of the 'Insert Workbench hand' appearing the screen goes blank and the power LED goes brighter... and that's all it just sits there.

I've tried reseating all of the socket chips, but that didn't make any difference.

Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions?

Cheers,

Mike.

[dougal]

I am no A1000 expert , but could it be the Kickstart disk is bad ?

Try making another copy using a different ADZ/ADF file and while you are at it try making a Kickstart 1.0 disk .

[chiark]

Hi Mike, do you know what revision board you've got, and whether you've got the daughter card in there or not?

If you've got the daughter card, check that all those connectors are good...  I don't think the LED flashes like that when first turned on, but I'll check this evening.

[mingle]

Hi Chaps,

Thanks for the replies...

Not sure of the board revision (I forgot to check and it's all back together now!), but it does have the RAM daughterboard fitted - what were they thinking when they designed that! :-)

I removed and reseated the RAM daughterboard too...

I also tried swapping all of the socketed ICs (apart from the Agnus) with ones from my A500, but that made no difference. It still boots from the KS floppy, then seems to freeze/hang/grind to a halt!

I'm hoping my KS disk is fine and suspect that the flashing LED at power-up means something like duff RAM...

Cheers,

Mike.

[save2600]

It *IS* normal for an A1000's power LED to flash like that upon power up. What's strange is that the computer does not seem to continue booting after Kickstart loads. Perhaps the disk is bad, drive is bad, no daughtercard and no 1050 256k front memory.

I'd try making a new KS disk on a double density disk and try writing 1.0-1.3.

[yorgle]

You might want to hook up an amp/speakers.  just before the "insert kickstart" hand comes up, you should hear 4 tones in one speaker, then 4 in the other.  (make sure Paula is doing her thing).

But yeah. Sounds like your hardware is fine, you just have a faulty kickstart floppy.

If you're near Rochester, NY, PM me and I'll lend/copy one for ya.

[mingle]

@save2600,

Many thanks for the info...

My A1000 also has the extra 256K RAM expansion in the front. I tried removing that and again, no difference...

It's annoying, since it used to work fine, but it has been in storage for over 10 years! :-)

I have to have a go at creating a new KS floppy using just my old single floppy 512K A500 and my PC! I have the instructions and relevant files. I just hope I have a working null-modem cable!

Cheers,

Mike.

[save2600]

Yeah, since it worked last time you used it 10 years ago and depending where you
stored it - I wouldn't be surprised if the drive has become magnetised, dirty or misaligned.
Maybe try cleaning it with a floppy drive cleaner or if you don't have one, a Q-tip and
(preferably) tape head cleaner and failing that, rubbing alcohol.

Oh and may we assume that there's nothing on the side expansion bus contributing
to this poor thing not booting?

After writing a new KS disk and it STILL doesn't work, you could always swap the
500's floppy with the A1000's as a last ditch shotgun attempt at troubleshooting.
They say not knowing is "half" the battle...  lol

[CaptChaos]

Do you keep a monitor on top of the A1000?

One of my a1000s would fail to load the kickstart disk if it had a heavy weight on top of it (1084). Without the monitor on top it worked fine. I guess the case may have warped over time pushing down on the motherboard causing it to short somewhere...

[mingle]

Hi again,

No monitor on top and no side-expansions...

When it boots from the kickstart disk it "chugs" exactly 24 times as it reads the disk, then it does the reset and freezes.

I actually managed to get it to boot correctly (actually get to the Workbench screen!) on 2 occasions out of about 100 attempts.

Whether this suggests a bad KS disk, bad floppy drive or dodgy RAM I can't say.

My next course of action is to try the floppy drive out of my A500. This is actually easier to do that try and create new KS floppies from ADF files, using my bare A500 connected to my XP PC via a null-modem cable!

Stay tuned! :-)

Cheers,

Mike.

[Chartus]

You might try your Amiga 1000 floppy drive in your 500 to see if it would boot the workbench disk.  You would find out if it was the drive causing the problem.  If it works reliably then you would know that it was the kickstart disk.  Or the computer itself.

[dougal]

Check that all the custom chips in your 1000 are seated properly . It could be that it has some ROM which holds the kickstart and that could have become slightly unseated over time .

Just push them all down with a bit of force (not too much) till u hear them click into place .

Also check the floppy drive cables as they may have become loose over the years .

Apart from that i can't think of what may be wrong with your A1000 as it seems to basicly be working fine apart from that problem .

As others have said , also try your A500 floppy drive too if all else fails . And make sure your K/S disk is working properly . I dont think you can try it on your A500 as the A500's kickstart is already built into the ROM .

[chiark]

I wonder if the grounding mods recommended to A1000s might help in this case?

[mingle]

Hi,

Quick update:

I tried the Amiga 500 floppy derive in the A1000 with no change - still won't get past the initial reset.

I've tried reseating the ROM chips again, also with no difference.

Next step - trying to get together a new KS disk - actually I'll try a few different versions...

Cheers,

Mike.

[save2600]

I wonder if the grounding mods recommended to A1000s might help in this case?

That mod usually pertains to adding external stuff to the bus, but wouldn't hurt I guess.

Since he swapped in his A500 drive and was met with the same results, sure sounds like the KS disk is bad or there's something else going on with the Mobo. I'm betting the disk is bad. Wonder if he's using a high-density disk formatted to DD...