JEFF31 Posted February 6, 2017 Share Posted February 6, 2017 OK - how to start this... (my first topic...been a 'member' here since 1998). Booted my Amiga 2000HD about 11 months ago and well... long story short the HD failed... I was really bummed and have followed the threads here - but... sorry I haven't 'worked' on a 2000HD in 15 years... I DO NOT recall what I should do...pretty sure the drive is DEAD... I just want to play the games from the past... Over the years people have donated a bunch of 'stuff' to me (that I have 'no clue' to what the boards do.. bunch of stuff - ask me if you care....) I'm ready to pull out an A500 and 'start over'... And even that is a huge deal to me... I think I have a A500 hard drive... Working 7 days a week leaves me very little time to apply my time to an old hobby... Any help / encouragement would be helpful... Thanks Jeff31 - love the Amiga / ColecoVision PS - IF any replies - give me a few to respond - I don't always check these threads for responses... thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rootboy Posted February 6, 2017 Share Posted February 6, 2017 This will get you started. Get yourself an old Fireball drive, or something know to work with Amigas at least (avoid the Seagate Hawk drives). Get yourself a Gotek floppy drive replacement. Find the Workbench .ADFs for your version of Kickstart in the usual places. Copy the .ADF files onto a USB stick and create your Selector.adf file using HxCEdit (as pointed out by another member here in the forum). Boot up the 2000 using the Gotek and select the image that you want to install first. Go from there. Did you yank out the old battery yet? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tjlazer Posted February 9, 2017 Share Posted February 9, 2017 Check the battery and remove it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JEFF31 Posted February 10, 2017 Author Share Posted February 10, 2017 This will get you started. Get yourself an old Fireball drive, or something know to work with Amigas at least (avoid the Seagate Hawk drives). Get yourself a Gotek floppy drive replacement. Find the Workbench .ADFs for your version of Kickstart in the usual places. Copy the .ADF files onto a USB stick and create your Selector.adf file using HxCEdit (as pointed out by another member here in the forum). Boot up the 2000 using the Gotek and select the image that you want to install first. Go from there. Did you yank out the old battery yet? Thanks. When I have time I'll try these things out. Battery - Uhmm haven't fiddle with that - may have replaced it years ago - but to be safe I'll check it out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rootboy Posted February 10, 2017 Share Posted February 10, 2017 You're welcome! It absolutely critical that you remove the battery and clean up any leakage. Should there be any leakage (and I would do this even if there wasn't), take the motherboard out of the case and soak it in a tub of white vinegar. Let it soak for a few hours, and use an old electric toothbrush to cleanup the board. Rinse the board using regular tap water (or if you like, distilled water), dry it out next to a space heater for a few days, and put it back into the case. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eightbit Posted February 22, 2017 Share Posted February 22, 2017 The A2000 is more or less an A500 with extra slots in a big case. Ditch the HD until a later time and install a Gotek or similar floppy emulator and just use it for floppy based ADF games if it powers on. Down the road you can start looking into HDD replacements for WHDLoad. As for the battery, I agree that you need to take it out (cut it out) immediately. Hopefully there is no leakage. If there is, clean the area that has visible battery leakage with vinegar to neutralize it and then clean it again with 91% isopropyl alcohol. I cannot agree however in removal of the whole motherboard and soaking it in vinegar and washing it as stated previously. That is just overboard and may cause unintended damage to other components. There is no need to do that. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rootboy Posted February 25, 2017 Share Posted February 25, 2017 Meh, to each their own. So far I've done it this way for both of my 4000's, my 5 2000's, and all 8 or so of my memory expansion boards for my 500's. I'm either correct, or extremely adept at dodging bullets... But don't my word for it, I learned of the trick at one of the Jamma forums, and they do it all of the time. But like eightbit, at first I thought that they were crazy as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesD Posted March 1, 2017 Share Posted March 1, 2017 Alcohol and 409 seem to work pretty well for cleanup.The only reason I see to use vinegar is to remove rust. I tried using that and a dozen other things to clean a machine after my fire. It was pretty much a waste of time.If a machine is in good shape, it isn't needed. If a machine is in bad enough shape it might benefit from it... it probably won't work even after soaking.Will vinegar harm anything? The cleaning strength stuff might if you soak things too long. It is an acid.As for the 2000... the drive emulator people suggested is a good start.The hard drive might not be dead. If it's just stuck, a good smack from the side might be enough to get it spinning.I wouldn't waste money on a SCSI drive. I'd go with an adapter that lets you used a CF or SD card.Given how much an SCSI adapter board is, you might be better off waiting to see what happens with other upgrades.An accellerator board with on board RAM and IDE or SD interface might be a better option. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rootboy Posted March 2, 2017 Share Posted March 2, 2017 Alcohol and 409 seem to work pretty well for cleanup. The only reason I see to use vinegar is to remove rust. I tried using that and a dozen other things to clean a machine after my fire. It was pretty much a waste of time. If a machine is in good shape, it isn't needed. If a machine is in bad enough shape it might benefit from it... it probably won't work even after soaking. Will vinegar harm anything? The cleaning strength stuff might if you soak things too long. It is an acid. It does a nice job of getting at where the alkaline gets that is next to impossible otherwise. Also in places that you wouldn't see. As for harming anything, no, it shouldn't. Don't leave it in there for more than a few hours without checking on it. And be sure to dry it off thoroughly after you rinse it thoroughly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JEFF31 Posted March 5, 2017 Author Share Posted March 5, 2017 OK - with my (very limited) time I checked my 'bare bones' case and mother board - yup the battery is 'fused' to the contacts. I'll try and get to my main 2000 tomorrow and get that battery out! Thanks for all of the suggestions / tips. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eightbit Posted March 7, 2017 Share Posted March 7, 2017 You can always take a needle nose pliers and rock that battery back and forth until it breaks away from the motherboard and clean it up for now. The sooner the better. The computer will function just fine without any battery if you can deal with no set time/date. Then eventually you can pull the board, desolder the battery legs that were left on there and replace it with an Amigakit coin cell replacement that has a tiny pcb that makes sure the CR2032 will not get a charge from the motherboard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted March 7, 2017 Share Posted March 7, 2017 That tiny PCB is really just a diode that doesn't allow the charging circuit to fry your non-rechargeable CR2032 battery. Needle-nose pliers as suggested or these for a cleaner/safer/more "civilized" approach. https://www.amazon.com/Xcelite-170M-General-Shearcutter-Diagonal/dp/B0002BBZIS/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1488855902&sr=8-3&keywords=electronic+snips Then can use needle-nose to pull the remainder of the tabs out as you heat from the underside. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rootboy Posted March 7, 2017 Share Posted March 7, 2017 Keep in mind that the negative terminal is the one that's going to suffer from the "Redox reaction", meaning a lot of corrosion. And since it's tied to the ground plane, it is going to be a bear to get unsoldered since the heat of your iron will radiate outward with the copper plane. Clipping the battery leads, and then trying to get the tabs off with tweezers could be very difficult. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eightbit Posted March 9, 2017 Share Posted March 9, 2017 Just rock it off with a needlenose. Here is an example of a battery I removed (and cleaned/neutalized) just tonight on an Amiga 2000 I just received. Thankfully the damage was very minimal. Rocked it back and forth like twice and it came right off cleanly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nebulon Posted March 13, 2017 Share Posted March 13, 2017 It does a nice job of getting at where the alkaline gets that is next to impossible otherwise. Also in places that you wouldn't see. As for harming anything, no, it shouldn't. Don't leave it in there for more than a few hours without checking on it. And be sure to dry it off thoroughly after you rinse it thoroughly. So those batteries are alkaline? I was used to car batteries and using a mix of baking soda and water. Now that I know it's alkaline on these computers, I guess baking soda's not the way to go? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eightbit Posted March 19, 2017 Share Posted March 19, 2017 You also might want to look into this for a HDD replacement: http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=27&products_id=1264 I just ordered one (was waiting for awhile since they were out of stock). Seems like a great way to rid yourself of old slow small SCSI drives Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JEFF31 Posted July 5, 2017 Author Share Posted July 5, 2017 OK - finally got around to removing the batteries (2 mother boards). By removing them - I mean desoldering the 'leads' and pulling the whole thing out. Do I need to replace this - or will the system run fine with out 'battery backup'? Really only use the system to play games a few time a year. Still looking into a gotten solution. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rootboy Posted July 5, 2017 Share Posted July 5, 2017 Nope. Your Amiga will run just fine without a battery. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JEFF31 Posted August 26, 2017 Author Share Posted August 26, 2017 Update. Got a Gotek (OK my son did). Installed 'software(?)' and things haven't gone well (won't boot on startup(?) ).... I need to get with him to figure out what problems he is having... When I do I'll ask for help. Thanks! Jeff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rootboy Posted August 26, 2017 Share Posted August 26, 2017 Try a 4GB or smaller USB drive. I couldn't get mine to work until I used the smaller drive. Not to beat a dead horse, but... We can add a re-capped ZX Spectrum +2 to the list of my computers that have taken a bath. And I have modified my procedure, I now rinse my board in 91% IPA to dry it out (the IPA absorbs the water left over after rinsing the vinegar off) before using my hot-air rework station to dry it off the rest of the way. Much quicker. He's a picture of it after the re-cap, sound mod installation, and the removal of the UHF modulator (I used the hole for the video connector for the audio jack) as well as a shot of the back of the board. It really does look brand new. And to be fair, there wasn't any leaky caps (that I saw anyways) when I replaced them. So there wasn't any trace damage that I could observe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JEFF31 Posted September 13, 2017 Author Share Posted September 13, 2017 Update. I've (OK well my son) has tried smaller USB drives. They work for a while but then fail. Then the gotek screen 'just show dashes' or 'you must replace volume 'gamename'. (Me - this is why I didn't want to go this route - if it ain't plug in play - F--- it. My time is very limited. Glad the son is willing to figure this out for me...) Help would be appreciated. Jeff31 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rootboy Posted September 13, 2017 Share Posted September 13, 2017 Update. I've (OK well my son) has tried smaller USB drives. They work for a while but then fail. Then the gotek screen 'just show dashes' or 'you must replace volume 'gamename'. (Me - this is why I didn't want to go this route - if it ain't plug in play - F--- it. My time is very limited. Glad the son is willing to figure this out for me...) Help would be appreciated. Jeff31 Hmmm, mines still working, I haven't had a failure as of yet.Is it getting written to continuously? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JEFF31 Posted September 14, 2017 Author Share Posted September 14, 2017 Hmmm, mines still working, I haven't had a failure as of yet.Is it getting written to continuously? Ummm - not sure. Kid is asleep now but anyway I thought that you just added files to the jump/flash drive and then just selected the game to play Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eightbit Posted September 14, 2017 Share Posted September 14, 2017 Its not hard to use the floppy emulators, but it is most certainly not "plug and play" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted September 14, 2017 Share Posted September 14, 2017 Even the cheapest of floppy emulators (no LCD screen to see which file you're selecting) wouldn't be half bad if they allowed true drag and drop mechanics. Using a Mac and because of the nature of its file system, leaves those "invisible" or hidden files* on your SD cards, USB thumbdrives, etc. that show on every other computer and screws things up. Got tired of using floppy emulators and went back to using real floppies on my machines. ._filestd .*filestd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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