New to Whdload what's The crack?

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Unfortunately, it's not clear from the eBay listings nowadays which of these cards have any games or demos installed.

At first I would be tempted to say "that's because of all the people crying about 'piracy' they changed their descriptions", then I went to ebay and typed in "amiga cf" and found 14 listings right off the bat for CF cards loaded with WHDLoad games.  Search harder.

WHDLoad is a godsend, I can't imagine how or why people would want to use things like floppy disks or HxC readers/.adf files, when you can have a nice directory full of games that load easily just by clicking on their icon, and have a clean exit key to put you right back to Workbench when you're finished playing.  As much as I loved the '80s I don't have time to wait around for games to load anymore, too old for that, LOL.  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

I don't argue with the intrinsic value of having a phone; I just don't use it enough to make it worth the 40 dollars a month for the bill.

WHDLoad is a one-time purchase of approx. $30.00 USD (which includes free lifetime updates, AFAIK), not a monthly subscription.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Unfortunately, it's not clear from the eBay listings nowadays which of these cards have any games or demos installed.

Search harder. It's seriously right in the listing description, dude. If this was a technical item I'd be glad to send you a link, but you don't need that. Just put in "amiga cf", and look at descriptions like:
 
- Amiga A1200 4GB CF hdd AGA whd 2014 Edition
- Amiga 1200 4 GB CF Hard drive whdload
- Amiga 600 4GB Games & Demos Hard Disk Drive A600 CF HDD for Amiga 600
- Amiga 1200 8 GB CF Hard drive whdload 2014 Edition AGA + Demos
- Amiga A600 4gb cf HD Whdload 2014 Edition
 
Those are all active listings on ebay right now.  Or you could just download WHDLoad and put the files in C:.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

True, I should have mentioned win zip instead than the phone

WinZip is a scam.  All of the basic zip functionality of it has been built into every operating system since Windows XP.  Unless you need to do some kind of encrypted archive, I don't know why anyone buys it other than it sneaks onto your machine when you download something else (damned pre-checked opt-outs that people never look at, LOL).

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

I'll repeat again. I can't work out how to install WHDload!

Did you read the manual? Did you read all the posts on this thread? Did you spend any time googling to find the answer? Because it's all over the web, in forum posts, youtube videos, etc.
 
I'll try one more time.
 
To install WHDLoad download the archive WHDLoad_usr_small.lha from here:
 
http://whdload.de/
 
Use your favorite file manager (DirWork, Directory Opus, etc.) or LHA to unpack the archive. I typically extract archives into RAM: on my Amiga.
 
Double-click on the icon for "Install".
 
Alternatively you can manually copy the files. Copy the contents of WHDLoad/C into the SYS:C directory on your Amiga. There are five files, but really you only need four of them: DIC, Patcher, RawDIC, and the main WHDLoad executable itself. Copy all of these files into C: on your Amiga.
 
Any games that you install should point to the main executable, C:WHDLoad.
 
Next, if you've chosen not to use the installer script, manually copy the contents of WHDLoad/S into your SYS:S directory (the same directory where your Startup-Sequence and other startup files reside). There are three files: WHDLoad.prefs, WHDLoad-Cleanup, and WHDLoad-Startup. Copy all three of those files into the S: directory on your Amiga.
 
Last, you can copy the contents of WHDLoad/Docs where ever you choose. I usually stick them in the Trashcan. Just so they'll be around if for some odd reason I ever need them, but I consult the docs so infrequently it's not worth it to me to have a separate directory for them.
 
That's it. There's only three directories in the WHDLoad archive. Use the installer script or copy the files manually. The advantage of the installer script is that it will check for older versions and prompt you before over-writing them.
 
Your last, and very last part of the install, is if you want to install any additional Kickstart ROM's, such as 1.3. These are only required for some very picky games, but will ensure a greater level of compatibility. As already mentioned above, those would typically go in the directory Devs:Kickstarts/, or SYS: Devs/Kickstarts/. The Kickstart images aren't included in WHDLoad (copyright, blah blah blah), but I didn't have any reservations downloading them from The Pirate Bay website, since I already own many legal ROM's and this is easier than extracting the image from one yourself.
 
That's it, now just download some games and play! Remember, check the icon properties to make sure it's pointed to C:WHDLoad, and all you'll need to do is click on the icon to load the game.
 
I seriously don't know how to make this any easier for you, it's only seven files that need to be copied into two directories. Someday you'll look back on this and laugh about how much trouble you were having with something so easy. Good luck! :juggler:

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

There are a few things that could go wrong, which I still don't understand. I'm afraid you've assumed that I would download it in the same way as you. I think I should download it onto my laptop running Windows or Linux. My real Amiga A1200 isn't upgraded to connect to the Internet. This may not be what you advise. Instead of this, I could download it onto a desktop PC with a serial port and a transfer cable connecting it to my Amiga A1200. After this, I could use a Linux based or even a Windows based utility to unarchive the WHDload files. I think I should remove my CF card from my Amiga and plug it into my laptop using a CF card USB reader. I should probably prepare a new blank CF card, in case I lose my data. I think that to get the laptop to read the CF card I have to use WinUAE, or under Linux UAE, or E-UAE. All of these are installed. I then have to mount the WHDload directory on my laptop's hard drive, so that it can transfer the WHDload files to my Amiga CF card. After solving these issues, I should be able to install it, either under WinUAE, UAE, E-UAE, or on my real Amiga A1200.
 
I hope you can advise me on the issues above.

Why would you use a Windows-based utility to unarchive the WHDLoad files? WinUAE, Linux UAE, E-UAE... it seems like you have every tool available at your disposal except the ones you actually need. Just get WHDLoad_usr_small.lha onto your Amiga. It doesn't need to be connected to the Internet. Copy it to a floppy disk. Burn it to a CD. Transfer it via a serial cable. Put it on a FAT95 formatted SD card. Something. You are making this much harder than it needs to be. WHDLoad_usr_small.lha *IS* WHDLoad. Once you get this file onto your Amiga, through whatever means you have to transfer files, all you need to do is use LHA to unarchive it to ram: and click on the Install icon.
 
If you do not have any method of transferring files between PC and Amiga, I would suggest you research that first before worrying about installing any games.

Alternatively I suppose you could use WinRAR to extract the individual files from the .lha archive on a PC (if your Amiga doesn't have LHA)... don't know what you'd do with them after that though, maybe force them onto your Amiga-formatted CF card through some kludge-work with UAE?  Dunno, good luck with that.
 

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Why didn't the developers of WHDload make it available in this format?

Thank god they didn't. LHA is a standard Amiga archive format that's been used for decades. It's like .zip on the PC. You don't see PC users exchanging files by sending floppy disk images, do you? :biglaugh:
 
It shouldn't be too hard for someone to download the WHDLoad archive, write it to a floppy disk, then read that disk back as an 880KB adf. Should even be do-able with any of the versions of UAE.
 
However knowing you're having this much trouble just getting WHDLoad installed, what makes you think you're not going to have even more trouble when it comes to installing games? First priority should be working out an easy file transfer solution. A1200 has IDE, any cheap IDE CD drive will work on it, you can either get a buffered interface such as the Elbox 4xEIDE or even a long ribbon cable pulled outside the case (and a separate power supply) would work. :p
 
Alternatively get a PCMCIA-to-CF adapter plugged into the side of your A1200 and format a CF with FAT95. then you can keep your main CF hard drive plugged in internally, and when you want to transfer files from the PC to Amiga just eject your CF from the side of the Amiga, plug it in to your PC, copy the files onto it, and plug it in to your Amiga to read them back. Cake.
 
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=194
 
http://www.amazon.com/PCMCIA-Compact-Flash-Type-Adapter/dp/B0014C4UW2 (PCMCIA to CF adapter.  I'd get the one from Mechware but his site seems to be down at the moment)
 
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=438
 
I can't find a good link for it, but if you really want to go cheap, get a cable like this:
 
2.5 -> 2.5 -----> 3.5
 
A couple inches between the first ports, and about 12-18" between the second ports. Plug one end of the 2.5" into your motherboard IDE. Plug your CF adapter or whatever you have (I'm assuming it's 2.5") into one end, set as Master. Run the long end of the cable outside the edge of your case and plug into IDE CD drive and set as Slave. A cable like this can be made for <$10.
 
A better solution would be something like the Squirrel SCSI, an internal slim CD, etc.... there are sooo many ways of fitting a CD drive to an A1200, LOL.