A3000 Won't Boot from Hard Disk

Hi everyone,

My name is Colin and I have recently inherited a large collection of Amiga computers and paraphernalia. I enjoy working with computers and electronics, and I have heard a lot about the Amiga but haven't had a chance to use one until now.

The most interesting item I received is an A3000, with a Mercury 68040 accelerator, two floppy drives, two hard disks, and a bunch of expansion cards.

When I first plugged in the computer and turned it on, it would go through continuous a cycle of gray, black, then yellow screen. I then took it apart and discovered that the jumper on the accelerator was set to use the 030 processor. When I set it to use the 68040, the Amiga simply displayed a black screen when I turned it on.

After this, I removed all the expansion cards from the daughterboard and the accelerator.
Now, if I use the early boot menu, I can boot the Amiga from a floppy disk, and look around at the files on the boot hard disk. I used the hard drive checker tool, and it appears that all of the data on the drive is intact.

However, if I just let the computer boot on its own, or I use the early boot menu to select the hard disk, the computer starts to boot and then displays a black error screen with red letters that says "Software error, press left mouse button to continue". The error code is always 8000 000x (the x seems to vary). I press the mouse button and the computer boots to a black screen. If I press the caps lock button more than 10 times, the caps lock light stops responding. I understand this means that the CPU is locked up.

I would greatly appreciate any ideas for how to boot from the hard disk, or get the accelerator working again. Any relevant information would be useful. I've done a lot of google-ing, but I can't seem to find any solutions for my exact problem.

[thomas]

Can you boot from the early startup menu without startup-sequence? Depending on Kickstart version you either click on "boot without startup-sequence" (Kick 3.x) or advanced options + disable startup-sequence (Kick 2.x).

Which version is it?

It works! It boots to an amigaDos screen.
Thanks, I didn't even realize that was possible. The roms say version 2.04.
So now that I know the problem is somewhere in the startup sequence, is there a good way to narrow down the source of the problem?

[thomas]

You could enter these commands at the DOS prompt:

set echo on
execute s:startuup-sequence

Then it will print every command it executes. Perhaps you can see which command causes the software error.

In order to reduce the system to the very basics you could

rename s:user-startup s:user-startup.disabed
rename sys:wbstartup sys:wbstartup.disabled
rename libs:68040.library libs:68040.library.disabled

so that they can no longer be found.

And

rename devs:dosdrivers/#? sys:storage/dosdrivers
rename devs:monitors/#? sys:storage/monitors

(Before you do that check if the Storage directory exists. If the installed Workbench is less than 2.1, it might not be there or have a different name.)

Thanks!

I was able to narrow it down to the "Setpatch" command. For some reason, the startup sequence runs setpatch twice. I commented out both instances, and it boots successfully.

If I run setpatch while the computer is already on, it crashes and reboots. So it seems clear that there's something wrong with it.

The floppy for the Mercury 040 board says that it has a copy of "setpatch" on it, but I can't find it if I click on the floppy icon in workbench and look through all the folders on it. Is there any way that it could be hidden and not visible from the amiga's file explorer?

[thomas]

Since the very beginning Workbench only showed icons (.info files). It was never meant to be a file explorer. Hence the majority of files and directories will never be shown in Workbench windows.

In Kick 2.x they added a menu option, though, which makes those hidden files visible. Just select Window -> Show -> All files from the menu. You might have to repeat this for every window. To keep the setting, select Window -> Snapshot -> Window from the menu. You have to repeat this for every window, too.

That makes sense. I appreciate the explanation.

I tried using the version of Setpatch that was on the Mercury disk, and also replaced the version of 68040.lib because I heard that it could cause issues. However, running setpatch still crashes the computer, and I can't get the Mercury accelerator to work. I've tried reseating all the chips, but it doesn't seem to be a simple contact error.

Any last things I could try?

Edit: I just came across something interesting. With the accelerator in, the system boots to a black screen when the 040 jumper is selected, and to a repeating gray, yellow screen when the 030 jumper is selected. Without the hard drive installed, it does the same repeating gray, yellow sequence with the processor select jumper in either position.

[mech]

Originally Posted by fizzit

That makes sense. I appreciate the explanation.

I tried using the version of Setpatch that was on the Mercury disk, and also replaced the version of 68040.lib because I heard that it could cause issues. However, running setpatch still crashes the computer, and I can't get the Mercury accelerator to work. I've tried reseating all the chips, but it doesn't seem to be a simple contact error.

Any last things I could try?

Edit: I just came across something interesting. With the accelerator in, the system boots to a black screen when the 040 jumper is selected, and to a repeating gray, yellow screen when the 030 jumper is selected. Without the hard drive installed, it does the same repeating gray, yellow sequence with the processor select jumper in either position.

Check the motherboard jumpers, the clock jumpers may be set incorrectly causing this to happen.
Make sure the accelerator is seated in the fast slot completely. some A3000's came with standoffs that were too long and would not let the accelerator seat.