Setting up Amiga OS 3.9

[gcr]

Hi all,

I'm pretty new to the Amiga scene and have recently put together an Amiga tower system based on an A1200 mobo, Blizzard T/ERC 1240 accelerator and Blizzard SCSI adapter kit. Attached to the SCSI kit via a 25pin to 50pin adapter are a 2.1gb HDD on ID1 and a CD-ROM on ID3.

I've acquired a copy of Amiga OS 3.9 but have no Emergency floppy.

I have several questions that I hope you can help me with:

1. How I can create an Emergency floppy for this machine? I've heard of WinUAE - can I create a floppy on the PC using the Amiga OS 3.9 CD and then use it in the Amiga to start the installation process?

2. I'm assuming I can use the HDD and CDROM off the Blizzard SCSI adapter via the 25pin to 50pin converter. Do I need any additional files for the SCSI adapter and do I need to observe any particular SCSI setups such as setting parity / non-parity and the best way to terminate the SCSI bus.

A lot to ask I know but I'm eager to get this system up and running. Thanks for any help you can give.

[Thomas]

1. How I can create an Emergency floppy for this machine? I've heard of WinUAE - can I create a floppy on the PC using the Amiga OS 3.9 CD and then use it in the Amiga to start the installation process?

Didn't you get any other floppy disks with the computer ? Workbench 3.1 for example ?

If you don't have anything which can boot the Amiga, then you are almost lost. Your only chances are either to purchase a WB 3.1 disk set or to connect the HDD to a PC with SCSI controller and install everything there. A PC cannot write to Amiga floppy disks, so creating floppies with the PC is out of question.

2. I'm assuming I can use the HDD and CDROM off the Blizzard SCSI adapter via the 25pin to 50pin converter. Do I need any additional files for the SCSI adapter and do I need to observe any particular SCSI setups such as setting parity / non-parity and the best way to terminate the SCSI bus.

You don't need any additional files. Everything should be contained in the firmware ROM of the SCSI kit. But correct termination is important. You should read the manual of the SCSI kit. It should be available at http://phase5.a1k.org

Bye,
Thomas

[gcr]

Didn't you get any other floppy disks with the computer ? Workbench 3.1 for example ?

Hi Thomas,

Yes, I have a set of Workbench 3.1 disks. I take it from your reply that I can use these disks as a basis for booting the machine :)

If so, I'd be grateful for any assistance in setting up scripts etc. to get the machine up and running.

[mousehouse]

I'm no expert on Amiga SCSI, but if you're able to change it I'd put the disk on ID0. If I remember correctly when the SCSI controller autoboot's it will try to start from ID0.

After that, I'd put the 3.1 INSTALL floppy in the machine and startup the HDToolBox program to partition your drive (or was that HDInstall, always forget). I just setup a system partition <= 1G - that way I'm sure a 3.1 disk can always access the partition. FFS is limited to 2G I think.

After that I'm struggling as well etc. with CD filesystems. But getting this far will already provide you with a running 3.1 system :)