Software Failure on Commodore Amiga 600 when I insert a floppy in drive.

Software Failure. Press left mouse button to continue. Error: 8000 0004 Task: 000026D0

Independent from the floppy I insert. Can't identify the error: is it a ROM error, or a floppy drive error? A virus, maybe (even if I think it's not plausible)?

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  • IIRC 8000 are error coded from startup ROM during initialisation, before any exec code is started. – Raffzahn Jun 29 '18 at 12:32

TL;DR: It's an illegal instruction error.

Most likely you're trying to boot code for a different CPU (like an 68020 or above).

Details for (early) errors are defined in the exec/alerts.h file (*1,2).

80 has the high bit set indicating a machine stoping error and 00 indicating CPU errors directly taken from the coresponding exception.

00 would be the general error/error class (here unspecified)

0004 means illegal instruction.

The 'Task' value is just the address it happened.

*1 - Here the list stripped of all programing noise

*2 - Another list with more error codes, mixing various sources

  • Probably worth adding that since the address is in the Chip RAM most definitely is not in the Kickstart. – user180940 Jul 1 '18 at 18:43
  • I checked and the CPU inside the A600 has been not modified/upgraded... it's the pure Motorola 68000... and the disks are the same of the A500... so they should work on the A600 as well... – Francesco B Jul 2 '18 at 13:24
  • @FrancescoB Well, the CPU thinks otherwise and fires an illegal instrucion exception. Ofc, it doesn't have to be software made for a later CPU. Data can be corrupted as well. It doesn't change the fact that all this message tells for certain is that an illegal (unknown) instruction has occured. So you might want to do classic debugging - like using the disks on another, similar configured A600 - or maybe even a 500 first. – Raffzahn Jul 2 '18 at 15:42

That may be a floppy drive defect, since it errors on all your disks. Read errors in the bootblock may cause the illegal instruction.

  • 1
    Bootblocks are checksummed, it's unlikely the ROM would just read and execute bad data. – user3570736 Jul 1 '18 at 23:16

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