Amiga 2000 owner from Vermont --

[vtamiga]

Hi, I just found this site after hauling my old Amiga 2000 down from the attic. I used this computer for many years at the end the nineties. I was just feeling nostalgic about it. Plus I'd like to get some of my old writing back.

Unfortunately the hard disk seems dead and beyond repair, and I no longer have a monitor for the 2000, so I can't really do anything useful. It powers up, and I believe from the sounds it's looking for a boot floppy to be inserted. It has two floppy drives. One seems to be a regular one, the other, reading the label, is an Amtrade brand A357/Sony drive.


I do have a bunch of old floppies which may have been used to back the data on the hard drive up. I hope I can back up the data from them as a start. So my first question i have, is there a way I can get the data off of the floppies to preserve what's left, using one of my PC's? I don't suppose I could connect one to the Amtrade drive....

Well, in any case, thanks to you all for being here on this forum, I'm glad to see so much interest for these old Amigas presently. I think it was probably my favorite computer of all time.

And of course, any help would be appreciated.

ps. I use Puppy Linux, these days as my main OS driver. I can dual boot to Win 7 or 11 if required, but 99% of the time I use Lin..

 

[vtamiga]

I've ordered a Greaseweazle board, and just set up FS-UAE emulator on my Puppy Linux computer. I'm hoping to be able to salvage data off of my old Amiga floppies.

I did take the hard drive out of my Amiga 2000 as a last ditch effort to salvage it DIY. It hadn't even spun up when tried before, so I opened the cover and warranty warning tape, and carefully rotated the platters with a screwdriver in the hub, and gently moved the head arm. Then re-assembeled. When powered up the disk spun up and I could hear the head move one click. But that was it.

Removing the cover again, and trying under power, the disk spun up AND the head started seeking. The difference turned out to be a result of light getting into the case. Apparently the head position in this drive (Quantum) was determined by a optical encoder, and, I believe that the light source of the reader no longer works. But with the case open, light passed through the encoder strip, and the drive became more active.

Unfortunately, the seeking with the cover off wasn't sufficient to properly initialize the drive, so I've given up on recovering the HD. But, to me, it was worth a try, since the drive was toast already (and frozen), and it was quite educational to see exactly how this one works.

My other problem is obtaining a kickstart ROM image, since my monitor and keyboard are long dead, and gone. True $40 I can buy  a copy protected new one, but since I already own my A2000, that bothers me. For the present I'll just try to make do with UAE, and the included emulated 1.3 ROM image to try to get my data off of the floppies when the Greaseweazle board gets here.

Thanks again for this forum resource. Glad to have joined.