Stepping back in time

[Whiggie]

I recently (accidentally) found some of Dan Wood's Amiga videos and have been inspired to open up a hall closet not opened since 1995 (when I moved to my current address). Inside this closet I have:

1 x Amiga 2000 with 20mb (I think) hard drive and PC XT Bridgeboard (with a 40mb HD), along with the 5.25in floppy, 1084S monitor, keyboard, mouse and A520 modulator.

1 x Amiga 4000/30 with hard drive (not sure how big) with a horrible CBM 1471 multi-scan monitor which cost me a fortune (and only 14"), keyboard and mouse.

1 x CDTV with external SCSI hard drive, keyboard and mouse and a load of 'Pandora CDs!).

1,000,000 (OK, maybe not quite that many) less than legal (hides face in shame) floppies.

My questions to the forum are:

1. Is there anything I need to do before trying to switch these machines back on? I have heard horror stories of battery leakage in A2000s, but I opened mine up and it all looks clean and incredibly full of expansion cards.

2. I am sure the hard drives will be dead by now, so do you know where I can get a replacement for any/all the above mentioned machines.

Not sure what I plan to do with them, but getting them working properly seems a good first step.

Thanks, and best regards,
Steve

[indigolemon]

Your hard drives may have survived tbh, easy enough to find that out anyway. The battery on the A2000 and the A4000 is likely dead, and if it hasn't started leaking is probably not going to enjoy having power reapplied. Personally I'd remove them from both before going any further.

Only other issues might be the motherboard capacitors on the A4000 - it uses the electrolytic type, and they tend to die after a while. These can be replaced though, sure there will be someone near you who can help.

[Jope]

Yep, this is very important. Take the batteries out before powering them up. I think the bridgeboard has one too, remove that battery as well. Then later take a close look at the A4000's capacitor legs.

[Whiggie]

Hi,
Thanks for the advice. I'll take the batteries out and see what happens. I will start with the 2000 over the weekend and report back.

Steve

[Whiggie]

Hi all,
I have taken the 2000 apart, and taken a picture of the battery area. Can anyone tell me if the thing has leaked or not? At first glance it looks OK, but the botton pins of the processor chip seem to be discoloured, so maybe it is damaged after all.

Pisture is attached (I hope)!

Also, to remove the battery, how careful must I be? Can I just grab it with plyers and rip it out or must it be carefully de-soldered?

Thanks again.

Steve

[Jope]

It has leaked a bit, but not too bad. Don't rip it out with force, rock it back and forth until the metal tabs break near the PCB.

[idrougge]

The A4000 may have suffered a lot more, both from battery and capacitor leakage.

In my experience, capacitor leakage is more common with machines put in storage than with those in active use.

[scuzz]

Just switch them on and see. The 2000 with the bridgeboard sounds interesting if the 5.25" is working. Try and dig through those floppies you have and put together as many as you have relating to the Bridgeboard and keep them safe. Make copies if you can. Have you any of the 5.25" disks ?

I haven't used the Bridgeboard myself so no idea what role the battery plays in that... but PC emulation isn't a great issue. I remove all batteries from my Amigas. They are not like Acorns so I leave them off. The 4000 is more risky than the 2000.

The hard drives may click into gear if you leave the machine running. I lay a 2000 on its side and that caused the drive to kick in. I wouldn't give up on them.

The monitor could prove more useful than you think.

The CDTV may interest some, personally not a great fan.

The important items are the cards if any, rare software you may have lurking un your collection. The 2000 sounds nice if kept as a unit. Don't get too heavy handed. If you can do very little but dust and keep switching on daily and keep an eye on the battery.. or better remove. Sadly after a long lay off you may initiate some failures, but in truth you will never know unless you use the computer. The 2000 is a brute so will be the one that has most chance to survive. The 030 will struggle with the battery and SIMM sockets . Plus the 4000 may get issues with keyboard and mouse connectors plus sound. That would be capacitors. Depends on age, make and usage.

Or you could just put everything back in the wardrobe. You will never know. Bit like Schrodinger's cat.... the batteries are the only worry.

Sounds like you have some fun times ahead of you.

PS Don't mess. Don't try to fix what aint broke. And take photographs of everything you do. Specially if you start taking wire/connectors off boards, floppy drives, etc. Mostly applies to cards and ribbons remembering the way the red strip runs. etc

Don't forget the Amiga is a National Treasure... or should be. Be careful.

scuzz
http://www.scuzzscink.com/amiga/a_amiga_inframe.htm

[Whiggie]

Hi all,

Thanks Scuzz for the extended reply.

I will remove the battery from the 2000 tomorrow evening and see what happens when I switch it on.

I have taken photos of the expansion cards if you are interested.

idrougge, I will take the A4000 apart in the next couple of days and see what damage has been done.

Thanks everyone for your interest, I will send an update tomorrow evening.

Steve

[Whiggie]

Hi,
Sorry for not getting back on schedule, but sometimes life takes over...

So, to bring you up to date, I have finally removed the old battery, which does not appear to have leaked. I then connected the 2000 to my tv (via my old modulator), plugged in the keyboard, added power and switched on.

The green power LED came on followed by the amber HDD LED which flashed like it was going to load - no nasty noises or anything, but also no booting either. When I find my workbench disks I will see what the HD Toolkit has to say, but HDD may be dead.

Boots fine from floppy, so machine seems ok.

See Pic

Steve

[Daedalus]

Good stuff! If your TV has a SCART socket, it might be worth investing in an Amiga RGB-SCART cable, which will give you a huge improvement in image quality.

If you hold down the two mouse buttons is your hard drive listed in the early startup menu?

[Whiggie]

Hi,
The slight problem I failed to mention is I cannot find the A2000 mouse anywhere! I will have a good search tomorrow - I know I wouldn't have thrown it away.
Steve

[Galahad/FLT]

Might be worth giving the HDD a gentle tap to promote it to turn.

Once it starts turning, its likely to be ok.

[Whiggie]

Hello All,
£17+Postage for an Amiga 2000 compatible mouse!! I am getting used to the keyboard - mouse emulation and will carry on until I find my mouse. £17+Post is outrageous - I recently bought a Logitech bluetooth wireless laser mouse for less than that... Rant over.

i have booted from many of my old floppy disks without any problems (last used in 1991-2) and everything except the Amiga HDD is working well.

Even the clunky XT Bridgeboard hard drive seems to be fine. I never thought I would see those old files again!

Any advice on getting the Amiga Hard Drive working again will be gratefully received. Failing which where can I get a drive that will work with the A2091? Can I use a CF card?

As always, I an truly grateful for any info.
Steve

[Daedalus]

Well, you're getting quite far out of mainstream when you start dealing with anything Amiga-related, and this means much higher prices unfortunately. Still, you might be lucky and find one cheaper on eBay if you keep looking. There are also adaptors that let you use standard mice, but they're around the same price so that might not be worth it.

Hmmm, as others have said, sometimes a gentle tap can be enough to free slightly sticky bearings and allow it to spin again, but there's always a chance its time has come unfortunately. are you sure it's getting proper power? Try swap the power connectors with the other drive just to rule that out.

There is a SCSI2SD adaptor that takes a microSD card and works as a SCSI hard drive, it's about £60 from AmigaKit; you might be able to find it available elsewhere too as it's not an Amiga-specific device. There are also SCSI-IDE bridges that allow the connection of standard IDE devices to a SCSI host, for example those made by ACARD. This can include CF cards, though compatibility can be hit and miss. These work at much higher speeds than the SCSI2SD adaptor, but they can also be ferocious money on eBay as they're much sought after and no longer produced. Think >£200, without the drive. SCSI-SATA adaptors are also available for similar money.

[th4t1guy]

sometimes a gentle tap can be enough to free slightly sticky bearings and allow it to spin again

This is very likely to cause a head crash, which will ruin the platters. But if the data is not worth enough to pay for professional recovery, it's good as a last resort.
Before tapping, I would try the the freezer trick (stick drive in ziplock bag, freeze overnight, then try to plugging it in) or the oven trick (bake drive around 200F, then carefully plug in without burning yourself). Doing those, along with tapping the drive is likely to make the any problems worse, so make sure you have a disk ready to backup files to if you can somehow magically get it working.
If you do decide to tap it, make sure you have the drive on its side!

Disclaimer: I've never had any luck with any of these methods

[Daedalus]

Of those three methods, tapping is the only one I've had any luck with. Hitting it hard enough to knock the heads from their parked position is of course hitting it too hard. If the drive isn't spinning up, it's not the head bearings you're trying to free up but the spindle bearings. The heads won't try to move until the platters are up to speed.

[th4t1guy]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Of those three methods, tapping is the only one I've had any luck with.

I can't argue with results!

[Whiggie]

Hi all,
Thanks to everyone for responding about the hard drive - I will have a go at it over the weekend.

Amiga 4000

The case has gone horribly yellow at the front (the plastic bits), but the rest of the case is just dusty.

I have opened it up, and everything looks nice and clean, with the exception of the varta battery, which seems to be in the process of leaking. Nothing has reached the motherboard, but both ends appear to have crystals starting to leak out.

Assuming the process was the same as for the A2000, I rocked the battery back and forth until it came out, and cleaned up with a bit of switch cleaner.

I have discovered that one of the pins in the keyboard ps2 connector has been pressed in, so I will need to perform surgery on it at some point.

I plugged it in, turned it on and it all works - even the hard drive. Booted first time no problem - although the modulator is having difficulty with the resolution.

I have no keyboard or mouse, but I am fairly happy with this result.

Question: Can I use a regular PC keyboard in this keyboard socket?

Thanks again, more updates in a couple of days.
Steve

[Daedalus]

Looks like you caught it just in time so! Is there any discolouration on the motherboard at all near the battery? Even the tiniest amount of leakage can slowly spread until neutralised.

No, I'm afraid you can't use a regular PC keyboard, despite them sharing a common connector. You can buy an adaptor that allows you to use a standard PS/2 keyboard with Amigas - like mice, Amiga-specific keyboards will be very expensive compared to their much more common PC counterparts - a quick look on eBay shows they typically go for £40-70 depending on condition.