[bluegreengold]

I just got a complete toaster 4000 system, but it has issues. If there is anyone out there who can help guide me in the right direction to getting this machine back in action I would greatly appreciate it.

This is what I've been able to gather so far:

It has maxed out memory, a toaster 4000, a vector wavescope, and a oktagon 2008 scsi adapter with HD installed in the expansion bay. It has a 33 mHZ 040 chip. The battery is still in there, was a little corroded at the terminals but seems 'ok.'

There is no IDE harddrive. The floppy drive works, but may be kinda iffy.
The power supply works, but may be iffy.

The first time I tried to boot it, it said DF0 was not a DOS disk. I figured maybe the floppy is dusty so I aired it out and unplugged replugged the floppy connector. Tried again, with the workbench 3.0 install disk in. It successfully booted to Amigados, but not workbench.

I turn it off, and try to reboot, and this time I only get a gray screen. Wait a day, try to boot, goes to amigados again. I try booting with the two mouse buttons down to enter bios setup. I inspect the drives. It sees the octagon there so I try to set it as the boot disk. I click to do so, and the system seems to freeze. I should note that anytime I try to boot, the scsi drive makes it's normal noises, but that's about it. I was actually quite pleased that I was able to see the drive under the disk info. Not so pleased that I can't hold the 2 mouse buttons down and boot into the bios anymore. I don't understand why it worked once, but not again.

I wait. I reboot. This time it tells me there is a software error, and then it goes to the insert floppy graphic. I put in the workbench installer and it goes to amigados.

I try exploring the directories aimlessly, but that doesn't help. Turn it off. Now it just goes to the gray screen.

I try booting with what I believe is the scsi driver disk. Sometimes it boots, sometimes it doesn't it warns me that this boot disk should not be used for initial driver install, just the format tool. I say ok. It loads up workbench. However when I click on hard disk tool drawer it gives me a window where I must click ok, however the mouse does not seem to function.

I try rebooting with the mouse buttons down, it does not enter bios anymore like it had.

I suspect that the system was installed on the scsi drive, but that the drive is damaged. There is not IDE hard drive installed.

I have a lot of external scsi peripherals. I tried turning everything off, and connecting a scsi bay with a cd-rom and flyer 88. I put the controller board out to the in, and put a terminator on the out of the expansion bay. Still won't boot from the hard drive.

My concern is that I am facing numerous issues. One, the PS is old and I iwill replace it with a new athena 300W AT psu which should be a drop in replacement.

I'm concerned the floppy may be iffy. I have a lotharek floppy emulator on hand which I could use -- however, I will have to read up on that -- was intending on putting it in an atari st.

I also have a 120gb eide hard drive, but looking at the connector pins, I'm guessing that the IDE on the 4000 is too old for this drive.

Quite likely the cpu board isn't seated well. I'm going to take apart clean and put everything back together. I'm pretty sure the system is 'working' but it's being cranky -- and the HD with the os is probably damaged. This was in storage for quite a few years before I got my hands on it.

That's pretty much where I am at. Any assistance or encouragement. Especially links to how to do a clean install -- especially directly onto a scs ti drive (the drive disk suggests that maybe you are supposed to install workbench to an IDE drive first).

So if I am going to get some IDE drive -- what is the best modern practice for this. Can I install an IDE CF drive instead. How big a disk can the 4000 take? Any other tips? thanks