#Large Hard Disks
10 messages in this thread
Hi,
I have an A4000 that I use almost exclusively for the Video Toaster. It came
with a 120Mb hard drive; I had an additional 220Mb hard drive installed by the
dealer when I bought it. My usual platform is an IBM PC compatible
(MSDOS/Windows), and I have two Western Digital hard drives in that machine; a
340 Mb and a 1.08 Gb. With prices coming down on these drives so much, I would
like to put a 540 Mb or 1.08 Gb Western Digital in my A4000. I would, of
course, give up the little 120 Mb DH0: drive already in there.
Does anyone know if this will work? Since they are all IDE now, it would "seem
OK", but that's rarely the case in the real world. If anyone knows or
"strongly suspects" that it would or would NOT work, please drop me a note.
Thanks!
-Eric
Yesterday, I replaced a hard drive in the A4000/Toaster system at my church,
and it was extremely easy. It happens that I was replacing the second drive
rather than the 120M that came with the machine, so I didn't have to reinstall
the system software, but that should be about the only difference–you'll have
to do a reinstall, since that will be your boot disk.
The installation was really easy. Remove two screws to lift off the case.
Remove four screws to lift out the drive case, and four more to release the
drive (slip off the cables first, of course). Then slide the new drive in
place, secure it with the four screws. Replace the drive case and the four
screws that hold it down. Slip the cables back on the new drive, being careful
to orient them exactly the same way. Then, put the case on, power up, and use
HDToolBox to partition and format. The manual is quite clear and easy to
follow. Shouldn't give you any trouble at all. Be sure your drive is set to
be unit 0, the master.
—Betty
Betty,
Thanks very much for the info. When you say "the manual" do you mean the
AmigaDOS manual or the manual that came with the hard disk drive? I know there
isn't going to be any Amiga info in the disk manual since I already have one.
I spoke with Western Digital tech support, and they really don't speak "Amiga."
But they said go ahead and buy one, try it, if it doesn't work, return it for a
refund, no problem.
Guess I'll try it (:-\).
BTW, what brand and capacity did you use?
-Eric
I used the A4000 manual to show me how to get into the system, and do the
physical installation. I used the A4000 hard drive manual for the steps in
partitioning and formatting. Didn't use the AmigaDOS manual at all.
I had the drive specifications in hand, but HDToolBox was able to read them
from the drive, and the numbers were identical. The drive I installed was a
Maxtor 540M drive, and it replaced a Maxtor 200M one.
There are two places in the A4000 where you can install a second drive. One is
on the front panel, and the other is near the back of the machine. Ours was
installed in the back. THere is a little drive case back there that holds two
3.5" hard drives. In our machine, the 120M drive was beneath the 200M.
Just be sure that, if you are replacing the 120M boot drive, you set the new
one to be the master, to be unit 0, and that you make it bootable when you
partition and format it. The one I replaced had to be the slave, unit 1, not
bootable.
—Betty
Hi Betty,
Sounds like it shouldn't be too hard, especially since I have two drives in
there already; I can just see where one comes out and the new one goes in. If
and when I get all this accomplished, I'll let you know the results.
Thanks again!
-Eric
I'm sure you'll have no trouble at all doing it. I've put in several hard
drives in my other machines, but this one was the easiest installation I've
ever done.
—Betty
One word of caution:- the normal IDE standard allowed for HD sizes up to 540Mb.
Any drive up to this size will definitely work in your Amiga. IDE drives
larger than 540Mb use an extended standard, and you should be careful to check
whether these drives can in fact be used on Amigas. If not, you will need to
use SCSI drives for that kind of storage.
Mal
Binary Dreams
I just upgraded my Gateway 2000's ROM-BIOS at work to use the 1 Gig IDE
drives. Maybe I'll borrow one and see how my 4000 sees it.
DJ
On AP from Queens, the thrill and excitement of the Big Apple
Where Santa's always got a brand new bag …
I'd be interested to know the results! I have a 1200 – I could really do with
a 1Gb drive instead of the 40Mb it has at the moment!
Mal
Binary Dreams
Mal,
as far as I know, the limitations you mentioned result from the head/sector
-translation used by the PC-BIOS. I do not think, that this can be a
problem with the Amiga because BIOS (not available) cannot be used, so for
using the harddisk – whatever it's size may be – a software driver has to
be used.
Furthermore there's a so called Enhanced Mode available with many modern
drives but these features do not have to be used, if a harddisk controller
does not know anything about them, the harddisk is used as every other
ordinary IDE-drive.
Regards, Gerhard …