trying to get an Amiga 500 running
 

Hi there everyone, I'm new to this website altogether. I thought I might be able to get some help here. I recently bought a Commodore Amiga 500 at a local thrift store. I'm having issues with it though. The machine will power up and recognize a disk if I put one in, but all I ever get on the monitor is either a blank white screen or a picture of a hand holding a disk. Do I need to install the OS or something? Or could the hardware just be bad? There isn't any kind of boot disk in the box the machine came in. If anyone could give me any tips on getting this machine running, or where to get an Amiga OS download, that'd be great. Thanks so much.

An Amiga with no HDD can only run with floppies.

The hand image is reffered to as the Kickstart (BIOS) screen. Once you get this, you have to insert a bootable Amiga floppy disk.
It will then boot that floppy disk. If your getting the Kickstart screen after inserting an Amiga type floppy, then either the disk or Floppy Drive is at fault.

To install the OS, you would need a HDD (and Workbench), which would normally plug into the side Zorro expansion slot like the A590 (20MB HDD).

Have you tried to load an actual Amiga game disk?

The white screen with the hand is a good sign...

Please don't refer it to as the BIOS screen, because the Amiga has no BIOS. Saves confusion.

The OS is running when you see the insert disk screen.

Hmmmmm, dont see how that can be confused.
Better than having him as what the kickstart was.

Plus you took it completely out of context. I didnt say "BIOS SCREEN", I said "Kickstart (BIOS) Screen".