Mentalbass Posted January 10, 2017 Share Posted January 10, 2017 Hello, I'm having trouble installing an old megafile 60. I have no idea what is on there or in what condition it is. When turned on the leds go on, fan to, after 40 or 50 sec or so the red activity led goes off. It's connected to a mega st and when both turned on the megafile blinks for a milisec when mega st is booting. But no C drive shows up. When using ahdi.prg it shows "unit 0 - no identification" after that the mega file activity led stays on and finally after 3 min the program shuts down. Is the drive broke or am I doing it wrong? How and with what steps do I make it work? Thanks for your valuable help! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Umberto Posted January 11, 2017 Share Posted January 11, 2017 (edited) The PSU on the megafile is most likely dead due to bad caps and the RLL HD might be dead due to the same reason. For sure you should recap the PSU's of both the mega st and megafile. Is this stuff you had for a while? I'm looking for a mega st Edited January 11, 2017 by Umberto Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mentalbass Posted January 11, 2017 Author Share Posted January 11, 2017 No I recently recieved both the mega st and megafile from someone. Just had it stored and didn't know about its working state. Mega st runs like a beast. Only one chip was out of the socket. Pressed it in and no problems when using it! I know caps eventually go faulty but it seems to me there's life in the megafile.... Megafile shows activity so might be the heads that are not in operating state? Reading something about hard disk heads that don't automatically go in "park" state? I haven't tried an old disk utility kit with drivers etc. will try those. If you're interested in the megafile let me know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walter_J64bit Posted January 12, 2017 Share Posted January 12, 2017 (edited) I've had the same problem with my megafile 20, The motherboard in my megafile 20 was dead before you go get a new Hard Drive or a new PSU's get your hands on a replacement megafile 60 motherboard and see if that works, I hope this helps you out! Edited January 12, 2017 by walter_J64bit 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mentalbass Posted January 12, 2017 Author Share Posted January 12, 2017 OK, So indicated that The board is broke. Let's say I'm ditching the megafile is there an other way, besides gotek, satandisk etc....... keep in mind I'm a noob with hardware ...... to use a massstorage device on a Mega st ? What is the simplest, easiest thing to attach or create a storage drive on the Mega st? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zogging Hell Posted January 12, 2017 Share Posted January 12, 2017 Go with the Ultrasatan, the megafile is resilient and may well be ok, but the speed from a SD card compared to that old drive is a relevation. I have two old megafiles, one does take a little time to warm up, the other apparently has lots of bad sectors (Diamond Edge believes virtually the whole drive is a bad sector). Weirdly though I've used it as a boot drive for 15 years in this condition and haven't experienced any data loss or corruption. You could try and reformat the drive if you are not worried about loosing anything on there. You will need to use the HDX program from the AHDI disk (if its on there). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Android8675 Posted January 12, 2017 Share Posted January 12, 2017 OK, So indicated that The board is broke. Let's say I'm ditching the megafile is there an other way, besides gotek, satandisk etc....... keep in mind I'm a noob with hardware ...... to use a massstorage device on a Mega st ? What is the simplest, easiest thing to attach or create a storage drive on the Mega st? CosmosEx is a great device, plugs into Floppy and/or Hard Drive port on ST/STe/TT/Falcon, adds USB and Ethernet to your ST as well. Sick little device. It's external, on a Mega ST you connect the device to your AHCI port (Hard Drive) and put a little cable in line along your keyboard cable. If you want to use it as a floppy drive then you can mount it inside where your floppy drive is, or run the floppy cable inside the case with a little twerking. You should also test your PSU to make sure you don't need to at least Recap, if not replace the PSU altogether. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mentalbass Posted January 12, 2017 Author Share Posted January 12, 2017 As said: me as an noob :-) How do I format it when I can't access it now?? Hdx works anyway? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mentalbass Posted January 12, 2017 Author Share Posted January 12, 2017 Cosmos ex looks great but I'm already stuck on asci or scsi? Mega 1 which to choose? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zogging Hell Posted January 13, 2017 Share Posted January 13, 2017 (edited) If you put the HDX formatting on floppy with AHDI (which I presume you have if you have AHDI running?), run the AHDI program from the desktop or auto folder (you don't need to have booted from the hard drive) and then run HDX. Hopefully it will detect the drive, you can then proceed to format it. HDX is pretty simple to use, there is a partial guide to the AHDI system here: http://www.atari-wiki.com/?title=AHDI Click on the format option in the menu and then just run through the dialogues - it may well take yonks with the Megafile as the drive is slow. If it works you need to use hdinstall to stick the AHDI program into the boot sector of the hard disk so it autoboots Edited January 13, 2017 by Zogging Hell 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zogging Hell Posted January 13, 2017 Share Posted January 13, 2017 Although it is based on Mist, this guide may well help as well, just look at the AHDI (Hard disk) sections. https://github.com/mist-devel/mist-board/wiki/AtariMassStorage Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mentalbass Posted January 13, 2017 Author Share Posted January 13, 2017 Already tried the AHDI prg but it detects the drive but is unable to identify it: it said "unit 0 - no identification" After like 5 mins the AHDI prg just quits and nothing is changed or established. So that why I can't come further in this...... F$&& frustration! :-( Even though fan, lights and powers on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zogging Hell Posted January 13, 2017 Share Posted January 13, 2017 Yeah after you have run ahdi, regardless of outcome try using HDX. The other possibilities (that don't include dead drive) is that the lead is knackered, or in the wrong socket on the Megafile. It might be worth trying HD Driver - you can download a demo version that may be enough to establish if its working. http://hddriver.seimet.de/en/demo.html 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mentalbass Posted January 13, 2017 Author Share Posted January 13, 2017 OK ill try hdx format. How do you copy all files and folders in a directory at once? In xp command line I copy files to a formatted 720k disk. Doing this file for file..... how to copy all at once, example the Utils disk with AHDI prg, incl. folders with files? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zogging Hell Posted January 13, 2017 Share Posted January 13, 2017 On the ST? Depends a little on which TOS version, you best bet is to expand the window to maximum size and then rubber band (hold down the left mouse button and drag across all the files you need till they all turn black). Then drag the files across to the destination folder (you need two windows open or be copying to the root directory - in which case you can drag to the floppy B icon. There is a bit of a guide to using GEM on my website which might help http://www.zhell.co.uk/sthelp02.html 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mentalbass Posted January 13, 2017 Author Share Posted January 13, 2017 For copying I meant in windows xp with internal A: drive. Normally I copy st images using Floimg. But just copying files is a hassle under commmand prompt. What I want to know if there's a command in windows xp to put multiple files and folders on a floppy disk? So I've tried HDX. On my MEGA 1 Outcome it has 7 ASCI parts but there all not recognized and can't be formatted. When trying it responds with can't format, none of them. I've tried shipparc prg to see if the heads were loose. On my 1040 STF outcome is identical. No succes. My Atari's are trying to acces the disk, I see activity led blink but that's it. It's running but seems not accessible. Is there another option? Unscrew the device see in there? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walter_J64bit Posted January 14, 2017 Share Posted January 14, 2017 http://atariage.com/forums/topic/241884-sh205-unrecognized/?hl=%2Bsh205&do=findComment&comment=3380962 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zogging Hell Posted January 15, 2017 Share Posted January 15, 2017 For copying I meant in windows xp with internal A: drive. Normally I copy st images using Floimg. But just copying files is a hassle under commmand prompt. What I want to know if there's a command in windows xp to put multiple files and folders on a floppy disk? I'm not really up on disk images (maybe someone else will pipe in), you can access the image though in an emulator like Steem on Windows, use that to copy files to the image and then burn the altered image to disk as you have been doing. Outcome it has 7 ASCI parts but there all not recognized and can't be formatted. When trying it responds with can't format, none of them. I've tried shipparc prg to see if the heads were loose. On my 1040 STF outcome is identical. No succes. My Atari's are trying to acces the disk, I see activity led blink but that's it. It's running but seems not accessible. Is there another option? Unscrew the device see in there? Hhhmm not so good. I would check cabling - acsi cable should iirc be in the right port (if you are looking at the hard drive from the back). The other thing you can do before breaking it open is listen to the drive itself. If you can hear it above the fan that is! The drive is not quiet and you should be able to here the head moving backwards and forwards when you turn it on. It sounds a little like a steam train! It should be fairly easy to isolate as the only other noise should be the fan. If you don't hear anything then the drive may have stuck/ seized or is a total write off. I believe it has stuck it can be loosened as these old drives are a bit more mechanically simple that todays but that's slightly above my pay grade.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mentalbass Posted January 15, 2017 Author Share Posted January 15, 2017 I'm not really up on disk images (maybe someone else will pipe in), you can access the image though in an emulator like Steem on Windows, use that to copy files to the image and then burn the altered image to disk as you have been doing. Hhhmm not so good. I would check cabling - acsi cable should iirc be in the right port (if you are looking at the hard drive from the back). The other thing you can do before breaking it open is listen to the drive itself. If you can hear it above the fan that is! The drive is not quiet and you should be able to here the head moving backwards and forwards when you turn it on. It sounds a little like a steam train! It should be fairly easy to isolate as the only other noise should be the fan. If you don't hear anything then the drive may have stuck/ seized or is a total write off. I believe it has stuck it can be loosened as these old drives are a bit more mechanically simple that todays but that's slightly above my pay grade.. Yeah it's defense in the hard drive in port. I'm sending to someone with more knowledge or feel about this than me. He might fix it. Thanks for your help, All here! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mentalbass Posted January 15, 2017 Author Share Posted January 15, 2017 Defense = definitely Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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