Amithlon on Sony Vaio

[McSquirrel]

You could also try the free "Ranish Partition Manager" v2.43 from www.ranish.com to set the file system:

Create a MS-DOS or Win9x boot disk, copy cwsdpmi.exe (will provide DPMI services needed by the partition manager) and part243.exe (the partition manager itself) to it, boot, run cwsdpmi.exe, then run part243.exe. Select partition with up/down arrow keys, press INSERT key and select the desired file system with up/down arrow keys, confirm with RETURN key. Finally press F2 key to save the partition table and ESC key to exit.

Good luck!


EDIT: The program file was part243.exe (not rpm.exe)

[McSquirrel]

I wonder how you could boot a img floppy image from USB stick without destroying all its former contents

However, as Zac67 wrote, you can just burn the img file as a bootable CD-ROM. Within Nero, choose "CD-ROM (Boot)" and select the img file as well as something like "Floppy Emulation 1.44 MB" at the expert settings. This definitely WILL work (just don't know if this virtual floppy will be writable, but I think it won't need to be).

[McSquirrel]

Hi amiface,

I have been using Nero - Burning Rom 5.5.10.48 as it was bundled with my Fujitsu Siemens notebook.

Load Nero, then the new compilation window pops up (do not use the wizard). There are several CD types you can choose from (I have CD-ROM (ISO), Audio-CD, Mixed Mode CD, CD EXTRA, CD Copy, Video-CD, Super Video CD, CD-ROM (Boot), CD-ROM (Hybrid), CD-ROM (UDF) and CD-ROM (UDF/ISO)).

I chose "CD-ROM (Boot)" from the list. After selection, there are different tabs to the right of the list: Info, Boot, ISO, Label, Dates, Misc, Burn. The tab "Boot" is open by default.

Within the "Boot" tab there is a field "Source of boot image data" where you can select "Bootable logical drive" or "Image file". Choose the latter and select your img file.

Below that field, I can tick "Enable expert settings" and choose a "Kind of emulation", e.g. "Floppy Emulation 1.44MB".

The window should now look something like this:



(By the way, I use WindowsXP with the free "UXTheme Multi-Patcher" and the "qlassic" theme.)
 
Finally click the "New" button. There is now a window "ISO1" where you can add some files, but you do not need to. Just burn it and it should be bootable.

Hope this helps.

[McSquirrel]

I believe computers will give us lots of work during the next decade... Nevertheless, I'm happy you got the Boot-CD working.

MAYBE your Vaio has some kind of virus protection which raises an alarm if the boot sector of the HD has been changed. If so, this might be deactivated within your Vaio's BIOS settings. But I wonder why it won't let you boot up your XP as usual.

Does your "damaged XP" give you any other messages than the Vaio one? And how does it look? Is it grey console text on black screen, or grey Courier text on blue screen, or something completely different? Is there any message of Windows, or is it your Vaio giving an error message (like "No operating system found")?

Do you know that XP comes with its own boot manager "NTLDR" on drive C: ? The settings are stored in C:\boot.ini and by default it silently runs XP. If the order of your HD partitions changes (esp. if there are new partitions prior to the XP boot partition) your XP may become unbootable. So one thing you could try is creating an XP boot disk and altering its hidden boot.ini system file. However, you need a PC with a floppy drive to do so. The way is described here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/305595

Or you could try to use the commands FIXBOOT and FIXMBR from the Windows XP recovery console which comes with your XP Setup CD (no floppy drive needed):
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314058

Just some ideas.

[McSquirrel]

PCI 00:1f.1 seems to be the IDE interface, yes...

If you are running your SATA HD in SATA mode, Amithlon is probably lacking a driver for this. However, there is a BIOS setting which allows SATA drives to run in a compatibility mode. According to some forums, you have to "disable AHCI" or set the SATA Controller Mode to "ATA" or "Compatible". I think this just means that your HD will be treated like an IDE drive thereafter (correct me if I'm wrong).

To your "type &76" question: Is this a hexadecimal number? So you may have to enter it somewhere as 0x76 or 0076h or something alike within Acronis.

If nothing of these will work, have fun with Amiga Forever.

[McSquirrel]

I am sorry I cannot reproduce your WinUAE problems.

Have you copied FKey to your Sys:WBStartup folder and do you run it from there? Once running, you open the FKey config window using Ctrl+Alt+F (or using the Exchange commodity). The settings will be saved within the FKey icon (i.e. Sys:WBStartup/FKey.info). The icon file must not be write protected.

My FKey properties within the icon file read like this:
«Alt F1» RUN muchmore
«Alt F2» RUN fastview >NIL: INFO
DONOTWAIT
CX_POPUP=NO
CX_POPKEY=ctrl alt f
CX_PRIORITY=0

As to your memory leak assumption... I used WinUAE for that long (i.e. several hours) only back in January 2003 when I made a backup of my Amiga HD, sorted my files and exchanged several icons. As far as I remember, WinUAE did not slow down during usage. You may try out different versions of WinUAE, just download it from www.winuae.net and use your Amiga Forever ROMs and OS files. Maybe the problems have vanished i a newer version.

I used v0.8.14 for Workbench 2.1 uses, and v0.8.8R8 for gaming on my Pentium III 500MHz as the following versions were slightly slower. However, the 0.8.8R8 version was still incompatible with some games like Worms, but another emulator called WinFellow 0.4.3b1 did a good job then.

As KXLight uses a development branch of UAE which is different from WinUAE, you cannot compare the UAE/WinUAE version numbers and there may be different problems.

Have a Happy New Year 2008!

[McSquirrel]

Hey amiface,

I just found some time after a week of University and will now try to answer.

What do you mean by "fkey prefs"? They actually *should* save within the FKey icon file as so-called tool tips. When FKey is run, it just takes the settings/preferences from there. Remember that you need to run it from Workbench (or put it in the SYS:WBStartup drawer for automatic startup), as running it from within a script (like Startup-Sequence) or CLI/Shell won't make use of the icon's tool tips (unless you use WBRun from Aminet).

You say the palette changes when switching WinUAE > MS Windows > WinUAE? So it seems to be a WinUAE rather than a Workbench error. What screen mode / color depth do you use for MS Windows? Have you tried windowed mode, or tried to activate the "Fullscreen RTG" and use WinUAE's Picasso96 driver (came with WinUAE 0.8.8R8 as uaegfx.card and seems to be replaced by rtg.library now) for a 16bit screen mode?

For an easy setup and a really great Workbench experience, you should give "Amiga in a Box" (AIAB) or "AmiKit" a try. I have been running AIAB at 1024x768 at 16 bit color on my PIII/500MHz using WinUAE 0.8.8R8 without any speed issues, just to show some guys how nice an Amiga setup could be.
http://aiab.amiga.sk
http://amikit.amiga.sk
(Workbench and ROM files needed)

I wonder if one day there may be a hybrid WinUAE so WB windows could just appear on the MS Windows screen (or the other way round). I think it would be big fun to have WinUAE/WB as Windows desktop replacement.

Thanks, I have been sharing New Year's Eve with my parents and some neighbors at my home village. Letter-shaped salt sticks can be funny!