Help needed with GVP A500 impact series II hd+

[h4tt3n]

Hello folks,

I just received a GVP impact series II hd8+ hard disk with 2 MB ram expansion and psu for my Amiga 500, but I can't get it working. I'm hoping someone here might help me along. I have an A1200 with CF reader for disk image transfer.

This is what happens:

When turned on in autoboot mode there's just a white screen, nothing happens.
When turned on in game mode, the amiga starts up as usual, asking for a floppy.
When loading wb 1.3 the hdd doesn't show up on the desktop, but the 2 MB ram works just fine.

I've burned two different versions of the GVP install disk to floppy and run the installation programs on them, but the hdd either doesn't show up on the drives list or I get the error message "Can't open gvpscsi.decive EPROM in ?, Autobooting enabled?, Binddrivers?".

Also, I'd like to mention that the fan makes a hellish loud noise when running, as if it were broken.

I'm a bit frustrated and disappointed about this, since I've been looking forward to messing around with it during the holidays. Could you please tell me what the next step would be? Should I return it to seller and ask for a refund?

Cheers & merry Christmas,
Mike

[alexh]

I would bet money the hard disk inside is broken. Do you have a spare 50-pin SCSI disk drive?

Disconnect the power and take the unit apart (it is just screws). It is very solidly made and you won't break anything.

Take a look at the connection to the hard drive, the data cable and power. Maybe disconnect and reconnect them.

If you remove the hard drive from the unit and connect power from somewhere you should be able to hear the drive spin up and initialise, Give it a wobble and you should be able to feel for the gyroscopic effect which would indicate the hard disc inside is spinning. If it is not spinning then you will need a new drive for sure.

[h4tt3n]

I don't have a spare SCSI drive. I have opened the case, removed and re-inserted the cables, and very carefully pulled out the ROM and pushed it back in to make sure connection is good. The drive spins up when switched on. Still nothing works.

[ptyerman]

You need to find out if the drive is working before anything else, just because it spins up doesn’t necessarily mean it will be recognized. Either take it out and connect it to another SCSI peripheral or PC SCSI card and see if it shows up, or swap it out for a known good drive, they are cheap enough to pick up. At least you will know then if its the drive or the controller.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by h4tt3n

Hello folks,

I just received a GVP impact series II hd8+ hard disk with 2 MB ram expansion and psu for my Amiga 500, but I can't get it working. I'm hoping someone here might help me along. I have an A1200 with CF reader for disk image transfer.

This is what happens:

When turned on in autoboot mode there's just a white screen, nothing happens.
When turned on in game mode, the amiga starts up as usual, asking for a floppy.
When loading wb 1.3 the hdd doesn't show up on the desktop, but the 2 MB ram works just fine.

I've burned two different versions of the GVP install disk to floppy and run the installation programs on them, but the hdd either doesn't show up on the drives list or I get the error message "Can't open gvpscsi.decive EPROM in ?, Autobooting enabled?, Binddrivers?".

Also, I'd like to mention that the fan makes a hellish loud noise when running, as if it were broken.

I'm a bit frustrated and disappointed about this, since I've been looking forward to messing around with it during the holidays. Could you please tell me what the next step would be? Should I return it to seller and ask for a refund?

Cheers & merry Christmas,
Mike

I have such a hard drive for A500. I use autoboot to boot on HD.

Mmmhh do you have an eprom burner to check if the eprom is fine ?

And AlexH is surely right, the hard disk is mostly the culprit in this case.

This hardware needs testing......

[h4tt3n]

Sadly I don't have any other SCSI devices or PC SCSI cards. I also don't have any other SCSI drives or an EPROM burner, so at this moment I can't check the hardware any further.

[alexh]

What happens without the disk drive data cable connected and the switch in the Autoboot position? Still white screen & no floppy disk activity? Leave it for 5 minutes? Still white screen & no floppy disk activity?

[h4tt3n]

I'll try it out.

[mark_k]

Also, with game mode on, put the GVPSCSI driver in SYS:Expansion. (It gets loaded by the BindDrivers command in your startup-sequence.)

After rebooting, does FaastPrep/HDToolBox detect the drive?

[h4tt3n]

Originally Posted by alexh

What happens without the disk drive data cable connected and the switch in the Autoboot position? Still white screen & no floppy disk activity? Leave it for 5 minutes? Still white screen & no floppy disk activity?

I tried it, nothing happens.

[h4tt3n]

Originally Posted by mark_k

Also, with game mode on, put the GVPSCSI driver in SYS:Expansion. (It gets loaded by the BindDrivers command in your startup-sequence.)

After rebooting, does FaastPrep/HDToolBox detect the drive?

I tried it, nothing bloody works! Man I hate throwing money out the window :-(

Only software option left is HDToolBox, which I can't seem to find for wb 1.3. I have it on my os 2.1 and 3.1 floppies, but the a500 can't read them...

[Viserion]

Did have the same problem you have when I got mine.

Don't exactly remember how I got it working, but will try to post anything I remember.

What I did was download Hdinsttool from aminet, and copy it over to a floppy.

Boot wb1.3, and insert Hdinsttool.

If unable to boot from floppy, press both mouse buttons when booting/rebboting the Amiga and choose floppy to boot from.


Right click on the Hdinsttoolbox icon, and under information, and comment out the ';' sign, and change it to gvpscsi.device(or omniscsi.device if you have the Gururom upgrade).

2xclick on it, and it should search the bus for your hdd.

[h4tt3n]

Thank you for the advice. I've tried this too, but it doesn't find any devices. As of this point I won't try any more software solutions. A friend has offered to look at it and possibly replace rom and drive. Thank you everyone for your help and advice!

Cheers & Merry Christmas,
Michael