BLANK SCREEN
7 messages in this thread
JIM AND BETTY–I have an Amiga 1200 with 80 MG hard drive. (I think!!) When I
typed INSTALL HD0: CHECK — I got the message that said "object not of
required type". When I typed AVAIL– I got this chip–1531568 avail, 564568 in
use, 2896128 Max, 1517584 Largest fast–0 avail, 0 in use, 0 max. 0 largest
total–151568,564568,2896128,1517584 If I don't have a user start-up file can't
you just give me the words for me to type them in.
JG >>I have an Amiga 1200 with […] hard drive — I got the message that
said "object not of required type".<<
That was the same message I got, with my A1200+HD. However, my drive
seems to work fine. My first HD partition is labeled DH0:, and is setup
to automount.
Ron. – ("I'm not stupid, I'm not expendable, and I'm not going!"
– quote made by any low level RPG player.)
Hmmmm. "Object not of required type", huh? That's a little strange, from my
point of view: it's the kind of message you would get if you tried to treat a
file as a directory or vice versa. I wonder if trying to replace the bootblock
with INSTALL HD0: will end up giving you the same message.
[Betty, you there? Have you run across this one? Anyone?]
I see that Ronald Romine's response says he sees the same thing, which is
reassuring in a way. "Set up for automount"? Could you be specific, Ronald?
I'm not sure I follow.
Hang in there, Joan. We'll get you going.
–Jim
Jim, I'm still here, but tomorrow I'll be going down to Pete's place and I'm
not sure I'll be online while we're there. May be Monday before I have another
chance to be online.
John just tried it on his Wordbench and it said "Object not found." When he
typed "Install DH0: CHECK" it said "Object not of required type. Install
failed." What happened when you tried it? John says….."How did you manage
to get something different? Of course, you always DO."
When John typed, "Install DH0:" it said, "Disk is write-protected. Install
failed."
Joan is ingenious – she's come up with a brand new one, I think.
I was hanging back from trying it on my main system, since that's a 1.3 which
would likely turn up results not relevant to Joan's problem. But .. let's dig
further. When all else fails, read the documentation .. I quote from the Amiga
Hard Drive User's Guide:
"3.4. The Install Disk Utility Programs…
"PrepHD (caution .. this one completely reformats and partitions, and will
wipe ALL the disk contents)…
"FormatHD. This utility formats the partitions created by PrepHD, so that
they are ready to have the system software installed…
"InstallHD. This is the program you use to install your system software to
the hard disk. InstallHD, once started, requests the insertion of software
disks into the floppy drive…"
Most likely InstallHD is the one that puts the boot sector in place [anyone
know this for sure?] .. in which case, Joan should go back to the Install disk
and run InstallHD. Since this will wipe existing files, she should backup any
data she doesn't want to lose.
From appendix A:
"Symptom: When you boot your system from the hard disk, you see a screen
requesting a Workbench disk. Solution: Reboot your system by pressing the
Ctrl, the Left Amiga, and the right Amiga keys simultaneously. If you still
see the Workbench disk screen, you may need to rebuild your hard disk".
This doesn't *quite* match the symptom Joan reported: she gets a blank
screen. But it's the closest I can find in the table, and may be the best
thing for us to try next. Is it possible that her hard disk has not
stabilized, and that's why she hangs on a HD boot?
(Also, as I recall, Joan told us that she doesn't have a full set of the
Install disks .. so if she needs to go the Install route, she'll need to get
fixed up on that count).
JOAN, ARE YOU LISTENING? If so, try the three-key reboot as indicated a few
paragraphs above, and tell us if anything interesting happens. Also: could
you refresh my memory on Install disks?
–Jim
Jim,
Amiga hard disks do NOT use a boot sector, per se. The
"bootable/non-bootable" status is controlled solely by the rigid disk
block (RDB). Block 0 of the partition only contains the indication of
what "filesystem" the partition has been formatted for.
The "install" command, which does create boot-blocks containing actual
bootstrap code, is only for floppy disks. Booting from hard disks
involves running bootstrap code in ROM (and in the "filesystem" which
resides either in the system ROM or in the disk's RDB), and the device
driver for the hard disk controller, which is either in the system ROM (in
the case of the built-in controllers in current Amigas) or in ROM on the
controller (in the case of add-on controllers).
Hope this clarifies things a bit.
– BobR
(Motorola Inside!)
JB >>"Set up for automount"? Could you be specific, Ronald? I'm not sure
I follow.<<
I should of said 'set as bootable'.
My A1200 is using a IDE HD, with the A1200's built in interface. This is
a standard IDE hardware interface, but the A1200 is using a driver named
"scsi.device". This appears to be Commdore's SCSI.device, but modified to
also handle IDE drives (in a transparent manner to HD utility software).
I used HDToolBox, to setup the partitions, with the all partitions marked
to be mounted on bootup (automount) without need for a mountlist entree.
I also selected the bootable box, to mark the first partition as
bootable.
I still had the use the standard FORMAT command to format the separate
partitions, but I never used INSTALL.
HDToolBOX appears to set a different boot flag than the one installed by
INSTALL, but still a flag that the SCSI.device can detect.
Ron. – ("I'm not stupid, I'm not expendable, and I'm not going!"
– quote made by any low level RPG player.)