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[bill2reg]

My old A500 has not been used for several years, but it powered up perfectly a couple of weeks ago. Monitor came on and everything seemed fine. The first screen appeared (the hand holding the workbench disk) and so I inserted one of my working copies. The disk drive spun but nothing happened. I tried two other backup copies, but nothing happened. Then I tried to boot some games that don't require workbench, and they didn't boot either. I don't know how to try to boot from the external drive either. It seems that the internal drive (DF0) isn't seeking the data. Can I boot from the external drive?

[arttu80]

Hi!

I think you can't boot from df1: if you have Kickstart ROM 1.2 or 1.3.

You must have ROM 2.04 or newer in your machine to be able to select booting volume.

But I would try to open the case of Amiga and also open that external drive case, so you can connect internal drive cable to it and don't forget to set jumper on that external drive to df0: setting.

Hope it will boot!

[dougal]

Is the drive making the clicking sound when there are no disks inserted?

[lost_loven]

kickstart 1.3 and lower you can only boot off df0:
if drive is clicking then try a disk cleaner.. or swap your cia odd and even chips and see if that works.. one of them, i forgot which one has something to do with floppy disk operations....

lost

[bill2reg]

What are the cia chips?

[zipper]

2 socketed chips with 8520 on them. Might be written on the motherboard, too; odd cia and even cia.

[ElPolloDiabl]

It sounds like the driver motor has died. Run the computer with the top off and see if the big spinning disk at the bottom of the drive moves when you put in a floppy. If it doesn't the drive is dead. That's the only failure I know.

[ognix]

Hi!
If your Amiga 500 worked fine before putting it back to its box, years ago, it's unlikely that a component failed "itself" completely.

The much probable cause of this failure could be solderings and and, even more, bad contacts of the CIA chips with their sockets (it happened something similar to me too).
Depends also on the environmental conditions you put your Amiga.

Anyway, the CIA chips (labelled 8520) are placed in the central-upper part of the Amiga 500 motherboard (more or less in all revisions); on the motherboad is written ODD CIA, EVEN CIA.

To remove them use a little screwdriver (if you don't have a proper tool), forcing the chip to come up from one side and from the other.
With some patience you can remove them easily.

After this, to clean the pins (_be careful_), scratch them _GENTLY_ on a piece of white paper, in the outer part and in the inner part: it will get grey for sure (the oxidation).

Replace both chips in place.
This applies if no bad signs of oxidation are in place due to a leaking battery, for example (I assume you have a plain A500 not a Plus, with an internal battery).
If you have an expansion with real time clock, I hope it's closed (eg. A501) or the battery is far enough from the motherboard (if bad conditions, leaking acid, remove it!).

After this, the problem could be related to the floppy drive too: check if the drive makes a small audible "click" regulary.
If so, it could be a electromechanical problem inside the drive, in the contact that let the computer know a disk is inside.
In this case you should open the floppy drive.
I have a similar problem in my A600HD: I still have to solve it, but I have to find time to do it.

Hope this quite long explanation helps.
Ciao!

[bill2reg]

I will also need time to try that. Thank you for the information.

I just returned home from Italy. It was great!

Thanks again.

[Templario]

Perhaps your floppy drive is dirty the reader head or that the this floppy drive is bad, for example the grease the mechanism is dry, you can try use one floppy from PC of 720Kbs that runs fine and instead the original Amiga, only that the autorun the disks not work with this floppy unit, but is a fast test of your system, because open the the unit, humm, I have bad experiences, because after the unit doesn't work for me.

[ognix]

Hi again!
As I read more carefully, you said the floppy drive spins, so it's not like my A600HD problem (not recongnizing disk insertion most of times).

The problem, as stated by others, is much probably inside the floppy drive itself, but I think it's something that could be solved.
You have to open your drive and check/clean _carefully_ flat cable contacts and similar stuff (with MUCH care!) between stepper motor (the one that moves the head) and PCB.

As also said, a quick test option is to swap the floppy drive with another one, preferably from another Amiga, or a PC one (but in this case its correct behaviour sometimes depends on the model).
Try and let us know...