retroputing

Rockin' Kat · Joined: 10 Dec 2004 Posts: 507 Location: Kent, WA

I got an indivison AGA VGA card to put in my Amiga 1200

I had to relocate the hard drive. I got a cable..
I put the card in, and put the hard drive in with the new cable after screwing a bracket into a new location...

I closed it up and hooked it up after going through what was nessesary to get the thing set up...

Turned it on... and the Amiga emited a puff of smoke out from the vents over where the vga card and hard drive cable were....

So I panicked, turned the computer off, and unplugged everything and took the computer downstairs and opened it up.

one of the wires on the hard drive cable had melted all the insulation off it for the entire length of cable. I didn't see any other damage.

So I took the cable and removed it... and put the Amiga back together and hooked it up to the monitor again and tried booting off of a floppy. I got the psygnosis splash screen and then the game loaded.

Holy fucking shit that was horrifying. Now I'm not sure what next. So it would appear the video card is good, the accelerator is good.. but is it likely I fried the hard drive or onboard hard drive controller? I'm almost afraid to try hookinig the hard drive up with the old cable just to see if there is any life there.

I have never never ever EVER had anything like this ever happen to something I was working on before. This just makes me so sick. thinking about that smoke billowing out of the vents and back behind the computer. I honestly thought for the thing was about to light on fire.

Sad

_________________
-RK
"Stand Back! I've got an open power supply and I'm not afraid to do something stupid with it!"

jens · Joined: 14 Oct 2005 Posts: 96 Location: Hannover, Germany

Is it possible you attached the cable in the wrong way?
If yes, then you would have had the power on a wrong pin.
I might open up my A1200 to see in which way the cable plugs into the drive properly if you like.
_________________
Greetings, Jens

Atari Falcon 030 - TT 030 - Mega/STe - ST-Book - 1040 STf - 520 ST+
Milan 040 Atari clone
Amiga 1200
Macintosh SE - Classic - Classic II - II ci - Quadra 840/AV - PowerBooks 5300cs
Sun Sparcstation 20
crappy 386

Rockin' Kat · Joined: 10 Dec 2004 Posts: 507 Location: Kent, WA

So, It would appear that somehow this happened inside my Amiga 1200 without damaging any other part of the computer.

I took the old hard drive cable and hooked it up letting the drive just kind of hang out the side of the open computer and it just worked. I am really shocked... and now I need to find a source for a correct cable of at least oh... about 8 inches.
_________________
-RK
"Stand Back! I've got an open power supply and I'm not afraid to do something stupid with it!"

Ice Breaker · Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 10:42 am Post subject:

Jens is right - 4 of those wires are carrying power and if for some reason they were reversed, it would look a lot like that. I had a 3.5->2.5 hard drive adapter that I did something similar to, and the hard drive+system lived.

I got my cables from Ebay a few months ago. Someone was selling a 2 pack for around $10. I'm planning on adding a CF adapter though and being done with the whole thing.
_________________
-- Retroputing --
www.particles.org
www.retroputing.net
www.epochgames.com
particlesbbs.dyndns.org

Flack · Site Admin Joined: 09 Dec 2004 Posts: 1528

How much does the CF setup cost and how hard is it to install?
_________________
Flack
The Gas Chamber | robohara.com | Twitter | Facebook

Ice Breaker · Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 9:35 am Post subject:

Iit's just an IDE to cf adapter that you can buy all over eBay.
_________________
-- Retroputing --
www.particles.org
www.retroputing.net
www.epochgames.com
particlesbbs.dyndns.org