*The Lair!* - The Day the Music Died<title></head> <body bgcolor="black" text="white" vlink=#333333 alink=#ff00000 link=#6666ff> <basefont size=3 face="arial, Verdana, Helvetica"> <TABLE width=100%> <tr> <td width=100><img src="Graphics/anim-skeleton.gif"></td><td> <h1><font size=7>The Day The Music Died </font></h1><p align=right><font size=5>Chris Hanretty has <strong>a lot</strong> of Amiga problems.<br>These are them</font></td></tr></table></p> <hr noshade height=3 color=white> <font size=+1>Many of you will be familiar with Don McLean`s epic song</font>. It has very little to do with Amigas, however. <p> At the moment, I have my 1200 in the room next door. It is a forlorn little 1200. Day by day, month by month, it has been stripped of its accellerator, it now, has been reduced to the ultimate humility, being a floppy only system. What had started out as a nippy little GTI <i>sans</i> CD, has been reduced to a wheelbarrow. Except the wheelbarrow doesn`t work. Yes, my friends, my Amiga will work with a hard drive in, but not without one. Ironic, isn`t it? Designed with a lightweight OS, not requiring a HD, and my Ami has it`s lifeline attached in some bizarre fortesque fashion.<p> <font size=+1>It all started</font> some months ago, around Easter 97. I had just acquired an Eyetech buffered interface (review coming when I`ve got a fully functioning Amiga!), and I had also just stolen (only family borrowing, really) an obsolete 486 from my father. It had an ATAPI CD-ROM drive, and <font size=+1>I wanted it</font>. So, in my haste and lust for the CD ROM, I opened up my Amiga currently equipped with a Viper MkII 33 Mhz and 4Mbs RAM. <p> Oooh, aahh, Amiga innards! (This was only the second time I had opened up my Amiga - the count is in the thousands now :-) ). Ah, now there`s the hard drive. I yanked the Seagate out of its cradle, and then put the buffered interface on the motherboard IDE interface. Using, of course, the 44 pin cable that connected the hard drive. And since I didn`t have a multitude of 44 pin IDE cables lying around, I couldn`t connect the hard drive, and since the ATAPI drivers are on the hard drive, it would be kinda useless.<p> So, curiosity satisfied, I took the interface out, and placed the hard drive back in. Screws in, cables plugged in at the back, power on. <p> <table height=100%> <tr><td></td></tr> </table> Zip. Nothing. De Nada. Black screen time. The one word racing through my mind was "Sh*t!". Can you blame me? <p> So, embarrased me sends the Amiga off to Wizard to be repaired. They look pretty reasonable for £29.99. A few tortous days follow without an Amiga, and then it returns. Burst of the Hallelujah chorus, if you please maestro. Open up, look at the repair sheet. Turns out I`d damaged the Budgie chip in my zealous attitude to hard drive removing.<p> So, I take out the 1200, connect cables, the usual stuff. And turn on!<p> <table height=100%> <tr><td></td></tr> </table> By now I imagine your getting quite tired with the black screen stuff, yes? I get on the phone quick to Wizard, who say it is perhaps possible that the hard drive had slipped in transit. They take it back and return it to me saying all that they did was take the Viper out and cleaned the connections, and it worked. I go through the usual rigmarole with the cables, and I turn it on.<p> It works! I`m back to my fast set up, resplendent in 64 colours and oohh, those Newicons look good. So, for a few days, it works. Until I get another black screen. Doh!<p> So I take out the accellerator, and surprise surprise, the Amiga works, albeit it`s missing a faster processor and 4 megs of memory :-). I return it to First Computer, who say there`s nothing wrong with it. I take it back. It works! Then <br><br><blink> <table width=100% cellpadding=0> <tr><td colspan=3 bgcolor=#ff0000 width=100% height=5></td></tr> <tr><td bgcolor=#ff0000 width=5></td> <td><font size=5 color=#ff0000><center><code>Unrecoverable error</code></center></font></td> <td bgcolor=#ff0000 width=5></td></tr> </table></blink> <br> I start getting lots of gurus, which become too numerous to put down to mere unluckiness. Usually it`s an 80000004, 8000000B or 8000000F, which I`ve dubbed the "No Reasonable Explanation Errors"<p> So, I take the accellerator out, and the Amiga still works. A few days later, I put the accellerator back in again, and it works! Then it crashes. <p> I take it out, put it in, it works, it crashes. I take it out, put it in, it works, it crashes. I take it out, put it in, it works, it crashes. I take it out, put it in, it works, it crashes. I take it out, put it in, it works, it crashes. I take it out, put it in, it works, it crashes. I take it out, put it in, it works, it crashes. I take it out, put it in, it works, it crashes. etc.etc.etc.<p> However, if you though I just had problems with the accellerator, think again. The buffered interface doesn`t like me. I try connecting it once, with the CD-ROM and HD, and it does nothing. It test it with just the HD. It doesn`t work. At this point I`m thinking "Sh*t!" again<p> But, I connect the HD to solely the motherboard interface, and it works. Apart from the missing 4 megs and faster processor :-) It is at this time I discover my Amiga is the only one in the world that won`t work without a hard drive. Is this the best example of Sod`s Law ever or what?<p> Then follow a few frustrating months. I retain my sanity by leaving the accellerator out 99% of the time. I sent it back to 1st Computer again, who maintain that there`s nothing wrong with it.<p> So I get. I`ve never though highly of First Computer`s tech. support, so I fax Power Computing, detailing all my problems, and get an unexpected answer... <p> <table width=98% bgcolor=#ffffff> <tr><td><font size=4 face="Comic Sans MS" color=#000>Dear Sir,<br>It appears to us that you may have an early motherboard revision. Please call us for further details</font></td></tr></table> <p>Shit.<p> <table width=100%> <tr> <td> <hr noshade color=#fff width=20% align=left> <font size=2 face=Times New Roman Italic, Times New Roman, Times><a href="trials2.html">Part II</a></font> <hr noshade color=#fff width=20% align=left> </td><td align=right><Table Border> <TR><TD BGColor="#000" Width="50%"><Center> <Font Size=1>Home</Font> </Center></TD> <TD BGColor="#000" Width="50%"><Center> <Font Size=1>Main</Font> </Center></TD></TR> <TR><TD BGColor="#FFFFFF" Width="50%"><Center> <A HRef="index.html"><Img Src="Graphics/home.gif" Border="0" Width="40" Height="30" Alt="Contents"></A> </Center></TD> <TD BGColor="#FFFFFF" Width="50%"><Center> <A HRef="main.html"><Img Src="Graphics/contents.gif" Border="0" Width="40" Height="30" Alt="Next"></A> </Center></TD></TR> </Table> </td> </tr></table> </html>