#PLEASE HELP
12 messages in this thread
To ALL:
HELP!!! I left a message previously with no response… Can anyone
help me boot my XT BB with an external 3.5" drive. I have it connected to
an A3000 and I can't use the 5.25" drive. I have MS-DOS on the 3.5" so it
will work if I can just get it to access the drive…
-Tim Stonis
Tim:
I believe that you will have to run 'set-up' and change the configuration
to tell the BB that you have a 3.5" drive connected… but someone else who
has first hand experience will really have to fill you in.
– Whapp!ng from the North Coast Michael
I don't think that an MS-DOS machine can boot from drive b: It's either A:
or the hard drive C:. When you connect a drive to the external port, it's
drive B:. Probably the easiest thing to do would be to just hook up the
5.25" drive temporarily outside the 3000's case. Then use it to install the
MS-DOS software on a Janus pseudo-drive.
Tim,
Presuming your 3.5" drive is configured properly (drive 1, the A:
drive) then you need a 720 or 360K disk to do the initial DOS install.
Once you get DOS running, you can run setup to tell the system what the
configuration of the drive really is.
Don
Don,
How do I configure and external drive to be the A: drive?
-Tim
Tim:
The internal drive will always be the A: drive (If I'm wrong… someome
please jump in!). You can mount the 5.25" internal drive externally without
further modification or, you can set it up temporarily, just so you can get
your Jlink partition set up, and then run SETUP from msdos, and tell it
that your A: drive is a 3.5" 1.44 HD drive, then save that config, shut it
all down, and replace the 5.25" with the new 3.5".
– Whapp!ng from the North Coast Michael
Michael…
Tim is using an XT BB, so the setup doesn't apply, unfortunately. The XT BB
has a connector for an external drive, and it can't be used as the "A"
drive.
Marion
CROSSINGS
Newsletter for the Bridgeboard, etc.
Tim,
The only way to configure the external drive as the A: drive is to
run the drive cable that normally goes to the internal drive …out the
back and plug it into your external drive. The external drive needs to be
set to drive 1 also (most usually are already set that way).
Don
Tim,
If by "external" you mean the Amiga external drive that connects to the
external connector on the outside of the XT BB, it can't be done,
unfortunately. The external connector is drive "B".
I think you said you "couldn't use" the 5.25" drive. Why not? If you mean
you don't have a drive bay for it, you can keep it outside in an external
case, as long as you have the "internal" cables connected to it.
Marion
CROSSINGS
Newsletter for the Bridgeboard, etc.
Marion,
Actually…it can be done (using external drive as A:), but it does
require a bit of work on the BB itself. You've got to cut and jumper 2
traces (I forget which traces exactly). That will swap the select lines
from the internal connector to the external connector for A: (and make the
internal connector for B:).
Don
Don,
Never say "never", right? If you ever see the details of how it's done,
please drop me a note. I've been trying to find out, but nobody can ever
tell me.
Marion
CROSSINGS
Marion,
It's actually easy….if you've got a schematic. You look for the
A and B select lines. Locate them on the board, cut them and jumper across
them so that the A line goes to the B output and the B line goes to the A
output.
That'll make your external drive A: and your internal drive (if you
have one) B:.
Don