"EIDE" is a term from the 90s and is anything but precise. PATA drives, regardless of generation, are downward compatible in general. There are rare issues which someone more knowledgable on the 1200 might tell you more on.

However, what you might want to check:
- the issues connected with more than 4 GB capacity: http://www.youngmonkey.ca/nose/articles/NewTekniques_9810/AmigaInMotion.html
- jumpers: the drive needs to be set to master; some (rare) don't power up as single slaves without a master present and cable select doesn't work with 1:1 cables.

I'm trying to replace my HD in my A1200, and would appreciate some advice.  I tried installing an EIDE Western Digital 80GB one, but the system wouldn't recognize it in HDToolBox, and I didn't hear it power up with the system like it should.  I read an A1200 hardware FAQ that said most IDE drives will work with the A1200, including EIDE.  It described them as Fast ATA.  The drive I tried was a Parallel ATA one, though EIDE.  Is this a different kind of drive that won't ever work, or do I just need to try a different brand?

I've heard about the Compact Flash drives that can be used in lieu of an actual hard drive, and those sound advantageous.  I don't need a gigantic 80 to 320GB drive like the Western Digital ones, so maybe that would be a better option.  My A1200 has 68030/68882, 32 MB fast RAM, Surf Squirrel SCSI, and OS3.9 BB1.  What all hard drive types are going to be compatible with the A1200?

What type of drives are you using 2.5" or 3.5"

I have never had any problems using 3.5" HDs (I even use two 500GB ones on my main Amiga) but when it comes to 2.5" HDs it seems to be very hit and miss one my A1200s...

I recently bought 30GB and 60GB 2.5" HDs to use on my A1200 but neither of them would even spin up...

I found a place on the net that sells factory refurbished 2.5" HDs and the guy who owns the company was very interested when I told him about this problem on the Amiga. Anyway he kindly sent me some to to test...

The 2.5" ones 4.3GB & 6.5GB ones worked fine but the bigger capacity drives once again refused to even spin up, after much head scratching I reckon it's down to the A1200s motherboard IDE connector not supplying enough current on the +5v line, so I'm going to try splicing the cable and hooking the +5V up to the floppy drives power connector and see it this works...

Does anyone out there use large capacity 2.5" HDs (ie: 10GB or greater) in their desktop A1200 and if so could you please let me know the make and model number of them...

Cheers

Franko

Wow, between my 4 A1200s I've never had a problem with any of them supplying enough power for a 2.5" hard drive and modest accelerator. Laptop hard drives nowadays use *tiny* amounts of power. My first guess would be the cable - it's very easy to misconnect the cable to the A1200 board as the pins are "bare". Miss the last row and your drive has no power. Get it backwards or miss it off the other end and you can fry your drive, cable and/or motherboard.

Edit: I'll add to that that 2 of the A1200s also supply a CD-ROM drive, and all work on the standard A1200 PSU, and HDs varying from 30GB to 120GB...

@ x56h43 & Daedalus

Odd thing is I've tried various PSUs A500/A1200 & PC PSUs on two different versions of Rev 1D.4 motherboards and a 1D.1 board and on not one of them could I get any of the drives to even spin up (and no I didn't connect the cable wrong) and I've even tested them on a bare MB (nothing connected at all, not even the floppy) ...

Reckon I'll need to try splicing the cables and tapping the +5v from the floppy power connector

@Kephren

I can easily run any 3.5" drive as they don't take the power from the IDE header on the motherboard that's one of the reasons I think it may be the IDE header not supplying enough current to the bigger capacity 2.5" HDs...

Spin speed and make not capacity are the issues then.

Doubt it, as they don't even spin up at all, tried various makes but all with the same result, any drives over 6.5GB just simply wont even attempt to spin up whether they're ATA-33, ATA-66 or ATA-100..

Zac67: I thought with OS3.9 you don't have to worry about the 4GB+ problem.  If I recall, the master/slave concept applies to SCSI.  I'm trying to connect this HD to the internal IDE controller, so I probably don't need to mess with any jumpers, right?

Damiga: Yes, I'm quite sure I connected it correctly.  The drive's connector had a few extra pins (4- I think), but I connected it the same way as the old one.  That is, the IDE lead all the way to the top pin (same direction as the back of the Amiga).  Thanks for the EIDE link.  That helped clarify some things, such as the IDE/EIDE/ATA/PATA labels really don't tell you any specifics of the modes and standards that would affect if a drive is compatible with the A1200's IDE controller or not.  Of course, one certain way to more easily acquire a compatible drive would be to get one from an Amiga dealer who knows what they have works.  :-)

Franko: I'm using 2.5" HDs.  I recently heard 3.5" can be used with the A1200, but it sounds like that much more fiddling and stuff to worry about.  Yes, that's what happened with the 80GB one I tried recently- it didn't even spin up.  I would also very much like to know if anyone has a list of what  makes & models of larger capacity 2.5" HDs work on the A1200.

x56h34: Interesting, it sounds like the underpowered A1200 power supply could be the real issue.  My 1200 has an accelerator, however it has a more powerful power supply.  I thought I remembered the distributor included an A500 one.  I checked and compared it to my A500's power supply, and it is even more powerful than that.  I'm not sure, but it may be an A600 power supply.  The 500's is model DSP-A500, output 5V 4.5A, 12V 1A, -12V .1A.  The 1200's is model PSM-600, output 5V 6.5A, 12V 2A, -12V .5A.  Yet this was not enough to spin up the Western Digital HD.  Maybe Seagate and Hitachi are more power efficient?  Or maybe WD has a specific IDE/ATA standard incompatibility (though they're supposed to be downward compatible Zac67 was saying)?  What's the total voltage requirement to spin up the Seagate and Hitachi drives?

Daedalus: Considering my extra strong PSU, maybe it's not the power.  I'm quite sure I hooked the HD up correctly.  It had 4 pins extra (in 2 rows) on the front side (front direction of the Amiga) of the HD connector.  What make and model HDs do you use on your A1200s?

Khephren: I wonder if there is a difference with A1200 motherboard power.  My 1200 is dated Dec. 4, 1995.

@actung_bab

Well, I've never blown up a drive, but if the cable's connected wrongly you can potentially connect the +5V supply to ground via the drive's electronics, and that's bad.

cool you have squrriel scsi loved those really cool addon wish keep mine

Nope. 2 of my machines have IDE CD drives - one is a laptop drive taking power from the floppy connector and built into the wedge case, the other is a normal 5.25" CD-ROM drive from a PC, built into a custom case with the A1200 motherboard and a couple of extras. This is again powered from the floppy connector, and amazingly it all works, though it is at the limit power-wise.