A1200 won't power-on with HD connected :-(

[Mark Wright]

Well, I thought I knew all about this, but returning to my A1200 after several years I discovered the 2.5" HD no longer worked. It would spin up, but kept clicking and no DH0 or DH1 were available.

So I bought another from ebay but the machine woudn't power-on with it connected. I removed it, the machine switched on fine. Tried this several times, assumed I'd got a dud drive.

So I bought another one from ebay and the same problem. With it attached, the machine won't even power-on let alone boot.

Have tried searching but couldn't find anything. Am I making some newbie mistake here? I don't want to keep plugging/unplugging things without guidance as the poor old dear's in a bit of a fragile state as it is.

Can anyone help?

[Bamiga2002]

Try a different IDE-cable and post results.

[Mark Wright]

OK, I guess Amikit will be the best place to find them or can I just use some standard laptop IDE connector?

I *presume* it's connected the right way round to the motherboard? The red colouring is going along the top of the ribbon looking at the machine straight-on...

Thanks for help!

[Zetr0]

Heys Mark,

Reviewing your problem it sounds very much like a loss in power from the PSU, this is a common fault, especially with age. However in saying this it could also be as you said a couple of duff/bad drives. so from this we need to test them.

So before you embark on an awsome addition for you amiga, there are some tests that may prove helpfull.

Firstly it is best to check the harddisk in a PC you will need an adapter like this one there quite cheap from either ebay or amigakit, (will point out amigakit is delivered next day, stuff from hongkong... by the mid of next month LOL,

Anyway as an extra benefit of having this adapter is also that you can setup you workbench and stuff using winuae first (its a lot quicker i can promise you lol).

Okay so getting the drive back to the Amiga

if you using a 44pin (2.5" laptop drive) then power is taken from the motherboard, If however you are using a larger PC hard disk ( 3.5" hdd) then you will need to take power from the motherboard by splitting it from the floppy drive.

You can get a 44pin to 40 IDC (cable) for use with your amiga from AmigaKit

worse case scenario you could always get a new PSU from the fleabay

eitherway best of luck.

[Bamiga2002]

Originally Posted by Mark Wright

I *presume* it's connected the right way round to the motherboard? The red colouring is going along the top of the ribbon looking at the machine straight-on...

Thanks for help!

PIN 1 is for the RED side (look closely on the mobo). I once fried my A600 putting the cable wrong way .

[Mark Wright]

OK, I've signed up with Amigakit and bought the cable from them. Will test it with all three drives when it arrives (they can't ALL be dead?) though I'm wondering whether it actually is a power supply issue as mentioned (it's one of those light-weight exploding PSUs). Machine is 100% fine otherwise.

Anyway, despite my lack of memory and technical prowess, I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself having transferred the Workbench disks from the Amiga Forever CD-ROM to 720k disks (on XP!) and then back to Amiga disks using DMS and the Amiga Forever floppy. That's after foolishly selling what I thought was a spare set on ebay last week for A POUND.

I've also bought a null modem cable and look forward to transferring all the JST/WHDLoad stuff over the weekend if I can get this up and running. Then I just have to remember not to low-level format my "SCSI" drive and rememeber what MaxTransfer rate to set and all of that malarkey. Honestly, it's amazing what your brain retains (useless stuff) and forgets (all the important bits - like which way up the cable goes.)

Thanks Zetro and Bamiga for assistance. Any more thoughts, feel free to add 'em!

[Bamiga2002]

Originally Posted by Mark Wright

Anyway, despite my lack of memory and technical prowess, I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself having transferred the Workbench disks from the Amiga Forever CD-ROM to 720k disks (on XP!)

Thanks Zetro and Bamiga for assistance. Any more thoughts, feel free to add 'em!

You're welcome Marky Mark . But how did you format 720k disks under XP?

[Mark Wright]

www.winimage.com - formats 720k disks under XP.

EXCEPT! The drive I bought for the purpose annoyingly only writes 1.44 disks.

HOWEVER! With persistence and persuasion, it's slowly playing ball.

Might have to reward myself with a game of Great Giana Sisters after all of this.

[Zetr0]

@Mark,

heres a much better method than sneeking with floppies!
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=25274

and here you can configure it to boot as a harddrive! awsome eh?
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=28217

[ppill]

Originally Posted by Bamiga2002

But how did you format 720k disks under XP?

Here's the simplest method:







From a guide by InTheSand (also alexh pointed this one out to me a while ago)

[Mark Wright]

[Mark Wright]

Wow, I have to say I'd recommend Amigakit.com to anyone. The cable arrived first thing this morning and amazingly has cured the powering-on problem. My A1200 now boots from the Install disk with any of the three drives attached, but I so far haven't gotten past the HDToolBox stage. I can identify, partition and save changes to each drive but beyond that there's no DH0:NDOS icon to format the bloody things.

In the bin they go, I guess. Shall scour ebay for another "bargain".

Thanks once more for helping me fix the cable problem.

[ppill]

Did you reboot after you partitioned the drives?

[Mark Wright]

Yep, no sign of anything.

I'd definitely lay the blame with the drives, you can hear them clicking and scraping and clunking away like nails down a blackboard. Astoundingly bad luck to have got three dud drives and an unrelated problem (thankfully fixed).

I am wondering whether trying to partition a different portion of the drive would work, to escape the bad blocks or whatever's wrong, but I might just go and have a cup of tea instead.

Yes, I think I'll do that. BEFORE I SMASH EVERYTHING IN A RAGING ANGER.

Tea, then.

[ppill]

You can try WorseFormat for that. Do these drives(partitions) show up in the boot menu?

[Zetr0]

before you commit them to the great hardrive heaven in the sky, try 'em out on the PC first....

I have found that the *bargins* on ebay are only worth what you pay for them. I would recomend however to go for the Compact Flash hard disk, as these are way cheaper and sooooooooo much faster than thier 2.4" ide equivilants...

have a perusal over the first link i gave you... I am sure you will be pleasently supprised on how awsome CF on an amiga actually is.

[Hewitson]

Sounds like you did not name the drive DH0 in HDToolBox. Mine defaults to HD0 for some reason, which AmigaDOS does not recognize.

[ppill]

Originally Posted by Braddo

Sounds like you did not name the drive DH0 in HDToolBox. Mine defaults to HD0 for some reason, which AmigaDOS does not recognize.

I had drives named HD0:, HD1:, HDx in the past and they worked fine.

[Hewitson]

Originally Posted by ppill

I had drives named HD0:, HD1:, HDx in the past and they worked fine.

Strange.. They didn't show up when I tried naming them that.