No booting with A590

[Cihan]

Hello, I´m writing from Germany.

Last week I get an A590 HD. But my Amiga 500 with KS 1.3 won´t start with it.
I get an error called not a dos disk in Unit 0.

When I turn power on the screen gets in a white screen and waits a few seconds. The HDD leds blinks at that moment. After that I get that error.
After clicking a few times on abort the CLI promt comes and the Disk Drive works in Background, but nothing happens.

Without the A590 the Amiga boots normaly the disks.

Dips are 1-4 "- _ _ _" Only Kickstart 1.3 Autoboot Rom is on.
I tried DIP No.3 for delay. but it was the same.

[Motormouth]

It sounds like you may have a problem with the hard drive itself.   Perhaps try sysinfo to see if the harddrive is mounted, or use the A590 hdtoolbox to see if you can repartition the drive.  You could also use one of the GVP scsi utilities but instead of gvpscsi.device  use scsi.device

If the drive is has Fast file system on it (and you need to save the data) you could also attempt using Disksalv

http://aminet.net/package/disk/salv/DiskSalv

[Cihan]

I can´t start the System with the A590 plugged in.
It doesnt boot from Disk in this case.

[doctorq]

Most likely the seller had a newer kickstart in his Amiga, and therefore the filesystem on the hdd isn't compatible with Kickstart 1.3. If that is the case, you either have to upgrade the Kickstart or just format the harddisk.

You should be able to boot from floppy when inserting your floppy and then resetting the computer. If it still boots from hdd first, the boot priority of the hdd has been changed from the default value. You will then have to boot your floppy manually by executing the startup-sequence of the floppy, when you have the CLI window.

[Cihan]

It´s the same when I reset it.

But how can I manually execute the startup sequence in the CLi?
Which command do I need for that?

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Maybe boot off a Workbench 1.3 floppy and run SysInfo to see if the drive is even detected? IMHO you're really limited by 1.3, upgrade to 3.1 and you'll get a much better HDToolbox command, among other things. Might also update the ROM's in the 590, if you want to use larger drives with it, etc.

[doctorq]

You might be able to load workbench and see the hdd just by typing df0:c/loadwb.

Otherwise type

df0:c/execute df0:s/startup-sequence.

You might need to assign system folders first, like this

df0:c/assign c: df0:c

Do the same for libs and devs.

[Cihan]

I get an error:

Unable to load Sys:System/FastMemFirst: its not a valid DOS disk

I think it will access the hard drive and gets an error.

My next question is how to assign the root of a disk? I learned it to do with single Folders. But if I start the prepHD Prog it will access some Files in the root Path. But the file is on Disk.

[Matt_H]

Disable autoboot on the 590 for now. It sounds like the drive is formatted with a version of FFS that's not 1.3 compatible. Then boot from your regular Workbench disk, or preferably the 590 install disk. Then you can get into HDToolbox and see how the drive is configured.

[Cihan]

When I disable Autoboot on Dip switches HDtoolbox finds no Drive.

I was possible for me to boot into Workbench with the 590 Setup Disk.
In this way i can see the harddrive in hdtoolbox. But if i click on save nothing happens anymore. I can click on any button, nothing happens. Only a restart helps. The lowlevel format breaks after reading prep script is on screen.

[Matt_H]

When I disable Autoboot on Dip switches HDtoolbox finds no Drive.

I was possible for me to boot into Workbench with the 590 Setup Disk.
In this way i can see the harddrive in hdtoolbox.

This is all normal so far. With autoboot disabled the driver needs to loaded from disk - the setup disk takes care of this.

But if i click on save nothing happens anymore. I can click on any button, nothing happens. Only a restart helps. The lowlevel format breaks after reading prep script is on screen.

Before you click Save or lowlevel format or anything else, click on the drive itself in the upper listing. Is the partition drive button available? If so, click it. It will show you the current layout of the drive. If that's not an option, you may need to reinstall the RDB. Click install drive on the left side of the HDToolbox window, then define new, then read configuration. After that you should be able to partition the drive.

You shouldn't ever need to lowlevel format a drive - I think only very old hard drives needed that, and only then straight from the factory. Since this drive has already been used in an Amiga a simple partitioning and quick formatting should work.

[Cihan]

I will make later a video to show you what I mean.
It´s not so easy for me to explain you what happens.