Is My AmigaOne Working? After Battery Replacement

My AmigaOne G4 XE wouldn't boot up. The hard drive started and wouldn't stop reading and I had no video output.

I replaced the battery (it sat unused for 3 weeks), and the UBoot menu came up. I didn't want to lose the current version of UBoot (1.1.1?), so I selected "try and recover previous settings" (something like that).

After that, the computer only booted up to one flashing underscore character in the upper left corner.

I tried booting up again with the original AOS4 prerelease CD and it wouldn't boot up. So I took the battery out and put it back in after 60 seconds, got the UBoot menu up, selected "restore factory settings" and it booted up just fine (from HD)..... or did I? So the question is, am I running with the correct settings? Am I using the newest UBoot?



Also, strange thing happened. My battery (a Sony) was 1 year and 11 months old. My computer had been booting just fine, BUT when it failed to boot was when I tried to plug in my speakers. The amplifier I use was turned on, and I had touched the speaker plugs to the metal plate of the audio card that has the speaker plugs on it. I believe that touching the metal plate drained the battery! I mean, what are the odds that when I try to plug in my speakers is exactly the time that my battery gives up the ghost?


P.S. It took like 20 minutes to get the friggin' battery out, WHO THE $@&* came up with that method of holding a battery in place?.... It just WOULDN'T come out!

@Atheist

Taking the battery out of your A1 won't delete or downgrade Uboot, thats safe in the flashrom.
All that might happen is that you loose the settings, which you've mentioned, or they go corrupt and need a reset.
I had to do that before also when swapping a battery.
If you can boot to workbench like you say, just changes things like DMA, parallel port mode etc through prefs/uboot.

@Atheist

You lose only the settings. Read my article to set the initial settings and boot your CD.
There are 5 or 6 "setenv" lines to issue.

@Atheist

Try what Elwood has indicated. In regards to the removal of the battery be very very careful, my battery holder was never originally soldered properly, the fixing of which has cost me an A1 over the many attempts over time.

ace

@Elwood

One remark about the article you linked to: the "graphical mode" you references is "textual menu interface".

Jack

Hi Elwood,

Thanks for directing me to that page of information. Thanks for making it at all.


Hi acfnq,

Thanks for telling me about the battery holder. It seems VERY attached to the MB.

This is only the second time I replaced the battery. First time was about 2 years after I had got it, and that was by a person at a computer store.

I'd like to point out something that happens.

The time reverts to Jan. 1, 1978, 12 am.

The date command from shell won't advance the clock to the correct time. It can apply the time sometimes, which is reset to 1978 in about 1 or 2 seconds.

I had to use the prefs/time program, and then select "save", as "use" would NOT set the time you choose to have.