Classicamiga Forum Retro Edition
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Thread: a1200 wont load floppies
xdanger 12:53 1st June 2008
Ive just bought a 1200 in very good condition but nothing will load,
The floppy drive spins and the screen goes purple so the amiga knows theres a disk

ive tried dpaint4 aga and chaos engine aga also workbench 3.0 disk

I have a 600 around here somewhere, Should I try swapping the floppy drive?
[Reply]
Harrison 13:35 1st June 2008
The floppy drive from an A600 should work fine in an A1200. Is the A1200 a Commodore, Escom or Amiga Technologies model? The non Commodore A1200's used converted PC drives which caused problems reading some Amiga disks. However as you can't read any it does sound like either your A1200's drive is broken or the motherboards CIA chips are faulty.
[Reply]
xdanger 13:39 1st June 2008
Is a faulty CIA chip something I can do anything about?

Can I pop a new one in?
[Reply]
Buleste 13:41 1st June 2008
Do you get the purple kickstart screen with the disk animation? If you do just check the connector from the dd to the mobo. Other than that is try a different drive, although i'm not sure if the 600 DD is compatable with the 1200. The other option is to try a floppy drive cleaner disk.
[Reply]
xdanger 13:42 1st June 2008

Is this a 1200's CIA ,The 8520???
Yes I get the purple disk animation ,when i put a disk in the screen goes all purple but then just back to the anim.

I'll see if I can find a cleaner but the machine is in top condition otherwise, Really clean and no broken warranty stickers.

If nothing else works will I be able to pull some chips from my a600?
[Reply]
Buleste 13:50 1st June 2008
Sounds like the Disk Drive may need a good clean as it's recognising the fact that Disks are being inserted. Firts just try blowing air through to get rid of dust buildup then try a disk drive cleaner (If you can still get them) otherwise its trying long Q-Tips and CD cleaning solution.
[Reply]
xdanger 13:53 1st June 2008
I have 100% ethanol, Is that safe?

But like I said the thing is super clean as they used a dust cover, I think it was just used for word processing.
[Reply]
Buleste 13:58 1st June 2008
Probably. But give it a good few minutes to evaporate before testing the DD.
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Harrison 14:04 1st June 2008
If they only mainly used it for word processing then I expect the drive wasn't used that much, so the problem is probably just a build up of dust and muck in the drive. And as the unit is detecting a disk being inserted then it sound more like the drive than anything else.
[Reply]
xdanger 14:41 1st June 2008
I just blew out the cobwebs with a little pump, still the same ,I'll try changing the drive later.
Thanks
[Reply]
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