Is my Amiga 1200 hard drive dead?

[Soulshaker]

I recently re-acquired my old Amiga 1200 and set it back up again. Apparently, I've forgotten everything about Amiga boot-ups and Workbench and whatnot because my HD-equipped 1200 just went straight to the Insert Floppy screen instead of booting off the hard drive. I sat there, utterly dumbfounded. At some point over the course of the next few reboots, I somehow jostled the power cable and the Amiga reset itself. Suddenly, I noticed the hard drive light come on but the screen stayed blank. The light slowly flashed but nothing was loading.

I figured out how to soft reset the computer and made several attempts to hard reset then soft reset the computer to give the hard drive a chance to boot but every time, the Amiga would go right to the Insert Floppy screen after about 10 seconds. I observed no HD light go on at all and heard a faint series of clicking noises, which I'm assuming was the hard drive.

Please tell me my HD hasn't gone bad - the computer ran fine when I used it briefly about two years ago. I haven't really used it other than that time over the past 10-11 years. Do I just need to reformat it?

Thanks for reading. If anyone has any insight into this issue, your help is greatly appreciated.

[Galaxy]

The mechanism is probably a bit sticky from not being used.

You might need to try switching on and off a few times and doing some warm boots.
I bought a second hand A1200 recently which had similar problems - the disk did not spin up initially - but after a few reboots (both cold and warm) the disk spun up and is working ok now.

Of course if you just have a stock standard 40MB drive you might want to consider upgrading to a second hand laptop drive of higher capacity which would be much more usable.

[Soulshaker]

Thanks for the reply, Galaxy. I'm actually trying that now and here's what happened - the drive light is on, I hear the clicking, but it's stuck at a blank screen again. Do I need to keep trying this? How long did it take you before yours worked? I've already tried the resets probably 10-15 times over the past hour with no success.

Also, should the HD show up in the 'bootable devices' list in the BIOS menu? All I see are DF0: and the card slot.

On the subject of the hard disk upgrade, I actually have an 80mb in there, to the best of my knowledge, and that's okay for now, at least until I back up all the stuff I had on there from years ago.

[icewizard2k5]

maybe open it and re-insert all the plugs?

I've got an A1200 with an 80MB HDD and every so often I get it down and try it out. I don't get a clicking noise but it does take a while for the miggy to realise it's got a hard-drive installed. I've found that switching it off and twiddling with the IDE connector cable seems to help sometimes (my connector cable is very short and is very squashed in which I think causes it to come slightly detached from the motherboard)

Hope this helps - I've actually found the 2.5" drives to be very resilient (even survived a knob of a mate treading on it once) so it should be okay after a while...

[Galaxy]

I've had a couple of Amigas that demonstrated the symptoms that you are describing - turn on the machine and you hear a tick tick tick from the HD - like the HD is attempting to spin up, but failing.

Normally it would do this for a few seconds (maybe up to 10 or 20 seconds if it was ages since the last use) before finally spinning up, but I think my A600's hd got to the point where all it did was tick (sort of like yours) and never spun up. I think I replaced the disk with an 800MB drive from and old laptop at this point.

As for the boot menu - I don't know. I think it only shows those devices detected. Given that you are getting the insert disk screen I would say that it is not appearing because the HD was not ready before the OS wanted it.

[thomas]

Klicking noises from a HDD is a sure sign for imminent death. The worst thing you can do is to switch power off and on repeatedly.

If you don't need the data on the drive, you should immediately trash it.

If you want to save the data you should not again stress the drive in the way you described above.

Open the case, remove the drive and carefully place it in your cupboard as if it was your most valuable treasure.

Then buy a new drive, find your floppy disks and install the new drive.

Get a cable for connecting both drives to the IDE port. Connect both drives and make the old drive spin up with whatever means is necessary (e.g. gently hit it with your fist on the long flat side). Once it spins, do not touch the power button until all data is saved. You might have to reset the Computer if the HDD freezes.

Copy all files from the old drive to the new one. Then trash the old drive.

[TikTok]

Agreed with Thomas. Power up is the most stressful time for any hardware - once you get that thing spinning properly again, I wouldn't turn off the power at all until you've got all your data backed up.

[Soulshaker]

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone.

I've stopped doing hard resets because of the power issue mentioned and now when I do several soft resets in a row, I get the hard drive light on and the computer sits there. It sounds like the hard drive is doing something. Should I just let it sit for a while?

I guess I'm just trying anything (safely) to get it to work again before I look for a new drive.

[Soulshaker]

I've bit the bullet and opened the A1200 case and I'm going to check all the cable connections as per icewizard's suggestion before I buy a new HD. If I can get this to work that will be quite an accomplishment for me since I hate opening up computers and fiddling with them. I mean, I basically can identify all the stuff inside the 1200 easily enough but I've just never been the kind that felt comfortable tinkering with internal hardware components on any personal computer.

[TikTok]

Be careful not to break the little plastic clips at the back of the case! Though if you've opened it already......

[Soulshaker]

Originally Posted by TikTok

Be careful not to break the little plastic clips at the back of the case! Though if you've opened it already......

NOW you tell me!

J/K. Do you mean the four tiny two-pronged clips back there? If so, they're fine.

[Soulshaker]

UPDATE: I swapped out the old 80 meg HD (some Conner or Connor brand drive) and put in my old IBM Deskstar 20 gig drive that used to inhabit my Compaq Presario laptop. The Deskstar seemed to have crashed in the Compaq and I had to replace the drive in that laptop, but I decided to try it in the Amiga just to test it out.

Here's what happened...I could hear the drive spin up when I turned the computer on. The HD light on the case is now fully ON and stays that way for a few minutes even though the Amiga eventually goes to the Insert Floppy screen (with absolutely no HD clicking), whereas with the old drive, the HD light would occasionally go on briefly with the clicking. Does this mean the drive is being recognized properly (so it's not the IDE cable...?) and I just need to properly prep the drive (format, install Workbench, etc.)?

Thanks...

[Firthy2002]

Does the drive show up in the ESC menu?

[Soulshaker]

No, I can't see the new drive in ESC menu either.

Hmmm...maybe it COULD be the IDE cable causing the problem...?

[Firthy2002]

Either that or the IDE interface is knackered.

[Soulshaker]

My power supply just crapped out. Maybe that was the issue. It was dying and couldn't supply enough juice to power the drive.

Man, this is depressing. I guess I'll try to track down an A500 PSU since the A1200 and its peripherals were always extremely rare here in the States. And of course, the A500 PSU has a higher wattage than the A1200's from what I understand.

[Firthy2002]

Yeah get an A500 or 3rd party beefy PSU, the A1200 ones are pants.

[Soulshaker]

I just put a bid in for an Amiga 500 system with PSU, not to mention I also bid on an old breadbox-style C64 system (my first died) and a C128 (I always wanted one of those when I was a kid...).

I sure hope the problem *is* the power supply, though. I really love that 1200.

[lloyd]

Sometimes, old hard drives can be made to work for a while by removing them from the computer, placing them in a plastic bag and then placing them into a freezer for a while. Re-attach quickly and pull the data off it as fast as you can (assuming it spins up that is), and then bin it.

I've seen this tip mentioned on here before, and I know there is a whole load of text dedicated to doing things this way. Thin k the thread was called "click of death" or something......

You COULD use an old PC power supply, but you need to know what you're doing if you decide to go that route.

[Soulshaker]

Thanks, Lloyd. I never heard about the drive in the freezer tip...I may try that if it turns out the HD is faulty too. After scouring the board here and other places on the net, I did find out about using the PC power supply, though; however, I don't consider myself technically proficient enough to take on that task :/

[lloyd]

YW Soulshaker

[woody57]

As lloyd suguested this method could save you money if EBAY goes to silly prices JUST so you can get a better PSU



Is taken from the following full how to article http://premium1.uploadit.org/woodshe...ILDTOWER_8.jpg

Yes I know its about towering a miggy BUT it gives you clear info on PC power supplies

Since it is copywrite stuff I won't be leaving it here for EVER

So DL it IF you think you may need it some day

[icewizard2k5]

Originally Posted by Soulshaker

I don't consider myself technically proficient enough to take on that task :/

its nothing really. all you need to do is connect 4 wires.

ground (black), +5v (red), +12v (brown) and -12v (white)

if you get one of the old pc psu's that connect to the mobo using 2x6pin plugs instead of one large plug, its a simple task of matching the COLOUR of the wires with the ones inside the a1200 power lead. 10 minute job just make sure the wires are insulated and can't contact each other.

[Soulshaker]

Thanks, woodshed and icewizard. I'll download that article and check it out.

[lloyd]

Woodie, you're a genius - thanks for the pic, saved now

[Doc Mindie]

I know excactly what's wrong. well, at least I think I do :P

Soulshaker, do you have the Workbench-diskettes somewhere? From what youæve described, it seems to me, that you would need to install the HD, as the Amiga cannot boot from it before the RDB and everything is set up.

try with the Install disk of WB3 first, and boot from that disk.

On the disk there should be a drawer called "HD-Setup" which contains the famous hdprep program. from there it should be so easy to setup the drive rightly, even I could do it the first time I tried.

Now, I'm no Rocket Engineer at all, I'm considering meself a male Blonde, so like I said, it should be dead easy

[TikTok]

Dude, I think his Amiga already has Workbench etc installed (and hence, the RDB will be 'set up'). Trying to HDPrep it again may well remove the existing data!

[Soulshaker]

Thanks, Doc and TikTok. Yes, I did have Workbench installed on the 1200. And I'm not sure if the hard drive is to blame anymore since about three days ago, during testing, the Amiga's PSU finally died, so I'm trying to decide whether to find an A500 PSU (I've found a few cheap A500 systems on Ebay) or pick up a PC PSU and modify it to work with the Amiga.

And as far as the Workbench disks go, I'm really screwed, because all my old Amiga software was in a big box at my mother's house, and she unknowingly donated it to the Salvation Army. I redownloaded the disks, but they're all in .adf format and I haven't yet fully researched how to transfer them into readable Amiga disks in the FAQ area. Anyway, I don't have any double density 880k floppies lying around, so that takes care of that until I can track some down.

For now, it's all back in the box...

[Soulshaker]

UPDATE: I found a second-hand A500 PSU along with two working A500s at a thrift store. Immediately plugged the A500 PSU into my 1200 upon arriving home and the computer will not turn on at all. It's completely unresponsive - no power lights, etc. But both of the A500s power on perfectly with the SAME PSU.

So, I decided to try plugging my A1200 PSU (which I assumed had already bit the dust) into one of the A500s and IT BOOTS UP FINE! When I try to boot the A1200 with the A1200 PSU, I hear a light clicking/whirring noise emanating from the 1200 PSU and the A1200 fails to boot up at all. However, when plugged into the A500, the A1200 PSU works like a charm and the A500 power lights immediately go on.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: After some tinkering around in the A1200, I've managed to get it booting up properly, sans hard disk access. So basically, I'm back to square one, but at least I know my A1200 PSU isn't the culprit, since it powered both A500s and the 1200, once I fixed the latter.

[Soulshaker]

Hm, well for some odd reason, the hard drive has suddenly started working. Even after a few reboots. Maybe it just need to be warmed up as stated before. But hell, that sure was a long warmup period (over a week of repeated testing)...

[lloyd]

Glad you got it working dude - never know, maybe the read/write head just shook itself loose or something - they do that sometimes. Now it's working tho, may I strongly suggest you make a backup?

[Soulshaker]

Thanks, Lloyd. I'm not sure which backup method would be most convenient. I have only ONE Amiga floppy in my possession at the moment. I'm reading the FAQ and learning how to do Amiga to PC connections, backups, etc. I'm also trying to track down a null modem cable to connect my Amiga to my PC.

In the meantime, I'm leaving the Amiga powered on 24/7.