ScuzzBlog: Diaries April 2020
Entry 1st April 2020: Post 01: A1200 and hard drivin with a 2.5.
A1200 and hard drivin with a 2.5.
For me I only use proper hard drives. Without the steady gentle
spin of the drive and the clicking floppy drive I just don't sense
a heart in a computer. The silent compact types just don't offer
any read on what is going on in the computer. And so I try to keep
my hard drives alive and well maintained.
The best way to keep a drive alive is to use it. Particularly the
2.5" laptop style drives that fit inside say the Amiga 1200. The
internal workings are a complete mystery to me but I have long held
the view that constant use and the avoidance of shocks, heavy
vibrations and abuse by switching on and off with the drive active
will prolong the life of the drive. I also keep my computers in dry,
relatively cool environments. This shouldn't impact on the drive
greatly but I do sense that changes in temperature must transmit
through the case and so keeping the unit at a constant temperature
seems the way to go.
Of all the drives that fail for me the 2.5" drive is the worst.
This generally occurs when a drive is left for any considerable
length of time. Because of this I have a regime of switching my
Amigas on and letting them run for a good while, and I often task
the drive with file management for good measure. I can generally
tell from the activity of the drive and the ease at which it boots
up if the drive is OK.
OK so what am I doing today. Over the last couple of years I have
been replacing 2.5" hard drives in Amiga 1200s. Whilst I am not
able to obtain the smaller capacity drives suited for the Amiga I
have learnt a few tricks whereby I use a 40GB drive but only use
a very small part of it. Amounts to the same thing as using a
smaller capacity drive. Never attempt to format a drive to the full
capacity above the 4GB mark cus it'll wrap around and you will lose
everything. I keep under 2GB for partitions and leave the remaining
space empty. It needs to be set up empty. Most drives will attempt
to fill an empty partition with a none active volume but the drive
still thinks its there. Also only ever Quick Format drives. That
is essential and from the Workbench.
I discovered a good source for 40GB 2.5" laptop drives and secured
enough to swap out six of my Amiga 1200s. In addition to these
drives I have four twelve hundreds on test beds running each day.
Plus I have five other 1200s stationed on general use that get
switched on most days.
I have recovered several drives using the freezer trick. That is
freezing them to release the heads. I have also resorted to gently
tapping with a rubber end of a screwdriver. But only as a last
resort.
So today was the day I was scheduled to bench test six of my 2.5"
drives fitted to different Amiga 1200s with the monitor. Believe it
or not I generally run the Amigas each day without monitors. I simply
have them plugged in and watch and listen to the activity and wait
for the tell tale sign of a clicking floppy drive and no disk light
activity to comfort myself that they are working. I use a monitor
once a month just to be sure. I do not have that many monitors and
I have 31 Amiga 1200s so go figure.
In addition to the six drives that I replaced I also have a further
two today to check. The six I swapped out have a little star or tiny
triangle sticker that identify A1200s with new drives. I am not
expecting any failures. I also have most of the A1200s fitted with
cards so it is good to see if they are fine.
I can report that I only had one minor issue with a card that has
always been dodgy. I simply reseated the SIMM and all was fine.
I use SysInfo for checking the drive status and memory and card
speed. Plus I check that DOpus is picking up the drives. You can
also hold the two mouse buttons down on boot to see what boot
devices are available.
One other thing to note is the colour of the display. Look for
modest changes in grey tint to pink or more likely blue/green. If
that starts to happen then run around like a headless chicken and
call for help. I have been collecting A1200s since 1993 and to
date I have never replaced a capacitor. That goes for all my computers.
It's not to say that there isn't an issue with capacitors. it's
just that I have like a gazillion capacitors in kit on the collection
so I'm stuffed. I just keep using the kit and it seems to keep
working. Your choice. But the subtle change of grey to the boot
screen is an indication of a fault and I have this on two of my
Amiga 1200s.
After testing the six and the two [ eight in all ] Amiga 1200s I
was comfortable that they all worked. I also tested the Apollo 060,
Typhoon and Blizzard 030s and they were functioning just fine.
Some of the cards are just RAM cards though have floating point.
It really is a joy to have a hard drive working on the 1200.
To celebrate my success today I played some of my fashion catwalk
animations created in DPaint, so say hello to Helena Rosenkova and
the very lovely Clara Veiga as ever. Faces that are very common
and popular if you read my blogs enough. The Amiga is and always
will be your best girlfriend so give your machines a girls name and
let her sing to you.
I am no expert but with so many computers that just keep working
every single day I must be doing something right.
Here are the pics. I start by showing the monitor I use which is
the very wonderful black 1084S that was shipped with the CDTV. And
it is an original black monitor albeit re-coated by Commodore when
they launched the CDTV.
I also check the keyboards, CAPS lights, LEDs. One thing I am crap at
is keeping my sticky labels up to date. This won't mean a whole
load of sense to readers. But it's what I do.
A1200 and hard drivin with a 2.5.
Tumoon - Amiga 1200 2.5 No.01
Tank - Amiga 1200 2.5 No.02
Bryoni - Amiga 1200 2.5 No.03
Batista - Amiga 1200 2.5 No.04
Marina - Amiga 1200 2.5 No.05
Helena - Amiga 1200 2.5 No.06
Christina - Amiga 1200 2.5 No.07
Terai- Amiga 1200 2.5 No.08
Helena Rosenkova
The very beautiful Clara Veiga.
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