A600 having trouble booting from IDE

[Shatterhand]

If anyone reads all of this and can help, I'll be very grateful.

I got an A600 last day of last year. The guy who sold me send me a video of it working and booting from IDE>CF adapter all right. When it came, it wasn't booting (either it didn't even try to boot at all or it showed lots of reading errors). And when I tried to unplug the IDE cable, a lot of pins The IDE port just broke. I bought a new IDE port (actually 2 bar of pins of same size/pitch), bought new capacitors and asked a friend who is an electronics teacher to do both the replacement of the IDE port and a change the caps.

It took a while, but he managed to do it. I bought a new IDE cable (The older one had many pins stuck on it, and I thought it would be easier to buy a new one than to remove the pins). I tested the Amiga without any cable first, it turned on OK.

Then I plugged the new IDE cable in the computer with the CF adapter, I got a yellow screen with black stripes scrolling on screen. This was really scary. Turned off the computer, unplug IDE Cable. Turns on OK. Plug it again, same yellow screen with black stripes. Unplug just the CF adapter, keep the Cable plugged.. Black screen. Unplug cable, turns on OK. Plug cable again, push it a little at the computer side, it turns on OK. Insert CF adapter, black screen. Remove card from CF adapter, turns on OK.

I find out the CF is actually dead after that (Luckily, I had a backup of it). Bought a new CF, from a brand friends said had it working in Amigas, copied all data to it. Plug on the CF adapter, computer turns on OK, but no boot.

I figure the CF adapter is dead. Buy a new one, it arrived today. Still no luck, computer turns on OK, but no boot.

I am afraid something is wrong with the computer. My friend is very good at electronics, but he has zero experience with the Amiga computer. So, anyone who understands the hardware better may have any ideas of what to test or how to proceed from here?

I probably won't have ways to do whatever you guys suggest immediately, but I can take it to his electronic lab and he has all kinds of electronics machinery to make tests

EDIT: I really can't believe I plugged the cable the wrong way and fried the CF adapter AND the CF, I can't believe I was that stupid. But I may work with this possibility, since I am not 100% sure I didn't do it.

[ptyerman]

There are quite a few CF cards that are incompatible with the Amiga's IDE port, also there are incompatible CF/IDE adapters out there. Try the CF card in a PC and see if it reads OK there, also if possible try the adapter and CF card in a PC and see if it works there.

[voyager_1701e]

Im curious to know what you mean by "a lot of pins The IDE port just broke". Did they pull out completely of the mainboard or did the pins "snap"...leavings posts still in the board?

Although I certainly wouldnt suggest its a safe thing...Im sure I have plugged in an IDE cable reversed on a 1200, and it did no damage. Being that prior to breaking pins you were having trouble, you may indeed not have plugged it in wrongly, it may have had trouble to start with. Assuming you dont know the seller, you really dont know how recent the video of the machine working is (Im suggesting the machine really already had a problem when you got it and the video was an old one when it was working?)?

Without the CF card, does the machine boot into a game or Workbench via a floppy disk? With the CF card in place, can you enter the early startup menu? Im assuming you cannot (by turning on no boot you mean just a blank screen?).

Do you have access to an original mechanical 2.5HDD to try instead of the CF card?

[Shatterhand]

The CF is working on PC, also booting ok on Winuae. I don't have a way to test it in a PC. I know a guy I've meet recently (I sold my old Action Replay MK III to him) who lives nearby and has an Amiga that I can test it. I asked him, but still didn't get a reply.

The pins snapped. We had to remove what was left of them in the mainboard to change the IDE port.

And yeah, I don't know the seller, though he just sent me pictures of the computer, I asked for a video of it working, and then he made one and sent it to me. I don't think it was an old video (though we can never be 100% safe).

I don't have a workbench disk around, but I managed to make a few old games to boot from floppy.

Right now I don't get a black screen when I try to boot from the CF.. it just shows the "Insert disk screen", the computer turns on ok, it just doesn't boot.

And no, I have no access to a 2.5HDD, unfortunately.

Someone told me I could fry both the adapter and the CF card by plugging the cable the wrong way. The old CF surely is fried, it doesn't work in a PC, but it gets REAL hot when I plug it.

[Arnie]

Originally Posted by Shatterhand

The old CF surely is fried, it doesn't work in a PC, but it gets REAL hot when I plug it.

If it gets REAL hot then it's had it.