Long Time Amiga Owner

[GhostWalker]

Hi,

I'm a long time Amiga owner - originally an A500 which died and was replaced by an A500+, with a A501 512k expansion module, A590 with Epson XT 20mb HDD and 2mb RAM expansion (serial number 2106), 1084 monitor and external floppy drive (all from new back in the late 80's early 90's). The kit has been in my loft for a number of years and whilst clearing out decided to see if it still works.

It's all a bit yellow now but:

The 1084 turns on and the A500+ boots from floppy

The A501 module works but shows some damage from battery leakage so I've removed the battery and have ordered a button replacement

Sadly the A590 20mb HDD wouldn't spin up and I found one of the heads had stuck to the disk after freeing it the disk spins and the heads move but nothing loads. I've joined the forums looking for help on reviving the A590.

Cheers

Andy

 

[btp]

Welcome to AmiBay and happy to hear you decided to revive your Amiga!
Please be aware that A500+ have a battery for the real time clock on the motherboard which after so many years it's almost certain that will be leaking! If this is not properly addressed (battery removed and the surrounding area on the PCB neutralized and cleaned) leaking will damage the machine.

Concerning A590, imo the original and ancient XT drives that were installed with are not worth it (unless of course you want to recover some of your own files on them). It's much more convenient ( and better performance too) replacing those with a modern SCSI solution such as BlueSCSI v2.
You can read more here --> https://bluescsi.com/

 

[darefail]

Also this is a good choice.
Thread 'SCSI - SD - HDD Emulator - A590 - A3000 - GVP SCSI Controller' https://www.amibay.com/threads/scsi-sd-hdd-emulator-a590-a3000-gvp-scsi-controller.2437933/

 

[GhostWalker]

Thanks both, I think my XT HDD is no longer for this world, there are some programs on it that I wrote that I wouldn't mind seeing again - maybe I'll come across a FD backup

I did see the BlueSCSI referenced on a YouTube channel where a fella was repairing and updating an A590.

I'll start a new thread.

Thanks again, Andy

 

[StrongARM]

Welcome to Amibay!

 

[Watson]

Welcome to Amibay!