How To Prepare for Hardware Crash?

I have an old 2000 that was forgotten in an attic for years but still works. The floppies for it can not be found. I want to be prepared for its hard drive to fail which I imagine it will soon. DPaintIV animations is what I want to use it for. But I have no backup DPaint floppy to reinstall the program if and when the hard drive fails.

What do I need to do to make my Amiga reliable? I want to replace the hard disk with a new one but without the basic system software I don't know how I would be able to format the disk and make it useable (assuming I can still find a reasonably new small size hard disk that is). I would very much appreciate any pointers anyone could give me on whether I can copy off the contents of the current working disk on to a new disk that I can use to replace the old one with. Is there some well known backup software that clones Amiga disks?

Can DPaintIV just be copied off the existing hard disk onto a floppy and reinstalled on a new hard disk?

What is the smart way to go about this? Is it to clone the existing hard disk? Is it to buy new system software disks from eBay?

In short how do I refurbish the old gal with system and dpaint software on a new hard disk or even on floppies without the original floppies (but having the software on the existing old hard disk)?

Thank you greatly

[zipper]

Copy DHx: DHy: all clone quiet - that's all needed on an Amiga.

[Hewitson]

It isn't actually, you'll need to install a bootblock on the drive with the Install command.

[Yoto]

I had the same problem with my A1200, 512 Mb HD.
I used WinUAE to recreate my WB 3.1 environment and plugged the drive to my PC.
I added the drive to WinUAE and transferred all the data in it to my virtual HDF disk in WinUAE.
With A2000 you will probably need a PC with a SCSI adaptor to backup your A2000 Hd in WinUAE.
I believe you can also use WinUAE to format a new SCSI Hardrive and transplant it back to Amiga.You will most likely need ADF image files of WB 2.0 to recreate your WB environment.

[davideo]

@idenr

Slightly off topic but if your 2000 has been in the attic for a while - I'd check that the battery hasn't leaked and even if it hasn't I'd think seriously about removing it unless you know for certain that it was replaced recently

Dave G

thank you again for your guidance.

i managed to attach an external hd in a scsi enclosure and reformat the disks. when it came time to do
"install qdh0:" to install the bootblock (the partition table from HDTools claims that this partition is bootable) the computer replied that the device is not the right type.

what do I not know?

if I ignore this install bootblock problem and go ahead and copy the full old hard disk to the newly formatted qdh0: will I be able to install it and boot the machine from it?

Would it be possible to mount the external drive (which are IDE ) in a USB enclosure to communicate with UAE running on a modern computer - then create a bootable volume using UAE on this external disk somehow (I don't know of course that how) - then remove the disk from the USB enclosure and strap it into the old 2000? Is this a big bother to create a bootable disk using UAE? Is this going the long way around uneccessarily, after all I don't need UAE otherwise.

[Yoto]

To: idenr

Would it be possible to mount the external drive (which are IDE ) in a USB enclosure to communicate with UAE running on a modern computer - then create a bootable volume using UAE on this external disk somehow (I don't know of course that how) - then remove the disk from the USB enclosure and strap it into the old 2000? Is this a big bother to create a bootable disk using UAE? Is this going the long way around uneccessarily, after all I don't need UAE otherwise.

I´ve never tested that option, but it may work...btw how big is your new HD? I´m only asking because your kickstart 1.3 may not support it.
(It happens with large IDE drives, not sure if its the same with large SCSI drives)
If you plan to use you A2000 on a daily basis you may consider upgrading your Kickstart to 3.1, as always Amigakit offers a second to none service.
Anyway here´s a link to a great post, it helped me install a 40GB Hitachi in a A1200, it explains in detail, and really helped me to have a general idea.
***http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?...hlight=20gb***
Although i would advice you to backup you original HD with UAE first, it will be like a test run with your USB enclosure.
Thus WinUAE can be used to test all the changes before you execute them in your real amiga, i use it as a Lab rat!

What about the message "object is not of required type" when trying "install qdh0:" ? It's an external scsi hard disk connected through the 2091 controller. What does it mean "is not of the required type"? Is this a symptom of a bad hard disk?

[OddbOd]

The Install command is only used on floppies, there is no boot block on a fixed disk. As long as the external hard disk is partitioned and formatted correctly then go right ahead and copy all the files over, swap the old drive out, and you should be sorted.

I hope it isn't a waste of too much bandwidth to proclaim you guys' greatness