Expert: Gregory Donner - 4/6/2010

Question
Hi,
I have an Amiga 500, it turns on with the screen with the disk. I put a disk in, then the screen goes blank for a few seconds then the first screen with the disk appears again. I have seen another post on this website with the same problem, so I know my options - change the drive or use an external drive. So, how do you boot a game up from the external disk drive?

Answer
Hi Matthew,

As long as your external drive is working fine, and is connected to the external port in the back of the Amiga 500 properly, the Amiga will automatically detect it, and should boot from it after checking the internal drive. So booting from an external drive is--for the most part--just a matter of putting the disk in and waiting for the Amiga to "do the rounds" looking for a bootable drive.

However, while this should always work for booting up from Workbench, some poorly programmed games are "hard-coded" to look only at the internal drive, ignoring anything else. The only way to find out is to try it and see. Depending on what you're trying to boot, in the end you may need to replace the internal drive, but hopefully not!

I hope this helps!

Greg