digitalman Posted July 26, 2022 Share Posted July 26, 2022 I am fairly new to the Atari ST, having issues with a Mega ST2 and I am currently lost. It was working just fine it seemed. Needed a good cleaning and many keys need a hard press. Also the battery compartment was covered in battery acid. However, it does have an internal hard disk and would boot to the desktop, I could read floppies, etc. Cleaned everything up, added a Gotek drive and it seemed to continue to work. I put SYSINFO on a disk image and loaded it up. I then added some batteries and attempted to set the clock (via control panel). After disconnecting everything and setting it up on a more permanent workbench where I could start using it, it wouldn't boot. After a few minutes it would go to a TOS desktop where SOMETIMES I could read floppy images. I could boot into the Gotek menu and launch some floppies some times, but I could never get it to boot a floppy image. Not sure what to do next, I decided to recap the power supply. All voltages test good but still same issues. One time after a restart the hard drive began to boot but hung and gave me "sense $10" which in my experience is a hard drive failure. Tried a few things to get the hard drive going, but through all this I could never get a floppy to boot. I switched back to the original floppy drive and have not be able to read anything. When TOS opens and I try to open a disk the floppy light flickers but I get nothing. The only thing that I can launch consistently is the Gotek autoboot launcher. It's really bothering me, since I changed the time, it has basically been a paper wait. Any advice is appreciated. Attached is the SYSINFO right before it died. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted July 26, 2022 Share Posted July 26, 2022 Not clear from your post: did you disconnect hard drive before later tests ? That's what need to do, and best to disconnect it's controller from ACSI bus too, it it is not integrated with drive. Then checking how reliable floppy works. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digitalman Posted July 26, 2022 Author Share Posted July 26, 2022 10 hours ago, ParanoidLittleMan said: Not clear from your post: did you disconnect hard drive before later tests ? That's what need to do, and best to disconnect it's controller from ACSI bus too, it it is not integrated with drive. Then checking how reliable floppy works. Seems obvious (you think I would have tried that), when I disconnect the power for the drive I can consistently use the floppy drive. I tried a separate power supply for the drive and the floppy (gotek) works fairly consistently. I guess it's just a bad drive issue? Are there SD or CF flash drive solutions that work with my setup? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted July 26, 2022 Share Posted July 26, 2022 Sure, and we can say now that there is number of it in offer. Of course, most of it is SD card based, because of card prices. There are plenty of threads in this forum where diverse adapters are discussed. And it is what will ensure easier usage (much simpler file transfers with modern OS), longer lifetime, less noise, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted July 26, 2022 Share Posted July 26, 2022 Peter is right, there are multiple threads covering mass storage solutions for various ST models, but in the interest of saving you some searching: https://www.lotharek.pl/productdetail.php?id=47 https://www.lotharek.pl/productdetail.php?id=50 HTH's. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tillek Posted July 26, 2022 Share Posted July 26, 2022 I'm guessing this is the Supra HD adapter. I have one too on one of my Mega ST's... and I can tell you honestly, that when I have a drive hooked up to it, I have nothing but trouble with the system. If it's on for any reasonable period of time, it starts having graphical glitches and other issues. Take the drive off, using an UltraSatan mini, it seemed to run solid. I set it aside and haven't done much with it since, but my next plans for it are to remove the drive/controller completely and put it through its paces and see how it works. Sucks that the internal HD controller isn't working... but it is what it is. Try it without and see if that helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digitalman Posted July 27, 2022 Author Share Posted July 27, 2022 Thanks for the suggestions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Westphal Posted July 30, 2022 Share Posted July 30, 2022 (edited) If it has a small button floppy : https://www.ebay.com/itm/153786809757 Edited July 30, 2022 by Paul Westphal Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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