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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Software Issues and Discussion => Topic started by: TheBilgeRat on May 01, 2011, 04:47:18 AM
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So, I just picked up an IDE to CF reader and a 4G CF card. I want to do a fresh install of 3.1 onto it and also set up the partitions to be PFS3. My plan was to move the pfs3 folder over onto my current hard drive, unplug my cdrom, shove the cf drive on as a "slave" and format it that way - then reinstall but with the cf in place of the current drive and readd the cdrom. any glaring problems with my logic? I've never set up a PFS3 drive before so I'm not sure exactly how to go about doing it.
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Easy!
Install UAE. Install Work Bench 3.1
Install the latest version of PFS.
Plug in your CF card into your PC, reboot UAE, then prepare, partition, and format the CF card using the PFS option.
Install CF Card into your Amiga and boot!
or
Create a Boot floppy, remove Fast File System from the "L" directory and put "PFS3ds" in there instead. Also copy over PFS' new Hard Drive Tools.
Install your CF card in to your Amiga, boot off the custom boot floppy, and prepare your card from there.
Keep in mind that you will want to read through the docs that came with PFS. It will tell you how to prepare the drive for PFS and how to set up the partitions and format them, all of which needs to be done with the new Hard Drive Tools that come with PFS.
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Is there a way to do this all on the Miggy side?
A: I really hate UAE :D
B: I just installed PFS3 on my current HD... I was planning on removing my CDROM from the chain until I get the CF drive ready to go.
Otherwise, how does one make a custom boot floppy? Is that just a copy of the workbench disk with PFS3ds instead?
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I don't have a CD-ROM on either of my "real" Amigas, so I'm not much help in that department, but I can say for sure that you can avoid UAE all together (that's the spirit!) by using a custom boot floppy.
I'm sure someone can tell you exactly what files are needed in order to make a floppy boot, but I forget what they are atm.
What I did was start with the WB 3.1 Install disk as the base. I removed the old Hard Drive tools and a few other files that I did not need in order to make room for the new files. I rebooted and was good to go. If I was at home I'd simply put in the disc and tell you what all is on it, but alas I'm at Arby's. I'm sure you'll figure it out though.
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well, that would be very cool - I will have to try that. Right now, its not liking however I hook it up...HDinsttools is not seeing the CF card
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So I thought I might go the UAE route, but adding the CF/IDE adapter into my chain, even set with the jumper to slave caused all sorts of issues with my computer. version scsi.device on my A4000 reads 40.xx. I did manage to partition it as an SFS drive with cfdisk from the root maintenance prompt. As the Master on the IDE chain it seems to behave ok. I think I may need to wait for some boot floppy instruction so I can do this all on the miggy side. Also I read somewhere about maxtransfer settings, especially once my CDROM gets hooked back up. But for now I must rest to prevent some stupid mistakes from happening if I keep plodding ahead like an idiot.
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You don't need a boot floppy if you have a second harddrive. The floppy won't change anything.
Just plug HDD and CF to the Amiga and install the CF as per instructions (read the docs !!!).
After you created partitions and formatted them, you can even copy the operating system from your HDD to the CF. No need to reinstall anything.
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You don't need a boot floppy if you have a second harddrive. The floppy won't change anything.
Just plug HDD and CF to the Amiga and install the CF as per instructions (read the docs !!!).
After you created partitions and formatted them, you can even copy the operating system from your HDD to the CF. No need to reinstall anything.
That's what I was up to: However, the card is not recognized as a slave drive when I scan for it using HDinsttools, it only shows my current drive. I only see one drive in the window.
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That's what I was up to: However, the card is not recognized as a slave drive when I scan for it using HDinsttools, it only shows my current drive. I only see one drive in the window.
Is this a new card or an old one that had a previous Workbench install?
I've had some CF cards that wouldn't show up on my A4000 via my FastATA, however the Buddha on my A2000 would recognise them and once prepped they worked fine on the A4000. Others had no problem on the A4000.
What happens if you make the CF card reader "Master" and the Hard drive "Slave"? IIRC correctly I had issues until I configured one of my IDE connectors this way, although I now need to have a CF Card inserted in the reader at all times otherwise it doesn't detect the slave Hard Drive.
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Is this a new card or an old one that had a previous Workbench install?
I've had some CF cards that wouldn't show up on my A4000 via my FastATA, however the Buddha on my A2000 would recognise them and once prepped they worked fine on the A4000. Others had no problem on the A4000.
What happens if you make the CF card reader "Master" and the Hard drive "Slave"? IIRC correctly I had issues until I configured one of my IDE connectors this way, although I now need to have a CF Card inserted in the reader at all times otherwise it doesn't detect the slave Hard Drive.
This is a brand new card - Maxell 4Gb. I am beginning to believe that the "slave" jumper on the CF card just doesn't work properly. If I mark the CF card as "master" and my good hard drive as "slave", I get an insert WB screen. I f I mark the CF card as "slave" and the Hard drive as "master" the CF card does not show up at all. If I remove everything but the CF card (set to Master) and boot via a Workbench disk and run HD InstTools from a floppy, it does recognize the CF card but I can't apply PFS3ds to it. UAE option is out at the moment as when I throw it into the IDE chain on my linux boxen I get shunted to a maintenance login.
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So... I think I got it sorted. I left both hard drives plugged in (main as master, CF as slave). I then booted with a Workbench disk, followed the guide to put PFS3 on my drive (I was going to get all fancy with partitioning, but just left one big 4g partition cos I was getting a bit cranky at that point)
On reboot, I unplugged the good drive and left the CF card as master. Sure enough there was DH0 waiting for a format. Hit the format button and voila! a fresh new pfs3 format (quick of course). I am in the process of installing 3.1 onto the cf card, so in a few minutes or five I should be good to go.
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Holy Smokes, Batman! PFS3 is absurdly fast! I just finished with my clean install, hit reset, blinked, and workbench was there!
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I've been having similar trouble with getting HD toolbox to prep a 4GB sdcard in a 44pin IDE adaptor.
I resorted to putting the card into a usb card reader and partitioning it as one 4GB FFS partition using MorphOS on a Mac.
Creating a PFS3 partition is the next hurdle......
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I am relatively convinced that this generic CF/IDE adapter I bought at Fry's doesn't go into slave mode properly (brand name is SYBA, lovely engrish instructions. no I mean engrish :lol: ). As it sits now, its playing nice as the master in the setup. It does mean that it makes it a huge PITA to copy over all of my stuff from the old HD, but most of this was meant as a learning experience anyways. the easiest part of the whole deal was getting PFS3 installed on the partitions. The manual is very straightforward.
I think my next software project is getting a proper HFS+ partition on this jobbie and installing shapeshifter :afro:
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I'm sure someone can tell you exactly what files are needed in order to make a floppy boot, but I forget what they are atm.
What I did was start with the WB 3.1 Install disk as the base. I removed the old Hard Drive tools and a few other files that I did not need in order to make room for the new files. I rebooted and was good to go.
Yes, modifying a copy of the Install disk is one way of creating a boot floppy, another way is to use this program of mine: http://rhz1.com/amiga911maker
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Yes, modifying a copy of the Install disk is one way of creating a boot floppy, another way is to use this program of mine: http://rhz1.com/amiga911maker
Ha! Yeah I found that a little too late for my needs :D
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Yes, modifying a copy of the Install disk is one way of creating a boot floppy, another way is to use this program of mine: http://rhz1.com/amiga911maker
Oh what a great idea! I've just bookmarked that. Someone (hello Franko) needs to host the compiled ADF of the actual floppy. :)
Are you planning on updating it to use PFS3 instead of SFS?
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Congrats man, glad you got it working! I still don't really notice much speed improvements my self, but I can at least use an 8Gb card now! Happy am I! :)
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Ha! Yeah I found that a little too late for my needs :D
Yes I can see that :)
Oh what a great idea! I've just bookmarked that. Someone (hello Franko) needs to host the compiled ADF of the actual floppy. :)
Are you planning on updating it to use PFS3 instead of SFS?
In the next version it will be possible for users to include FFS, SFS or PFS3 on the boot floppy. All three or none of them is also possible, it's all about freedom of choice here :)
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Yes I can see that :)
In the next version it will be possible for users to include FFS, SFS or PFS3 on the boot floppy. All three or none of them is also possible, it's all about freedom of choice here :)
sweeeet. That will be excellent - cos the boot floppies I make from the 3.9 disk are worthless...
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In the next version it will be possible for users to include FFS, SFS or PFS3 on the boot floppy. All three or none of them is also possible, it's all about freedom of choice here :)
Oooh good stuff!
When are you likely to be releasing the next version?
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Oooh good stuff!
When are you likely to be releasing the next version?
There are still lots of stuff that I want to add, but I feel the time has come to release the next version soon, I just have to sort out a few issues first.
Some of the stuff that will be new in the next version includes the following:
* XPK crunching. When creating a boot disk of the Low-mem type (which are meant for Amigas with less than 2MB RAM), the majority of commands and libraries will be copied directly to the disk instead of being added to the LZX archives. These files can now be XPK crunched instead, this will lead to smaller files which in turn leads to more stuff that can be included on the disk.
* Three file managers are now supported, so in addition to FileMaster3, you can also choose DiskMaster2 or Ordering.
* The Amiga911 boot disk can now contain all the files required for setting up harddisks larger than 4GB.
* Reading and writing ADF disk images is now possible after booting the Amiga911 disk, this can easily be done by using TransADF + a simple script I have created, this script is in the same style as mARK where it uses the RequestChoice and RequestFile commands.
* The mARK script has been updated, and you can now view the contents of archives. You can also specify file(s) to extract from archives in a text string gadget, and wildcards is supported as well.
* Selecting items from the Workbench menu is now a bit more advanced, one example is that if you click a file or drawer icon and select Shell from the Wb menu, the Shell that opens will have the path of the icon you selected. Likewise if you click the icon of a text file and select Ed or JanoEditor, the editor will open with the selected text file.
* Salvaging files from faulty disks can now be done by adding DiskSalv2 to the boot disk, but have in mind that if you want to do this on a harddisk, certain limitations applies: It will only work on harddisks with FFS partitions that are max 2GB in size, and only on the first 4GB of the drive.
* CD-ROM support is enhanced, you can now configure the device and unit to be used, and Amiga911 Maker will automatically create a proper mount file.
* Several small script files have now been joined into a single larger file. this will reduce the RAM usage with a few KB after booting the Amiga911 disk.
There is also a new ultra cool feature which I'm not ready to reveal right yet, this is something I wasn't sure if I could pull off, but it does work. All I can say is that there's one person on this forum who already knows what it is, and that this person also have provided me with some help regarding it.
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Sounds great, I look forward to trying it! :)
I have an idea that you might be interested in, I will send you a PM when I'm at next at my computer.