A1200 Project

[Harrison]

I've just started a new project to upgrade an A1200.

As I'm moving house shortly and will not have as much space for everything to be out and setup at the same time (until I can afford a loft conversion! ;)) I've decided to upgrade an A1200 for normal use, instead of mostly using my A4000.

To do this I started with a standard A1200 with Kickstart 3.0 roms.

The upgrade will include:


Kickstart 3.1 roms. *
Buffered IDE interface *
50pin JAE to IDE Adapter *
IDEFix'97 *
40GB HD *
24x laptop CD-Rom drive *
68030 accelerator (or 4MB fast ram expansion) *
classicwb install + KGWHD gamepacks *

* = items I already have.

From the list I still need to get hold of a buffered IDE interface to make the project work, and then as and when I find one at a good price, a 68030 (blizzard MK4) accelerator (donations welcome! ;):lol:), although there is no real rush for that as I will stick a 4MB ram expansion in the system until I get one.

I've only just got hold of some 3.1 roms from Amigakit, and those are installed and working perfectly in the A1200.

I next need to setup the 40GB HD on the PC using WinUAE, and once setup to transfer it to the A1200 to test it. Then I will need to obtain a buffered IDE interface and JAE to IDE adapter to get the CD drive installed into the rear left-hand side of the case, and set IDEFix'97 up..

I will post some pictures of the project as I go along.

BTW, if I stick with Workbench 3.1 (classicWB) and wish to use the whole 40GB of HD space, which third party filing system is the best?

[JLPedro]

Nice!! Never heard of that 50 pin to ide adapter... Could you give me some hardware prOn (i gess i got the virus from Zetr0 :) ) or some info on price and were you buyed it?

Ops... just realized wath is the 50 pin jae to ide adapter, forget the last question :whistle:

[Buleste]

AmigaKit do a good basic ide controller here (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=42&products_id=532&osCsid=cdc791accf1128111ce47037ea7ca27f) it's the one i have. Not the fastest in the world but very Ronseal.

[Puni/Void]

As I'm moving house shortly and will not have as much space for everything to be out and setup at the same time (until I can afford a loft conversion! ;)) I've decided to upgrade an A1200 for normal use, instead of mostly using my A4000.

When are you moving, mate? Are you going to rent a flat or have you bought one? Good luck with moving! :)


BTW, if I stick with Workbench 3.1 (classicWB) and wish to use the whole 40GB of HD space, which third party filing system is the best?

I've used the PFS (Professional File System) and it worked fine. Haven't tried any of the other alternatives though, so can't say if there's a better option. The important thing about PFS was that it worked, and that's probably why I stuck with it. You can try the latest version which is PFS3. Good luck! :thumbs:

Have fun with your upgrade project! Hope you'll be able to find a Blizzard MKIV, but they are both hard to find and expensive.

[Zetr0]

the SFS format would be exactly what you are looking for.

Here is guide by our on KG
http://wiki.abime.net/amiga:killergorilla_sfs_winuae_realhdd

some trouble shooting
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=36854&highlight=sfs

job done m8

[Buleste]

I've recently aquired PFS3 and i can't get it to work at all. I can install it, If i'm lucky i can get a partition to use PFS3 but i can't get it to be recognised. SFS can be tempremental if you go outside the first 4GB but it does work.

[Zetr0]

@Buleste

are we talking about the same SFS ? i am not on about the one that comes as standard with any of the OS's....

[Buleste]

I tried the newer one and i couldn't get anyhting to recognose it. Maybe it's just me.

[burns flipper]

I have PFS as my fs and it's great - I think it utilises space better, also it's much faster and has a recycle bin, and rarely fragments.

[Buleste]

What OS are you using and how do you configure HDToolbox to recognise the File system??? I've managed to install it but i can't get it to work at all.

[Harrison]

AmigaKit do a good basic ide controller here (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=42&products_id=532&osCsid=cdc791accf1128111ce47037ea7ca27f) it's the one i have. Not the fastest in the world but very Ronseal.

Cheers for the recommendation. That is the one I was looking at on Amigakit last week and was considering.

How does it compare to the more expensive 4xEIDE'99 Buffered Interface (with Allegro CDFS) (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=194) they also have?

I really only need it to run a single 40GB 2.5" HD and a laptop 24x CD-Rom drive.

[Harrison]

I've just thought of one issue. Is it possible with an internal laptop CD-Rom drive, connected to the A1200 via a buffered interface, to pass the CD audio out and somehow mix it with the Amiga's audio so that they are both sent to the speakers?

On the A4000 it actually has audio header pins on the motherboard, so I just needed to use a standard CD audio cable connected from the back of the drive, to the header. And in the past on the A1200, using an external SCSI drive, to mix the audio a audio phone splitter cable was provided so that the audio from both the CD and Amiga were passed to the speakers (although this did degrade the quality).

So any solution for this with an internal IDE CD drive in the A1200?

[Buleste]

There is a CD passthrough on Amigakit but with a bigbox backplate. I'd just cut it down or mod it in someway. I dont' know what the IDEexpress is like. I assume it's faster than the simple one plus you get a full version of IDEfix and Allegro CDFS. As i have both it doesn't matter.

[Harrison]

I also have both of those software packages too so I don't need them. I have decided to just order the same basic one as you have. It should do everything I need. In reality I only really will be using the CD drive to transfer software from the PC to the Amiga such as KGWHD updates.

[Zetr0]

@Harrison

Simple Internal Audio Mixer (http://www.guildserver.co.uk/projects/main.php?g2_itemId=737)

I would suggest that changing the 10k resistor to 20k for the Optical Drive output.

A More Advanced 3 input version (http://www.guildserver.co.uk/projects/main.php?g2_itemId=1013)

Steve made a version of the Simple mixer for his very ellegant A1200 project.

Steve's A1200 Project (http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=37785)

The above is deffinately a good read.

[Harrison]

Cheers. I will have a look at those when I get back later tonight.

I will also order the IDE interface tonight so that I can get to work on installing the CD drive later this week. :D

[Stephen Coates]

Good luck with your A1200 project Harrison.

What kind of laptop CD drive are you using? I tried to use one with a standard 44 pin IDE connector and couldn't get it to work. Not sure why. I gave up trying as I was planning to use a 5.25" CD drive, which I now do. Only problem I have with this is that when it is unplugged I get an error saying that atapi.device can't be found. I fixed this problem on OS3.9 by removing it from the startup sequence, but then when I want to use the CD drive I will need to add it again.

Does anyone know of a way to stop it from giving me an error when I use the computer with the CD unplugged without removing it from the startup sequence?

[Harrison]

I'm using a 24x laptop CD-Rom drive that I received from a member of AmiBay. It has a 50pin JAE connector, hence the need to use a JAE to IDE converter. I found one of those for £3 on ebay so that was OK. The converter provides IDE, power and audio connectors so should be just what I need.

[Zetr0]

Drat!!!

sorry H I have been soooOOooo busy with projects of late I was ment to message you,

last year I bought a job lot of JAE to IDE adapters from Hong Kong, (around 10 of them for £5 + £3 postage) I would of sent you one for your project... bugger... sorry m8.

[Harrison]

That is OK. Not to worry. Cheers for the thought anyway. Was only £3 including postage so not too expensive.

I may get stuck finding some other bits for the project though so you might be able to help then. ;)

[burns flipper]

What OS are you using and how do you configure HDToolbox to recognise the File system??? I've managed to install it but i can't get it to work at all.It was 3.0, and I just followed the instructions that came on the CD with PFS. Doesn't the FS get loaded onto the RDB?

[Buleste]

Yes but it only recognises it as FFS for some reason.

[Harrison]

The JAE to IDE adaptor turned up today and is now fitted to the CD drive ready to be installed in the A1200. (I wasn't too happy about the packaging of the interface. Was just in a standard letter envelope and so the postman had stuffed it through the letterbox. Wasn't damaged though...)

I'm now just waiting for the buffered IDE interface to arrive from AmigaKit, then I can get to work connecting it all up. :)

[Buleste]

Managed to get PFS installed on 2 partitions on my Hard Drive. Impossible to get it to use anything over the first 4 GB though and it's less stable than SFS as within one day i had a file system error. I may be going back to SFS.

[TiredOfLife]

I've recently aquired PFS3 and i can't get it to work at all. I can install it, If i'm lucky i can get a partition to use PFS3 but i can't get it to be recognised. SFS can be tempremental if you go outside the first 4GB but it does work.

Not true mate.
Use SFS beyond the 4 gig barrier all the time, as do a lot of users.
One problem some people have with SFS is with the IBrowse cache.
A lot use FFS for this partition and SFS for the rest.

I have had no problems when using a buffered eide interface from Elbox.
Did have the odd corruption in the cache when using the FastATAIII interface though.

So 'm assuming the speed has something to do with this.

[Buleste]

I managed to get a 6 GB partition working in PFS3 but i can't get any partition that starts outside the first 4GB of the HDD working which was a problem with SFS but has since been sorted out. Overall PFS may have some speed advantages over SFS but it is now outdated and poorly designed.

[Harrison]

OK, so which file system should I use with my 40GB 2.5" HD? Should I partition the first one to under 4GB and use FFS on that and then another for the rest of the disk?

My buffered IDE interface arrived today so I'm ready to go ahead with the install. :)

[TiredOfLife]

Use SFS for everything apart from maybe an Internet Cache partition.
Both my 3.9 and 4.0 installations are in the first 4gig and use SFS.

Linky

http://strohmayer.org/

[Harrison]

So SFS is freeware? I didn't realise that.

I'm going to give it a go later. :)

So what are the steps needed?

[Buleste]

SFS is simple. stick it in L: and then add it to the RDB and Bobs your mothers brother. Make sure you have the latest version though.

[StuKeith]

You still moving local fella? Tis a nice area the forest you know!

[Harrison]

Localish. Not the New Forest though. I will be moving to Fishbourne, near Chichester. Also a very nice area, but quite different with all the water. Loads of places to walk and explore in the countryside around there though.

Back to the A1200 project. I received a 2.5" external HD enclosure today so I can access the HD from the PC to set it up (the USB to IDE cable I already had stopped working recently). I just tested the enclosure and it works perfectly. Only cost about £3 from ebay, including shipping too!

So now I can get to work setting the drive up and getting the A1200 project under way. :)

The only parts and ideas I'm still on the lookout for are:

CD drive audio cable - Rather than trying to do one of the internal hardware hacks to permanently mix the CD audio into the Amiga audio, my new plan is to feed the audio output from the CD drive to a pair of rear mounted phono connectors. I will then be able to connect the CD and Amiga audio up to either a splitter cable for the straight unbalanced simple method of mixing the two together, or for CD game audio feed both into an audio mixer I've got.
(I might have one in one of my many boxes of cables)

Amiga RGB to Scart cable - I looked to see how much these were being sold for and the cheapest I've seen is £15. I have loads of spare scart cables so thought I might have a go at making my own cable!

Blizzard 1230 MKIV (that can come later once I have more money to spend ;))

[Harrison]

I've just finished partitioning the 2.5" 40GB HD using a USB enclosure connected to the PC, with WinUAE, HDToolbox (WB3.1 install disk) and SFS.

It all went fine and now I have three partitions (2GB, 2GB, 33GB) on the HD all using the SFS filsystem. (Thanks to KG's tutorial on doing this as it made it much easier).

One question. Is there any way to get WB3.1 to report the correct size of partitions on large HDs? It is currently showing the largest of the partitions as 1200MB. And HDToolbox also showed very random sizes when trying to set the size of each partition. I ended up having to work out roughly how big each cylinder was and then make the partitions the size based on this. Seemed to work though.

Next to get ClassicWB on the drive. :)

[Zetr0]

realistically the best thing to do is install OS3.5, its has better support for larger disks and file types than 3.1.

when setting up the A600+ project I had OS3.5 running on it with a 20GB HDD reported all the sizes perfectly, including dual layer 8.5GB DVD-R's :)

[Harrison]

True, but I want to keep things simple and stick with 3.1 if I can as I just want the A1200 setup to run classicWB along with the KGWHD sets and a few other things setup on there for easy ADF work and a few other things.

At a later date I might add a card reader to the system with the card accessible from the rear of the system. Then I can have different WB installations on different memory cards for quick swapping between them.

[Harrison]

Now that I've got classicWB installed it is showing all of the correct partition sizes and free space in Scalos and DOpus, so that's good enough for me.

I'm now just copying over the complete KGWHD set to the HD and then it will be ready to stick back in the A1200 and fire her up. :)

I've already copied IDEFix onto the HD ready to install it once its back in the Amiga, so once that is done it should be nearly complete. I will then just need to cut and mount the CD drive into the rear of the case.

[Harrison]

I've finally got the last bits to complete the A1200 project.

I couldn't find a y-splitter power cable to split the power from the floppy drive header to power the CD-rom and floppy drive at the same time. I knew I had some cables somewhere so didn't want to start buying more, and going through all my boxes of bits I finally found one.

Just powered up the A1200 and everything is working perfectly. So the final stage is to mount the 2.5" HD, buffered IDE interface and the CD-Rom drive inside the case properly. I'm thinking of creating a kind of tray that all three devices will be attached to that can then be sat inside the case on top of the shielding for easy removal. Time to get planning and designing it. :)

I will post pictures once it is complete.

The completed project has:

Hardware


A1200 with KS3.1 roms
Blizzard 1230 MKIV with 32MB Fast ram
Buffered IDE interface
40GB 2.5" IDE HD
24x slimline laptop IDE CD-Rom drive
PCMCIA Network card

Software


ClassicWB (WB 3.1)
Registered WHDLoad key
KGWHD game and demo packs
IDEFix'97
Network card software (still need to set this up)
Partition on HD containing contents of my original A1200 HD (loads on that HD to go through and rediscover including hundreds of PD games)

Future additions (these might be added in the future)


Internal flicker fixer (too expensive at the moment)
CD drive audio output (either root cd audio to rear phono cables and mix externally, or look into mixing audio internally using the hacks available online)

[Harrison]

Just performed an optical drive upgrade. :)

The 24x Teac CD-Rom drive in the A1200 was quite noisy when spinning up to read discs and during access. It worked fine though. However I had a dead laptop with a nice 8x DVD-Rom/24x CD-RW combo drive in it... so I pulled the laptop apart to retrieve the drive, swapped the drives over in the A1200, booted it up and ran the IDEFix device detection utility and the new drive showed up ok. Rebooted and it works perfectly. Much quieter and access times and read speeds seem faster too. :)

Now... can I actually utilise the DVD part of the drive in an Amiga?

[JLPedro]

Shure you can, i used an Pioneer A110 16x DvD-RW drive on my A1200 and it reads dvd's with IdeFix instaled (if the dvd is full, it takes a bit f time to preview the contents...).