History: v1 - Initital release v2 - Added 4-way IDE device info
ARGH!!!
What can I say? There are several (some very good) documents on telling you how to towerise an A1200. Some have really nice pictures and descriptions on what to do, connecting up power and so forth. But each of them are lacking something! None are 100% complete. Its like learning how to drive without a car. Its very frustrating and worrying when I look at all of these docs on how to towerise the A1200 and I can see people either getting stuck with their machine in bits or making a very tough job of doing it. So I have put together this EXTRA document for anyone who is thinking about towerising their wee beastie. Dont hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about putting an A1200 in a tower.
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############################################################################### Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for any damage that may occur from the use of this information. It has worked perfectly well for me on the several machines I have converted, wether fully or partially to a tower. ###############################################################################
This documnet will hopefully fill in the gaps or fix some problems that other documents are missing. There are 2 sections to this document. The first will explain installing/making hardware and the second will be the 'possible' problems that can occur that you may not have any direct control over. This isnt meant to scare you, but just to let you know why things wont work and how to easily fix them.
Part 1: Addition to installing/making hardware
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Using 3.5" (E)IDE Hard drives
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The most notable 'lack' of documentation with respect to using 3.5" HD's on your 1200 is the cabling. Ok, there are 2 good docs on how to actually make the 2.5" -=> 3.5" adapter yourself. (Dont ask me which docs, you'll find them if you look) It is quite straight forward, but doesnt leave too much room for error in making it. Basically, you take your 2.5" -=> 2.5" adapter in your 1200, cut one end off close to the connector. You then seperate the 44-way High density cable, I use pairs of wire, but you can split them into individual strands if you wish. You then get a 3.5" connector and hand push the wires on. The 3.5" connector is only 40-way cable, and dthe 4 extra wires on the High density cable are for power to the 2.5" drive. The ones you leave off are the 4 at the end furtherest away from the front of the 1200. Find the docs on this on Aminet, you should be able to find them with my basic description.
The other problem people seem to have is with finding 'male' 3.5" connectors. They are availble, although I have never used them myself. There is a much cheaper way of connecting 2 cables together:
Get 2 cables with 3.5" connectors on the end. Either buy them or make them yourself. Then get hold of some 50-way DILS or SILS. DIL stands for Dual In line and SIL for single inline. These are pins held together with a bit of plastic. They are 'male' at both ends, and are extremely simple. Just break off the extra 10 pins that you dont need (to make it 40-way) and push one end into each of the connectors Yo may have to push the plastic connector into the center a little, but that is easily done with a flat headed screwdriver. Simple. These seem to be available from quite a few electronic/hobbyist shops over here in New Zealand. Just ask for 50-way DILS. If the person at the counter says 'what are they' you say 'funny little things made of pins with a little bit of plastic in the middle'.
Another thing to note, which isnt in any of the documents I have seen: If you are going to use DIL's to connect 2 cables together, you *MUST* have 2 DIL's connecting 3 cables together. What do I mean by this, and why?
Why? Because of the way the DIL works on the cable. Each time you use a DIL, the lines on the cable get inverted. IE: the top lines go down to the bottom and the bottom to the top. So you have to use 2 DIL's, one inverts, the other inverts again and recifies the data. Oh, ive plugged in 3.5" cables back to front many many times. The machine simply doesnt boot. Havent killed any hardware by doing it. But try not to do it too often , I suspect it could be quite simple to blow something up in your machine.
Um, there is also some dispute over the length of the cable and the unbuffered internal IDE port on the 1200. Amiga Format says that drives wont work if the cable length exceeds a couple of inches. Eyetech say that it is dangerous to plug in 3.5" devices and that you will eventually kill your 1200. My cable length is about 1.5 metres and I have had it like this for about 2 years. I have done 7 other machines in similar fashion. All are working fine. I do have some words of wisdom though - all the drives I have used have been new drives, and quite modern. I wouldnt use anything older than a year or two.
4-Way IDE devices
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There are now several companies advertising and selling 4-way IDE cards for the A1200. One user emailed me telling me the following info on the Eyetech device he has (sorry, I lost your email in a crash at university *8) ).
- The max length of cable from the computer to the 4-way device is about 20cm - The max length of cable from the device to the IDE devices is about 40cm!
This is not a hit on the Eyetech device, but the response from a user who has it. It is possible that it could be his setup and drives, but he did have his HD cable at a much longer length before he bought the Eyetech interface. This is of no problem if you have mounted your computer in a Tower, but could cause some grief if you have an external tower. Im sorry I cant offer more information on this subject. If anyone has a 4-way device of any kind, please email me and I will update the document.
Note: The Amiga IDE interface was designed for 2 units. To use more than 2 Hard drives onthe 4-way devices requires extra software (IDEfix97 on aminet) which is commercial. I believe you can use two CD-roms and 2 hard drives without using the specific 4-way device utilisation software.
Part 2: Diagnosing and fixing problems
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Below you will find a couple of answers to some common problems:
Q) My new 3.5" hard drive wont work!
A) Hmm. There is no definite answer for this one, as there can be a myriad of reasons as to why they dont work. Try the following remedy: 1) power on your machine, and when you get the 'insert disk' screen, reset your computer, then boot with your INSTALL disk. Run HD toolbox and see if the drive appears. WB3.0 doesnt wait very long for drives to spin up, and a simple reset after power-up may solve the problem.
2) Failing that, it may be a slightly more complex problem. A lot of drives I have come across recently have been Enhanced IDE (EIDE). In fact all of them have been. But it appears that a LOT of new drives will not work or not work correctly without a 2nd IDE device present. The cheapeast way around this is to get a cheap IDE CD-rom drive and throw it in. (Demo ATAPI software is availble on Aminet). I have had several drives that dont work at all without a second device, and some devices that work fine by themselves. My current EIDE drive (an actual IBM brand 1.7g) worked fine when I have my CD-rom connected. But when the CD-rom broke down and was getting replaced my HD would RESET itself at the slightest power fluctuation. ie: turning the lights on in the hallway. Turning on anyting in my room definitely caused the drive to reset. (which meant I had to reset the computer, and this is annoying when running a BBS).
Q) I get random read errors, or get 'Insert volume xxxxx' in any drive.
A) Your cable is too long. Shave off about 2cm at a time of HD cable and run your computer again. If there are no errors after a couple of days, great *8) If so, shave a little more off again. Try to connect the drive close to the IDE interface when you are first installing the hard drive. This will remove the possiblility that your HD cable is too long if the drive doesnt work.
Q) I get errors when copying large files on my HD. They are corrupt.
A) There are a couple of things it could be: 1) Change the MAXTRANSFER RATE of the drive. Do this by going into HD toolbox, partition drive, advanced options, change file system, MAXTRANSFER. Take off an 'f' and save changes to the drive. Reboot and see if the problem is gone.
2) IF that doesnt fix it, then so far I havent found an answer. It could be that the drive just isnt 100% IDE compatible, and so doesnt work 100% on the A1200. One strange situation I have come across is that there are no errors when copying from no startup, but there are from WB. Strange. Best solution: get another brand/size of Hard drive. Quite often a different sized drive will be different in compatibility. Best to 'try' before you buy with a drive.
Ok, thats it for this issue. If I feel there is need to add more, I will release a newer version of the doc. Enjoy.
Copyright Kenji Irie 1997
You can contact me at the following addresses:
BBS: Phoenix Amiga BBS: +64 03-3228-208, ++64 03-3228-259
Phone: ++64 03-3229-240
Snail mail: Kenji Irie 11 Calverton Place, Christchurch 3, New Zealand