Amiga 1200 No HDD or CF detected

TheCommodore · 17 October 2019, 17:25

I'm having trouble getting a HD or CF to work on the A1200.

No HDD gets detected.
The HDD does spin up, and upon boot the HDD light does flicker for a second. But neither in Workbench (via the install disk) or the boot menu (the one you get when clicking both mouse buttons upon boot) there is any sign of a HDD device.

Situation is
- I have 2 different working A1200s.
- 2 different IDE cable (standard A1200 cables)
- 2 2.5" HDD's (1gb and 512mb)
- CF + IDE adapter (with its own ide connector)

I have tried different A1200s, different IDE cables, different HDDs and even compact flash.
All result in the same... No HDD detected.

I had prepared the HDDs/CF in UAE to be bootable, but since none are even detected, that doesn't really seem relevant yet at this poin.

It feels like I missed some HDD enable jumper, but I could find none.
Any suggestions what the problem could be?

roondar · 17 October 2019, 17:33

IDE drives can have a master/slave jumper. I'm not 100% sure, but the A1200 might react like this if that jumper is set incorrectly.

The only other thing I can think of is that the drive is not set up correctly. Have you tried using HDToolbox on the A1200(s) to see if that detects the drive at all (should be on one of the WB 3.1 disks)?

Because that will detect unpartioned drives while the OS/installer might not.

Daedalus · 17 October 2019, 17:56

Yep, they'll only show up in the early startup menu if they're partitioned for the Amiga. But if you've set them up on WinUAE, then they're probably partitioned correctly. Have these A1200s previously worked? I found one A1200 that had 2 pins of Gayle that were never soldered down in the factory and prevented the hard drive from working while the rest of the machine worked just fine. Clearly Commodore never tested IDE functionality at the factory.

Master/slave jumpers depend on the drive itself - some set as slave will show up as unit 1, others won't show up at all so it's worth checking.

If HDToolbox isn't detecting it, first check that the correct device is specified (scsi.device). It might be worth trying something like FindDevice from the IDEFix package - it's able to scan any device drivers for devices, even if they're not supported.

17 October 2019, 17:25	#1
TheCommodore Registered User Join Date: Sep 2019 Location: Netherlands Posts: 1	Amiga 1200 No HDD or CF detected I'm having trouble getting a HD or CF to work on the A1200. No HDD gets detected. The HDD does spin up, and upon boot the HDD light does flicker for a second. But neither in Workbench (via the install disk) or the boot menu (the one you get when clicking both mouse buttons upon boot) there is any sign of a HDD device. Situation is - I have 2 different working A1200s. - 2 different IDE cable (standard A1200 cables) - 2 2.5" HDD's (1gb and 512mb) - CF + IDE adapter (with its own ide connector) I have tried different A1200s, different IDE cables, different HDDs and even compact flash. All result in the same... No HDD detected. I had prepared the HDDs/CF in UAE to be bootable, but since none are even detected, that doesn't really seem relevant yet at this poin. It feels like I missed some HDD enable jumper, but I could find none. Any suggestions what the problem could be?

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17 October 2019, 17:33	#2
roondar Registered User Join Date: Jul 2015 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 3,415	IDE drives can have a master/slave jumper. I'm not 100% sure, but the A1200 might react like this if that jumper is set incorrectly. The only other thing I can think of is that the drive is not set up correctly. Have you tried using HDToolbox on the A1200(s) to see if that detects the drive at all (should be on one of the WB 3.1 disks)? Because that will detect unpartioned drives while the OS/installer might not.

17 October 2019, 17:56	#3
Daedalus Registered User Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Dublin, then Glasgow Posts: 6,348	Yep, they'll only show up in the early startup menu if they're partitioned for the Amiga. But if you've set them up on WinUAE, then they're probably partitioned correctly. Have these A1200s previously worked? I found one A1200 that had 2 pins of Gayle that were never soldered down in the factory and prevented the hard drive from working while the rest of the machine worked just fine. Clearly Commodore never tested IDE functionality at the factory. Master/slave jumpers depend on the drive itself - some set as slave will show up as unit 1, others won't show up at all so it's worth checking. If HDToolbox isn't detecting it, first check that the correct device is specified (scsi.device). It might be worth trying something like FindDevice from the IDEFix package - it's able to scan any device drivers for devices, even if they're not supported.

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