SO MANY problems for a poor newbie!

[watcher]

Where do i start?

Basically, my A1200 has just arrived from ebay!
I have fitted a set of 3.1 ROMS and a Blizzard 68030 50Mhz accelerator with 32MB RAM. My problem is that i cant actually get any software onto it!!!! I only have workbench 3.0 so i ordered OS 3.9 but that is on CD and i havnt got any drivers for my PCMCIA CD-Rom! I cant get net access till i have put on OS 3.9, which i cant do without drivers (on the net!!). I have a Compact flash PCMCIA adaptor that doesnt work as the drivers for it are on the net!!! I have these all stored on my PC but no way of getting them to the Amiga! The floppy drive is incompatable, the cd doesnt work, and neither does the CF card! I cant even set up a network to transfer the files i need as the software is.....on the net!!!!!

 :-?

I also have a 2.5" hard drive but i dont have the Workbench HD disk to get it working

Also when i opened up the A1200 there's no where to put the HD! there's a space and 4 holes but they wont hold the drive! Am i missing some kind of mounting bracket?

Pleeeeeeaaaaaasssssssseeeee help me!!

[redrumloa]

Soo many questions, such little time:-)

Also when i opened up the A1200 there's no where to put the HD! there's a space and 4 holes but they wont hold the drive! Am i missing some kind of mounting bracket?

Sounds like it. There is supposed to be a hard drive brack to hold the 2.5 hard drive.

About the rest, do you have ANY Workbench floppys?

[cgutjahr]

watcher wrote:

The floppy drive is incompatable,

That's not correct. With the correct driver (which is part of the OS), the floppy can read and write PC-formatted DD disks. This will be your chance to move stuff from/to the PC until you get net access working.

I also have a 2.5" hard drive but i dont have the Workbench HD disk to get it working

Ouch. Do you have *no* Workbench disks at all, or is just the "install" disk missing?

If you have *some* Workbench disks, it is very easy to install the OS manually (we can tell you how to do this). What you need is the bootable disk just labeled "Workbench" and a tool called "HDToolBox" (can't remember on what disk this one resides).

If you don't have any (Workbench-/OS-) disks, you'll have to find somebody willing to send them to you. Without them, you're stuck.

Also when i opened up the A1200 there's no where to put the HD! there's a space and 4 holes but they wont hold the drive! Am i missing some kind of mounting bracket?

Yes. The mounting bracket is no real problem though, just wrap a lot of paper around the disk and tape it tightly to the motherboard, this should do the trick for now - welcome to the world of Amiga style upgrades The bigger problem might be the cable, I don't know if this is a standard cable or a custom job.

Call any dealer and ask for the cable, otherwise call your preferred Amiga dealer and ask for a "HD upgrade set" for your A1200.

[AccyD]

cgutjahr wrote:
With the correct driver (which is part of the OS), the floppy can read and write PC-formatted DD disks.

Don't forget, if in the short term you can't find any DD disks, use a HD one and cover the extra tab with a bit of sellotape. It's not a good idea for long-term storage but will work in the short-term to get the files transferred.

[watcher]

Thanks for all your reply's!
The WB disks i have are: Amiga Workbench, Locale, Storage, Amiga Extra's and Amiga Font's. Which is all of them but i thought the HD util's etc were on another floppy?!

And what is the name of the program that allows the amiga to use PC formatted disk's? But remember if it's on the net i can only get it through my PC which means the Amiga won't be able to read the disk to run the program to allow it to read the disk!!!!!! (so confusing when i read it back!)

Also is there a generic driver for my PCMCIA CD-ROM drive?

[edderkop]

And what is the name of the program that allows the amiga to use PC formatted disk's?

it's on storage and it is in devs somwhere and the name is PC0

if i remember corectly.
 :-)

[cecilia]

a much better driver for reading PC formated disks is fat95 on aminet:
http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/~aminet/disk/misc/fat95.lha

this lets you read long file names. i've used it for years. works great!

[redrumloa]

watcher wrote:
Thanks for all your reply's!
The WB disks i have are: Amiga Workbench, Locale, Storage, Amiga Extra's and Amiga Font's. Which is all of them but i thought the HD util's etc were on another floppy?!
 

Sounds like you are missing the "Install" floppy which has the hard drive utilities like HDTools:-(

[cgutjahr]

watcher wrote:

The WB disks i have are: Amiga Workbench, Locale, Storage, Amiga Extra's and Amiga Font's. Which is all of them but i thought the HD util's etc were on another floppy?!

Thinking about it, I'm afraid you're right. To make sure, check the "Workbench" disk for a tool called "HDToolbox".

And what is the name of the program that allows the amiga to use PC formatted disk's?

It's a driver, not a program. It should be located on your "Storage" disk. It's called (IIRC) "PC0", simply activate it by doubleclicking it. If you want to activate it permanently, copy the file "PC0" to the "DEVS" drawer on your Workbench disk - this drawer contains device drivers that shall be activated each time the machine boots.

From now on, whenever you have a disk in your floppy drive, there will not be just one but *two* icons: "DF0" and "PC0". If you insert an Amiga disk, doubleclick DF0 to access the disk. If you insert a PC disk, use PC0.

Now you can copy files to your Amiga (the driver is from 1992 and therefore only supports 8+3 filenames, but this is no real problem)!

You have two options now:

Ask somebody to send you a "zipped ADF image" of the "Workbench Install" disk. Download "ADFBlitzer" and UnZip from Aminet. Transfer all three files to your Amiga, use Unzip to depack the zipped ADF, use ADFBlitzer to write the ADF back to a disk. Now you have a complete set of workbench disks and can use the standard installation method. I can't help you with the "Workbench install" disk, as I don't have one here, but I'm pretty sure others will be able to help. This method will only work if a zipped ADF image of the install disk will fit onto a DD disk.

The other option would be that somebody supplies you with "HDToolbox" which is basically the only thing you really need from the install disk. You'll have to install manually then, but that's pretty straightforward.

Also is there a generic driver for my PCMCIA CD-ROM drive?

No. What type of PCMCIA CD-ROM is it?

Driver disks for "OverdriveCD", "Squirrel" and "SurfSquirrel" can be found at the Big Book of Amiga Hardware under "Drivers & Installation/SCSI". These are DMS disk images, so you'll need a tool to write DMS images back to disk. Check Aminet, there are probably several hundreds of those ;-)

[watcher]

God you guy's are life saver's!

Thanks for all your help!

[watcher]

ooohhh! It all worked a treat!

I also found this great program for formating 720K floppies when using Windows XP! (normally it will only let you format 1.44MB) here's the link!
http://www.softpile.com/Utilities/Disk_Utilities/Review_05155_index.html

[guest1955]

You can also use:
FORMAT A: /T:80 /N:9
in either the RUN command or Command Prompt to format a 720k disk in XP (Or indeed any version of Windows).

[watcher]

If this is a cheeky or illegal request then i apologise!
Could someone email me an NON-COMPRESSED IN ANY WAY program for unzipping *.lha files? As ALL the programs i find for unzipping things are all zipped!!! (there is a small problem there!)

Thanks!

[guest1955]

Heh, it's a bit of a catch 22. But the creators of LHA had the oversight to make their package executable.

http://uk.aminet.net/pub/aminet/util/arc/LhA.run
That's the link to LHA on Aminet.
Just run it from Workbench.

[leirbag28]

@watcher

Here is a simple solution to all your problems:

First...get WinUAE for your PC.........then download AIAB (Amiga IN A Box)  and install it into WinUAE...........its super easy...........Now take your A1200 harddrive and connect it to your PC.......Yes! thats right connect it in the IDE chain..........now from WinAUE add the hard drive to AIAB's configuration..................and whalla!! everything you download on your PC you can just drag and drop into your A1200's hard drive...............then once you've downloaded all and everything you wanted........put the drive back into your A1200 and you have all you need............you can always go back and connect it if you want to add more stuff............


Also you can back up your entire HD into WinUAE and if your A1200 HD gets messed up for some reason......yo have it backed up in WinUAE plus..........you can also burn your HD contents onto CD for safe keeping!