EasyADF PCMCIA?

[Harrison]

The easiest two options are those I already mentioned.

The first is to use an external 2.5" HD caddy. Just pop the HD into the caddy and then connect it to the PC via USB. That is the simplist method and it works. And a caddy from ebay is only a few pounds at most.

The second is to use an external IDE to USB cable, such as the one here. Just connect the HD to the cable, then pug the cable into the PC and the drive will appear. This is what I've been using recently and it works perfectly.

The other alternative is to by a 40pin to 44pin IDE adaptor such as this so you can connect the drive directly to the IDE interface on your PC motherboard. However this requires you to open the PC and have it switched off while you install or remove the drive. Using either of the two USB methods above you don't need to do this and can connect and remove the drive at any time you like.

[Toddney]

I can't get windows to recognise this drive. It has already been formatted and has workbench 3.x on it, would this be the reason why it can't detect it? Or something else?

[Harrison]

Windows won't recognise the drive because as you say it is formatted for the Amiga. You need to download the Amiga emulator WinUAE and access the drive using that.

I will PM you some details that you may need.

When you start the emulator set it up from the quick configuration as an A1200 with 4MB fast ram. Then go down to the harddrive section and you can add your harddrive into the emulator, then start the emulator and it should find and boot from the harddrive.

[Toddney]

I'm afraid the PC won't detect the drive at all. On a hardware level it doesn't show up in the device manager or disk management tools. What could be wrong? I am using the IDE USB2 cable.

[Harrison]

Is it a 2.5" or 3.5" HD you are trying to connect?

[Toddney]

It's a 2.5" hard disk but I think the adapter is faulty, as I have tried a load of other hard disks of different sizes etc.

[Harrison]

For a USB adaptor Windows should display a message saying it has detected a new USB device, and then it will install it ready for use. If it doesn't do this then it definitely sounds like the adaptor is the problem.

When connected it with a 2.5" HD the USB cable will be supplying the power to run the HD. Therefore you have to make sure the USB port you are using can supply enough power to run the drive. Have you tried different USB ports in case it is the port that is the problem.

[v85rawdeal]

Windows won't recognise the drive because as you say it is formatted for the Amiga. You need to download the Amiga emulator WinUAE and access the drive using that.

I will PM you some details that you may need.

When you start the emulator set it up from the quick configuration as an A1200 with 4MB fast ram. Then go down to the harddrive section and you can add your harddrive into the emulator, then start the emulator and it should find and boot from the harddrive.

Harrison, I have just also picked up one of these cables, and will need to start from scratch (installing winUAE onwards, I have AmigaForever2006) could you give me a few quick pointers to help me get started too, as I want to get all my Amiga files onto my Amiga's hard drive.

Thanks

[Harrison]

Once you have the cable, and you can connect the HD and Windows detects it, start up WinUAE and go to the Hardware section, and into the Hard drives part. In here the third button is called "Add Hard Drive..." click that and you should be able to pick the HD from the list of physical HDs connected to the system. Once you have done that you can then add a Workbench ADF to the Floppy Drive page, and start WinUAE to boot into Workbench and format the HD.

If you are going to be copying files to the HD from your PC then an easy method is to create a directory on the PC and in the same Hard drives section select "Add Directory or Archive" and select this PC directory. You can then drop files in there and access them in the emulated Workbench, or drop files into that directory HD in Workbench to access them from Windows.

[Toddney]

Hi again, I've got a new adapter which seems to be working now. I have formatted the HD and partioned it, so there is DH0, DH1, and DH2.

So now, to install this ClassicWB GAAE, I mount the HDF file from the download, but what then? Also when I get these new games from the KG packs, where do I place them etc?