Extracting data off GVP Impact series 2 SCSI hard drive

[Codetapper]

I used to have an A500 as my primary Amiga and bought a GVP Impact Series 2 HD with 2Mb RAM. It worked beautifully for several years until I upgraded to an A1200.

I decided to try booting up the A500 today to see what was stored on the HD, as it's likely a snapshot of 20+ years ago. Sadly, the Amiga doesn't want to boot from it. When it's turned on, it does all the usual clicks and beeps (owners will know the sound!), then I can hear the HD spin up, and then the A500 sits and displays the kickstart 1.3 screen. Where you normally see the yellow HD light on the unit flash, it does nothing.

I can't tell if the expansion controller on the A500 is stuffed, or the GVP unit itself is faulty, or the hard drive itself. At that point is where you expect to hear the drive booting with it's usual noises. None of that occurs when plugged in to the A500.

I thought I would just hook it up to my current Amiga but realised the old HD is one of those annoying 50 pin SCSI ones, so the 40 pin IDE cable in my Amiga won't work.

I don't want to spend a fortune to see what's on the drive, but is there any easy thing I can try to mount the HD somehow and see if anything on it is salvageable?

[Arnie]

Try booting from a A590/A2091 or the GVP boot disk. It might mount the drive or a least show in HDtoolbox.

Edit: I have a SCSI card in my Desktop PC. Cost me about £15. It has a 50 pin header for SCSI drives and you can add the drive using WinUAE.

[Hewitson]

I'd buy a PCI SCSI controller from ebay. Should be able to get one for $5-$10.