Making an Amiga IDE HD to transplant into A4000 using WinUAE

[MarkMaker2]

So my title says it call. My goal is to create a Amiga IDE drive that will boot so that I can revive a A4000.

I have installed WinUAE on a old computer I keep around to receive faxes from people who still insist on that. The computer has Windows XP and two IDE drives. I'm trying to turn the empty but Windows formatted drive into an Amiga drive. The drive is 40GB.

I've downloaded a set of Workbench 3.1 disks. I have downloaded three different ROMS (2 versions of 3.1 and one of 3.0)

I have it to the point where I can boot with the Install disk but HDToolBox does not find the HD.

HDSetup when I try to Partition 0 it can't find the drive

To add the HD I am using Add Harddrive, selecting IDE (auto) 0.

I am starting WinUAE from CMD with the -disablehardrivesafetycheck

What am I doing wrong?


Also my A4000 is an 060. If I choose 060 in WinUAE I get a red error box so I was hoping to do this with the 040 settings and then move it to the physical machine and hope it works -- is this likely?

The whole reason I need to do it this way is that the A4000 has a Cybervision 64/3D so I also need to have the drivers for that on this harddrive before transplanting it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[fishy_fiz]

Its all a bit vague in my mind, but try changing hdtoolbox tooltypes so scsi.device is uaescsi.device.
This may also require you to change winuae harddrive controller to uae.

As I said its a bit vague in my memory, but try experimenting with the above clues. It should hopefully bare fruit.

[Thomas]

To add the HD I am using Add Harddrive, selecting IDE (auto) 0.

In order to use IDE you need to select a motherboard with IDE on the Chipset page and a matching Kickstart ROM.

For example if you select A4000 chipset, you have to select KS 3.1 ROM A4000, too.
Or if you select A1200 chipset you should select KS 3.1 ROM A1200.

Do not change HDToolbox tooltypes if you use IDE.

I am starting WinUAE from CMD with the -disablehardrivesafetycheck

This is not needed any more. Just make sure that the user has admin rights.

Also my A4000 is an 060. If I choose 060 in WinUAE I get a red error box so I was hoping to do this with the 040 settings and then move it to the physical machine and hope it works -- is this likely?

No, the same will happen on the real machine, too. You have to install 68040dummy.library and 68060.library before you switch the CPU to 060.

[Pat the Cat]

The drive is 40GB... I have it to the point  where I can boot with the Install disk but HDToolBox does not find the  HD.

Try using a smaller capacity hard drive or other boot device. It will save you SO much messing around.

4gb or smaller for your boot drive. The Amiga was always limited to a 32  bit address bus.  Go beyond that and you are in a world of pain.

Other possibilities are a problem with the Amiga IDE interface or cable  (is it plugged in backwards?) and also, newer drives can outshoot the  older interfaces. The A1200 was notorious for having an unbuffered IDE  interface, not sure about the A4000 (probably is buffered, but to what  extent I do not know). Although that would be down to formatting the  drive on the Amiga.

You could just unplug the graphics card, setup the machine, then fit the graphics card later. Much less hit and miss.

Once you have a drive prepped, don't forget to install a boot sector via CLI to make it Amiga bootable: install dh0:

DH0: refers to the ID of the hard drive. Could be HD0: or a variety of names.

[SnkBitten]

I've done this a number of times.   Building HD's and/or CF cards on WinUAE and then putting them in my A4000D or A4000T on the IDE controller.

I try to make the WinUAE setup as near a real A4000 as possible.  Choose an A4000 KS, A4000 chipset and when adding the HD I always choose "Commodore A600/A1200/A4000 IDE" in the dropdown box instead of "IDE Auto".

Using a drive larger than 4 GB can be an issue....it may report incorrectly.  I believe you can just partition out the first 4 GB or less and leave the rest unpartitioned until you get your system built and scsi.device patched to support larger HD's.

You also may need to diskpart the IDE drive first in Windows that you are trying to use and make sure it has no Windows partition or MBR on it.  The drive needs to be untouched by Windows.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Please read all the other threads on this subject and don't use more than 4GB of the drive, unless you are planning on running 3.9, PFS3, or one of the other file systems or patches to enable large drive support under 3.1.  Also don't forget to set your MaxTransfer correctly. Cheers!