Plain A600 - want to install HD
 

Hi,

First post and visit to this excellent board because I just got an Amiga 600 today from a car boot sale for a fiver with a load of games and I am well pleased. I used to own an A500+ many moons ago and I wanted to get back into the Amiga scene particuarly after having used WinUAE on the PC recently.

Right - I have scanned posts and other sites I am not sure where to start on installing a HD on the A600. The A600 I have has Kickstart 37.300. Can you help me find the right info/FAQs on this?

I remember from reading Amiga Format years ago that I might need a caddy and the a600 takes a 2.5" drive.

What capacity drive can I pop in and what else do I need?

Basically I would like to know where to start,

Thanks

You can use harddisks up to 4gb capacity, and if you also think about connecting a cd-rom you should consider to buy a new power supply.

The 600 will take standard laptop 2.5" IDE hard drives to a maximum capacity of 4GB. Partitions can be a maximum of 2GB. Your revision of Kickstart doesn't have any problems with drives of this capacity (previous versions of the Workbench 2.x Kickstart did have problems).

The drive caddy is already inside the 600's case. To install the hard drive:

- Carefully remove the lid, without pulling out the keyboard/LED cables;
- Lift up the keyboard;
- Pull the hard drive caddy out from the motherboard;
- Connect a 2.5" IDE cable to the hard drive;
- Push the caddy back into the correct holes in the motherboard;
- Connect the IDE cable to the motherboard (the connector is to the immediate left of the hard drive, when looking at the computer from the front).

Getting the hard drive partitioned and formatted is more difficult if you haven't got an Install disk (supplied with HDD versions of Workbench).

So, you will need:

- Half an hour;
- A Phillips screwdriver;
- A short 2.5" (44-pin) IDE cable;
- A <4GB 2.5" IDE hard drive.

To get the disk partitioned, you will need:

- HDToolBox (from the Install disk), or
- HDInstTools (from the Aminet, http://de.aminet.net/aminet ) and some way of getting it from the PC to the Amiga (serial cable).
- Workbench 2.x (either 2.04, 2.05 or 2.1 - any will work without a ROM upgrade).

If you decide to add a CD-ROM (as mentioned above), you'll probably need a RAM upgrade. You'll certainly need a buffered IDE interface, which attaches to the motherboard IDE interface and provides an extra two 3.5" IDE ports.

Thank you both for the responses, it is greatly appreciated:

Can the IDE cable just be a standard PC one? (But short)

I have only the Workbench disks (v2.05) Fonts, Workbench and Extras with the A600, so I will have to use the HDInstTools from Aminet.

Getting this onto the Amiga as you say wil require a serial cable - I take it I can do this using the Workbench tools and disks I already have at my disposal, i.e I won't need any more software on the amiga side to connect to the PC?

You are right about the power issues - very similar to a PC needing more juice with the more you connect to it. I think for the time being I will only have the HD installed for now.

Now I must find a HD suitable for the job!

Thanks I will let you know how I get on!

Not quite ;) The 2,5" HDs got 44 pins (Power is also supplied by the IDE cable) .... a standart PeCe IDE cable got only 40 Pins :)

Yes, your right I need to locate a specific type IDE cable - I just discovered this on ebay whilst away from this board!

Other than ebay which have no such cables as I can see at the moment where can I get an Amiga compatible cable online?

Thanks RetroMan

Here you can buy a new cable in the UK -> http://www.amigadeals.co.uk/ :)

Das war toll, Danke!

I ordered a cable from the website you recommended, when I get the hard drive and serial cable I will let you all know how I got on - thanks everyone!