**Need Setup HELP** with Classic Amiga 2000 HARD DISK (Bridgeboard)

[wbrejnia]

NOPE, the cable is good even with the punchthru.
 
 I tested each line with an ohm meter from One-Far-End to the Other.

[darkage]

don't think it should be an issue.   Ive use to run a few cables where I move the connectors to different positions and still had puncher marks in it.    The connector pins that go into the ribbon cable are V shaped, the pin more hugs the bare wire inside the ribbon cable instead of going thru the middle.  So I don't think electrical connectivity would have been broken.     Doesn't hurt to go thru all the pins with a multimeter.  

Picture of pins on IDC connector http://rarecomponents.com/store/1282

Edit - Whats the model of 486 motherboard and I/O card that your using..   best to look up info online.    

this seems cool 5.25 floppy to usb adapter -  http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/2503

[wbrejnia]

I AM ABOUT TO GIVE UP, unless I come up with something new.

If I can't create a 5.25" disk for the Amiga Bridgeboard PC 5.25" Disk then I can't possibly get the Amiga PC to pick up the Hard Drive.

Creating a restored Workbench Disk is a waste of time since the plain old Bridgeboard PC WORKS. The DJMount works but nothing to mount since PC doesn't pick up the Hard drive thru the WD Contoller Card.

The whole GOAL OF THIS THREAD was to get a Peek at that HARD DRIVE.

I might as well just remove the Controller Card, and the Hard Drive. Put both in my Spare Part shelf. Can't be sold as working since I have not proven that.

Maybe some day build up the Amiga for some reason. But I doubt it.
I can't see what purpose I have for the Amiga other than to see the old games I played. Those work and I can get/burn more onto ADF floppies if the need ever arises via Amiga Explorer.

If I want a faster Amiga, I'm sure there are Emulators, or Better Solutions that this A2000.

Might be time to clean it up and sell my Whole Amiga "Lot of Stuff" for some Fish Tank Gear.

Not sure what it's worth, but the Amiga Monitor itself might make the sale more valuable.

Thanks for everyone's help. It was frustrating and yet fun.
 
 The FUNNY PART of this EXPERIENCE is I've bought SSD drive for every computer in this Family to have them boot Windows in 2 seconds.
 Over last two days, I watch 3 computer boot 50 times.  Each time for Minutes.  That was very painful.  Many times I left to do other things

Nice to have met all of you, and greatly appreciated everyone's help.

Wally B.

[wbrejnia]

HANG ON (Not giving up). One last IDEA.

I'm killing myself to get that 5.25" floppy working on the 486 so that I can boot my Bridgeboard PC on the 5.25" floppy drive in the bridgeboard.

My issue is a 5.25" disk, but does is have to be that.

I have all kind of cardf in that 486 Machine and 3.5" floppy drives galore.

Is there a Card I can plug into the Bridgeboard side Bus to get a 3.5" floppy working on the Amiga PC? If I can, then I can make a 3.5" DOS boot disk and do my last attempt to get the HARD Drive recognized by DOS.  (I'll list the card I have, but what kind of SLot Connector technology is on that PC side of the amiga?)

Is there a way? I notice some of the cards in the 486 go into long slots, but only use a portion of those slots. So maybe they will fit into the AMIGA and work.

[wbrejnia]

I just thought about what I wrote above.

It's a Chicken before the Egg thing.

I can't make a 3.5" disk to boot on the Amiga PC Side, because I would need to boot off that 3.5" DOS disk to load the driver, to recognize the card, to boot off that floppy to recognize that other Controller to get access to the Hard Disk I want to see.

But maybe there is something along that line that you guys can think of.

[paul1981]

I just thought about what I wrote above.

It's a Chicken before the Egg thing.

I can't make a 3.5" disk to boot on the Amiga PC Side, because I would need to boot off that 3.5" DOS disk to load the driver, to recognize the card, to boot off that floppy to recognize that other Controller to get access to the Hard Disk I want to see.

But maybe there is something along that line that you guys can think of.

It's all very painful when you don't have a hard disk in your Amiga. When they boot to Workbench in a few seconds it just makes any Amiga complete, it's a transformatiom. like an entirely new computer. Should you decide to keep the 2000, I'd certainly pickup a A2091 controller or one of those GVP ones with FastRAM too.

WinUAE can now emulate bridgeboards too. Would that help any? If you attach the controller card to your 486 with drive attached would that not enable you to read the drive? I'm not very experienced with DOS, but isn't there a driver on the card firmware or  I a few years ahead? If not, there has to be a driver out there somewhere.

Apologies if I'm saying things that have already been said. Did you get any further with making that Amiga disk to replace the damaged one? Have you considered imaging the disk for us and sending it to one of us so that they may reconstruct your disk?

[wbrejnia]

WinUAE can now emulate bridgeboards too. Would that help any? If you attach the controller card to your 486 with drive attached would that not enable you to read the drive? I'm not very experienced with DOS, but isn't there a driver on the card firmware or I a few years ahead? If not, there has to be a driver out there somewhere.

Paul1981, I'll comment on your other points later, but you sparked a interesting point.

I just got a reply from a Parts Seller that the WD Controller card doesn't have any Drivers (or at least they don't have them). So it must be recognized EITHER TRU DOS, or THRU BIO.

So as you suggest, if that CARD fit into the 486 Standalone Computer, along with the OLD Octagon Hard Drive. It might get picked up, and my mission accomplished. (In the past I did try the Hard Drive Alone with an IDE cable, but wasn't aware it wasn't an IDE Drive).

First I need to detail all the connections on the 486 to be able to put it back together. This is risky on the 486, since it may never work once put back together. Oh well, it's dying anyway, and no use to me.

Before I begin, I'll post a photo of Controller Card, and the Slots in the 486 to confirm this will work.

[Pat the Cat]

Hang on a minute... that 5.25 inchh floppy you are booting Amiga from?

Why are you expecting it to work in PC too? I thought Amiga / PC floppies incompatible. Hack to change one into the other. That might be why does not work in 486 - is not a PC floppy drive. It's an Amiga floppy drive?

You cannot set an XT to have an HD in BIOS. FDISK will not see drive if driver not installed. Check links posted already. It's only 16K BIOS anyway.

I never knew BB shipped with GW Basic. License goes with HW, I think. If you got had 286BB and upgraded it to 486, you could have both Amiga and PC in same box. Less space. And there are drivers for controller, in DOS. You usually have to register somewhere to get them, because they are part of MS product, you see. A very ancient one. Not unrestricted free for DL, usually.

[wbrejnia]

Hang on a minute... that 5.25 inchh floppy you are booting Amiga from?

Why are you expecting it to work in PC too? I thought Amiga / PC floppies incompatible. Hack to change one into the other. That might be why does not work in 486 - is not a PC floppy drive. It's an Amiga floppy drive?

You cannot set an XT to have an HD in BIOS. FDISK will not see drive if driver not installed. Check links posted already. It's only 16K BIOS anyway.

I never knew BB shipped with GW Basic. License goes with HW, I think. If you got had 286BB and upgraded it to 486, you could have both Amiga and PC in same box. Less space. And there are drivers for controller, in DOS. You usually have to register somewhere to get them, because they are part of MS product, you see. A very ancient one. Not unrestricted free for DL, usually.

I'm lost with your comments above.

The 5.25" DISK in my Amiga is for the AMiga PC.
I dont' boot the Amiga from it. Amiga boots from 3.5" Workbench disk.
I put in 5.25" DOS disk into Amiga (Which is PC Bridgeboard) and the 8088 PC boots inside of an Amiga Window.

The 486 is just a separate machine to try an get drivers onto 5.25" disk to use in the Amiga PC.
 
 My recent idea is to reverse things.  And get the 486 Standalone PC, to recognize the WD Hard Drive Controller, and thus have access to that Hard Drive (Assumption is Hard drive has a DOS Partition, not an Amiga Partition)

[Pat the Cat]

OK. Bridgeboard had own floppy connector, for floppy PC drive.

I thought you were booting Amiga from 5.25 connected to Amiga floppy connector. Which did not make sense if you tried same drive in PC - PC do not like floppy drives that Amiga connects with. In those days, Mac, PC, Amiga, Atari, all drives were incompatible at floppy 5.25 inch. Also 3.5 inch, I think. Everything OS could read a disk in PC format, with a little tweaking. But you could not just swap drives, and some formats were alien (Amigas could not read Mac floppies without a real Mac floppy drive without big development, do not know if ever reliable). PCs used DOS, DR DOS, others were foreign.

[wbrejnia]

Just to be clear.
 
 That 5.25" DOS Flooppy DISK was actually made on the 486 a couple of year ago.  I made two.
 
 I need that DOS boot disk to boot the Amiga Bridgeboard PC to confirm Bridgeboard 8088 PC works.
 
 A) All I wanted to do this time is add some drivers to that 5.25" disk to boot the Amiga PC possibly with a driver to wake up the WD Hard Drive Controller.
 
 B) Another plan was to make at 5.25" version of 3.5" Western Digital Floppy and run that on Amiga PC.
 
 Plan (A) & (B) Failed, when the 846 5.25" Disk didn't work this time (B: Drive)

[wbrejnia]

OK. Bridgeboard had own floppy connector, for floppy PC drive.

I thought you were booting Amiga from 5.25 connected to Amiga floppy connector. Which did not make sense if you tried same drive in PC - PC do not like floppy drives that Amiga connects with.

Yes, bridgeboard is directly connected to 5.25" Floppy drive that is how that PC boots.

[wbrejnia]

THIS MIGHT BE A CLUE (on How my setup Ran on Amiga PC Side)

Here is something, I never paid attention to.

There is a 2nd card on the Amiga PC Side.
It might shed light on how my PC setup ran.
It's an RS232 Parrallel Port Card, which I probably had hooked up to a dot matrix printer for my University work. I remember I never had a PC at the time, and my Amiga PC was my work center for MATLAB.

Here is where the cards are.



Here is the RS232 card. (I pulled it out)

 
 Back side of card for Numbers
 
 
 

If I understand what it takes to make that RS232 card work, it might help to understand how to get the WD Hard Drive Card to work.

Would an RS232 card like that need drivers in DOS side of Amiga PC?

[wbrejnia]

JUST THINKING OUT LOUD HERE.

Is it possible that things worked like this.

1) The HDD controller and the RS2323 didn't need drivers.
2) There is no need for a 5.25" DOS Floppy to boot the AMIGA PC
3) The PC Side simply enabled the WD HARD Driver Controller
- That Activated the Octagan Hard driver in Auto Boot
- The PC booted off the Hard Drive in DOS Partition.

Maybe I need to put back the original Kickstart 1.2 ROM and try again. (With a rebuilt Workbench Disk from the partially readable one I have)

What I describe above is how the 486 PC boots.

[Pat the Cat]

XTs need drivers for everything except basic graphics, keyboard, floppy, clock. Some will mount cards automatically from ROM on the card if the BIOS supports it, but rare with XT and 8 bit ISA gear. Wasn't a "standard" way to do that, IIRC. Stone Age, really.

The A2000 is not that dissimilar, but at least it has a 16 bit autoconfig bus. The Amiga was always nice graphics with a slow processor nailed to it, really. You had to fit more processor power, but at least you could. CPU cards came much later on the PC. ATs were nice, but they were never Amigas.

Anyway, you got all the resources out there, just consult them and think about cracking the data out, whatever it was. I'm guessing it's student stuff, which can turn out surprisingly useful later in life.

[wbrejnia]

XTs need drivers for everything except basic graphics, keyboard, floppy, clock. Some will mount cards automatically from ROM on the card if the BIOS supports it, but rare with XT and 8 bit ISA gear. Wasn't a "standard" way to do that, IIRC. Stone Age, really.

The A2000 is not that dissimilar, but at least it has a 16 bit autoconfig bus. The Amiga was always nice graphics with a slow processor nailed to it, really. You had to fit more processor power, but at least you could. CPU cards came much later on the PC. ATs were nice, but they were never Amigas.

Anyway, you got all the resources out there, just consult them and think about cracking the data out, whatever it was. I'm guessing it's student stuff, which can turn out surprisingly useful later in life.

 Thanks for that clarification.  No point wasting time on what won't work.  DRIVERS NEEDED (don't have them).
 
 You mention that some cards will automount from ROM.  What caught my attention on the documentation I found, is the WD HD card does have an Embedded format tool that can be accessed from DOS in some kind of Debug command.  But who knows what that means.
 
 I will take one last look at that workbench disk just in case there is a clue, but can't see anything special being there.  It's boot the Bridgeboard PC fine. What else could it do without access to the HD on the PC side.
 
 Anyway to save me time on Limitation of Amiga Tools. If I remember correctly there is a way to access a 3.5" Amiga Floppy from a Windows PC. (Correct?).
 
 Amiga Explorer is one way. Correct?
 
 Another tool I noticed on my Explorer computer is ADFread.
 
 I need to read back on this thread since there was mention of other tools for scanning and stripping/recovering corrupt disks.