Hi all, have a few questions and scenarios I need to run by anyone willing to help since this my first revisit to the Amiga environment since my early teen years. I have an Amiga 500 with an IVS Trumpcard AT 500. Problem is the TCUtils 2.1 disk I have has a bad sector and will not load the HD Utilities program on it to setup the hard drive (CF Card). I was able to snag an original TCUtils disk on the internet but its an older version than what I previously had 1.3 vs. 2.1 so I am not sure if it will work. I see there are TCUtils disks on the internet version 2.x with a .dms extension. How do I leverage this though when my A500 has no hard drive and I can't write to an Amiga floppy disk with my PC even with WinUAE. I see there is that Catweasel card but I would like to get this going without dropping more funds. Can Catweasel even extract .dms files to a PC floppy drive with a disk formatted for the Amiga? Ultimately what I am trying to accomplish is running a bootable CF card from the Trumpcard AT 500. I already have a bootable CF card that loads fine in WinUAE. Is there anyway to configure the TCUtils on it so it loads properly on my actual Amiga 500 w/ the Trumpcard AT500 connected? Right now the CF card isn't booting in the Trumpcard AT 500 and I am assuming this is because it doesn't have the appropriate drivers or there is some sort of proprietary configuration that needs to be setup before the hard disk can be recognized by it. Thoughts or suggestions? I know there is the ACA 500 but I already invested in this Trumpcard and would like to get it working if possible.

Last edited by Beholder on 09-Apr-2014 at 01:41 AM.

@Beholder

Where in the world are you? If you send me your bad floppy I'll try and revive it if you want (I actually made a YouTube video of how to fix them....), or I can just send you a copy of the driver disk if I can find it online.

The Catweasel is designed to write Amiga disks (abd other formats) using standard PC hardware.

Incidentally, make sure your CF card is less than 2GB to be safe, I'd start with a nice, compatible 256MB at first.


My YouTube video is called "How to clean floppy disks!" (don't have the link here as I'm on my phone).
Any questions just ask!

@Beholder

Version 2.0 is here. it's an adf file. I can extract it and lha the contents if needed.

Your best chance is to attach a floppy drive to your pc, usb is probably easiest. then use a PC formated (720k) floppy to transfer the files to your A500. (add PC0: to the dosdrivers (KS3) or mountlist (KS1/2) of your workbench floppy.

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@Severin

If he has only Kickstart 1.3 he won't be able to do this.

@Beholder

If you do have Kickstart 3.1 then this would be the easiest way, yes!

@Spirantho

I am definitely going to give the cleaning a try. Will let you know how it goes.

@Severin

Will try your idea if the cleaning doesn't work out.

@Beholder

I've got the same controller, if I remember correctly hdtoolbox could be used to set up drives too, but you had to set a tool type for HD toolbox to point it at the right device. I think it was IVS_AT. device. I do have the IVs utilities disk as well.

Last edited by Merc on 09-Apr-2014 at 08:11 PM.

@Merc

Quote:

Merc wrote: @Beholder I've got the same controller, if I remember correctly hdtoolbox could be used to set up drives too, but you had to set a tool type for HD toolbox to point it at the right device. I think it was IVS_AT. device. I do have the IVs utilities disk as well.

But I would need the Workbench 3.1 disks for that right?

@Beholder

True, you'd need the Install disk for WB 3.x or 2.1 I think.

@Spirantho

Quote:

Spirantho wrote: @Beholder Where in the world are you? If you send me your bad floppy I'll try and revive it if you want (I actually made a YouTube video of how to fix them....), or I can just send you a copy of the driver disk if I can find it online. My YouTube video is called "How to clean floppy disks!" (don't have the link here as I'm on my phone). Any questions just ask!

Unfortunately, the floppy disk clean didn't work. I cotton swabbed it with D4 cleaning solution end to end on both sides. Disk surface is spotless. Generates the read error on the same block. I was able to find a set of Workbench 3.1 disks and am going to try that. I also got the TCUtils 1.3 disk on the way as well. Will keep the thread posted as updates present themselves.

@Beholder

I hope the set of 3.1 disks you found also came with the correct rom chip to put in your A500. The disks are useless without it.

_________________
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Visit the Official OS4 Support Site for more help.

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Does someone want to help send me the utilities disk. I am running out of options... Can't get WB 3.1 HD Tools to recognize the drive even with Merc's suggestion. I know when I had the original utilities disk working the drive could be recognized. Might have to take a loss on the Trumpcard AT 500 and buy an ACA 500.

Last edited by Beholder on 18-Apr-2014 at 12:56 AM.
Last edited by Beholder on 18-Apr-2014 at 12:55 AM.
Last edited by Beholder on 18-Apr-2014 at 12:54 AM.
Last edited by Beholder on 18-Apr-2014 at 12:54 AM.

@Beholder

If you have a good double density floppy and you can mail it to me I could send you a disk.. Maybe I can find some time to try Hdtoolbox with mine just to see if it works... Oh, wait, I just remembered something! That controller has a "feature" when you boot from floppy the HD is disabled! I think if you boot from a workbench disk you need to hold the left mouse button down after reboot and until you see the first amigados window... Then it should be visible in hdtoolbox. Have you tried that?

There is a difference between a CF card and a HDD. Modern PC tools and devices read them easily, vintage computer equipment do not.

@Beholder

I wonder if you can format the drive under UAE on the PC? You could also use it to install 3.1 on the "HD" and at least then you'd have a Workbench.

Without a floppy-net getting data from internet enabled computers to an Amiga can be an annoying challenge. What I would do in a bare bones situtation is copy a compressed disk image onto a PC floppy and write it to an Amiga floppy on the Amiga. LhASfx is good, this creates a self extracting LhA archive. Also you could just LhA the file content, then extract to blank floopy on the Amiga and install a bootblock.

If you consider the setup disk too gone then perhaps attempt to repair it? Got any utility disk you can boot? I recall DiskMonTools has a repair feature that can repair disk sectors. If you can get any of these programs onto the Amiga it may be worth a shot.

Failing the floppy-net a serial-net or a parallel-net can be the next choice. But then you need the right cables. That said, I have convinced my Amiga to read a file over a serial null modem link from another machine by sending the file data directly to the serial port, and on the Amiga side copied it out of the AUX: device to a file. AUX: must be used as it is unbuffered.

Hope you get it sorted.

Good news, I have a working Trumpcard boot disk. I was able to boot-up to Workbench 3.1 via a 256mb 3.5" IDE hard drive.

Bad news, for some reason the Trumpcard card is being intermittently detected. I am not sure what it could be. I tried swabbing the contacts between the side expansion port on the A500 and the Trumpcard but now its just not seeing the card at all... Tried reseating it a number of times. Any ideas on the flaky connectivity via the side expansion port? Funny thing is when I initially connected the card with the drive it wasn't seeing it so I reseated the drive and swabbed down the contacts and it started working. Now no matter how much I reseat it or clean the contacts its not working...

OK, I got it working.... I think it might of been some sticky stuff from the previous owner under the Trumpcard which was connecting certain contacts.... Looks like it might of been grape jelly or some sort of fruit jam.... Anyway, I cleaned it up real good with the same stuff I cleaned the floppy disks with and viola... Working consistently like a charm.. So I am able to login to Workbench off the hard drive but I seem limited to what I can do... When I did the initial hard drive setup it only asked for the Workbench disks so alot of the other Workbench files from the other disks are not installed. Is there a way to install the missing Workbench features without disturbing what is already working great on the hard drive. Also just about every other disk I put in while booted from the hard drive is saying "DF0:NDOS"? Is there some connection to the lack of all the Workbench files or possibly running v3.1? Any help would be very appreciated.