Hard disks formatted with WinUAE... Useable by a real Amiga?

[StevenJGore]

Hi,

If I were to do the following:
- Connect a 2.5" hard drive to my PC, so that it shows as a drive letter in Windows,
- Format the drive from within WinUAE using the usual Workbench "Format" command,
- Install Workbench onto the newly-formatted drive, within WinUAE

...could I then just put the hard disk into a real Amiga, and it would boot Workbench?

Or does WinUAE just "pretend" to format it for the Amiga, and it's actually just FAT32 or NTFS?

Thanks!
Steve.

[StevenJGore]

Thanks for the quick reply!

You cannot format a drive which has a drive letter in WinUAE.

But presumably the drive is still recognised by the PC's BIOS, and is shown on the BIOS start-up screen along with all other hard disks and DVD drives etc? How come Windows doesn't detect the drive?

You must use an unformatted, unpartitioned drive.

So if I have a 2.5" hard drive that has previously been formatted on a PC, I can't format it with WinUAE at all? Any way round this?

Thanks!
Steve.

[StevenJGore]

Mainly thanks to Thomas and Acill, I have now successfully created an Amiga hard disk (ie. partitioned, formatted, and installed Workbench) on my PC using WinUAE, which then worked in a real Amiga.

For future reference (hopefully to help other people) here is how I did it:

1. I attached a 2.5" hard disk to my PC using a 2.5" to 3.5" converter bought off eBay.
2. I booted Windows and then loaded WinUAE from the command-line prompt using "winuae -disableharddrivesafetycheck".
3. I loaded my "A4000" AmigaOS3.9 configuration and then clicked "Add harddrive..." on the "Hard Drives" tab.
4. After a couple of warnings, I was able to choose from two harddrives... either "ToshibaMK1403MAV" or "Maxtor6Y120M0".
5. I chose the Toshiba drive, since the Maxtor drive is my Serial ATA PC hard disk!
6. I booted the AmigaOS3.9 config and loaded HDToolbox. (NB. For some unknown reason, the version of HDToolbox that came with Workbench 3.1 wouldn't recognise the Toshiba drive, otherwise I would just have booted from the "Install" disk of Workbench 3.1)
7. I installed and partitioned the drive with HDToolbox (choose "uaehf.device" and then select the name of the harddrive as it appeared in the WinUAE GUI). I'm assuming that people reading this at least know how to use HDToolbox for partitioning once they have selected a harddrive.
8. I formatted the partitions, and then booted WinUAE with the Workbench 3.1 "Install" disk to install Workbench 3.1 onto the hard disk in the usual way.
9. I tested the harddrive and its new install of Workbench 3.1 with WinUAE.
10. I put the harddrive in my SX32 Pro and booted it successfully, without any problems whatsoever!

I have to say, it was rather weird having an Amiga-formatted harddrive in my PC which Windows Explorer couldn't access, but WinUAE could access as normal.

Hope this guide helps somebody in future!

Steve.

[StevenJGore]

Surely the hard drive has to visible to windows to mount it as an amiga drive? am i understanding it?

The hard drive is visible on the BIOS boot screen (in the list with the other hard drives and DVD drives etc.), and will also show up in Windows Device Manager as a hard drive (it will be detected and automatically installed when Windows loads).

If the hard drive is unpartitioned, then Windows Explorer will not be able to "see" it, because it can't assign a drive letter to anything. WinUAE can still see it though.

My 2.5" drive had been used previously in a PC, so it showed as drive letters in Windows Explorer. That is why I had to start WinUAE with safety tests disabled, so that I could select it from the list in WinUAE. As soon as I had partitioned the drive with HDToolbox in AmigaOS3.9, and then formatted, Windows Explorer could no longer "see" the drive (the drive letters just disappeared).

...and don't call me Shirley! :-)