Need help - want to boot my amiga HD on PC with WinUAE

[Thomas]

From your last two posts I'd rather think it's a mater of stupid-user-sitting-behind-the-keyboard than UAE being too complicated. (Don't be angry, it's meant as a joke).

However, somehow the partition table on your Quantum got damaged, making the partitions invisible by both WinUAE and the real Amiga. Then with HDToolbox you gave it the final shot by overwriting the remaining rest of the partition table.

Tools like RDB-Salv or RDBRecov will allow you to recover the partitions. Unfortunately there is no way to create an Amiga floppy disk without being able to boot the Amiga be cause the PC cannot write Amiga disks.

If you have a Kickstart file for WinUAE I could create a bootable ADF with the needed tools on it, so you can recover the data with WinUAE.

Bye,
Thomas

[Thomas]

It's anyway strange, I wouldnt like to do that way.  I spent 2h searhcing for a windows utility which could make a total bytes by bytes clone of my amiga HD.  I tested almost 10 software, no one does it !

Did you try WinImage ? I know that it can at least create full disk images of Amiga formatted ZIP disks, so I imagine it should work with HDDs, too.

What do you mean about kickstart file ? the bios, rom ?

The Amiga's BIOS is called Kickstart. In fact it is not only a basic I/O subsystem but rather a big part of the operating system. So BIOS is not at all the correct word for it.

Bye,
Thomas

[Thomas]

You don't need to install anything. Workbench can as well be run from Floppy disk.

You say you have all five Workbench disks, but the Install disk with HDToolbox is missing.

So you should download these files:

http://www.aminet.net/search.php?query=hdinst.lha
http://www.aminet.net/search.php?query=RDBrecov.lha
http://www.aminet.net/search.php?query=lha.run

- Enable the write protection on all your original disks.
- Boot from the Workbench disk.
- Insert the Storage disk, open Storage, open DosDrivers and doubleclick PC1. (If there is no PC1 in Storage/DosDrivers, click PC0 once and choose "copy" from the menu. Click "copy of PC1" once and choose "Rename" from the menu. Rename it to PC1. Click PC1 once and choose "Information" from the menu. If there is a tooltype reading UNIT=0, change it to UNIT=1. If there is no unit tooltype, add one reading UNIT=1. If there are brackets around the tooltype, remove them.)
- You are asked to insert the Workbench disk. Do so.
- Now insert an empty floppy disk. An icon PC1:? should appear.
- Click the icon once and choose "Format Disk" from the menu.
- You are asked to insert the Workbench disk again. Do it.
- A window appears letting you to choose some options. Insert the empty disk again.
- Click on Format. Confirm that you want to format the disk and wait until it is finished.
- Now carry the empty disk to your PC and copy the downloaded archives to it.
- You need hdinst.lha, rdbrecov.lha and lha.run.
- While the PC is copying, go back to the Amiga and insert the Workbench disk.
- Select "Execute command" from the menu and enter "newshell" into the command line.
- Enter the following commands into the DOS window:

copy c:copy ram:
copy sys:system/format ram:
cd ram:

- now fetch the disk from the PC and insert it into the Amiga's drive.
- enter

copy pc1:#? ram:
lha.run

- now get another empty floppy and insert it into the drive (you can use the PC disk if you don't have another one)
- enter

format drive df1: name empty2 noicons

- press return twice.
- enter

lha x #?.lha df1:

Now the new disk contains HDInstTools which is a freeware replacement for HDToolbox and RDBrecov which is a command line utility to search partitions on a HDD. HDToolbox has an icon and can be run from Workbench. RDBrecov has to be run from the shell window. In order to read the documentation of RDBRecov enter the following command:

sys:utilities/multiview empty2:rdbrecov.guide

Note that as long as you only edit partitions, your data is safe. Use HDInsttools to create the  partitions RDBrecov has found, then reboot to see if the data is back. If not, try again. Keep away from the "DOS format" and "copy disks" buttons !!

Bye,
Thomas

[Thomas]

No, please don't give up so soon !

RDBRecov is optimized for speed, not quality. As the docs say it was initially made for PFS and SFS, not FFS.

So please try again. Use these parameters:

RDBrecov scsi.device 0 s 512 c 1646 cs 1008

If it still fails, please try this:

RDBrecov scsi.device 0 s 512 c 1659168 cs 1

When it finds the first "possible FFS partiton", press Ctrl C. (Should be near cylinder 1000 or 2000, not later). Divide the "at cylinder" value by 2 and use it for CS. Then divide 1659168 by CS and use that as C.

If all fails, use these parameters:

RDBrecov scsi.device 0 s 512 c 1659168 cs 1 deepffs.

It will probably need hours to read the entire HDD, but it should find everything.

Other think, is that my WB apparently see 2 HD, QDH0 and QDH1, but with strange names and no default tools when clicking on it and not a dos disk also.

When did it see these ? Before you started any recovery action ?

Bye,
Thomas

[Thomas]

@spirantho: you are a little late. The HDD is already damaged.

Win95/98/ME overwrite a vew bytes in the RDB making it useless for AmigaOS. But this is easy to repair and WinUAE repairs it automatically.

WinXP and 2K are the only versions with which WinUAE can access the HDD and they don't do any harm (usually).

Bye,
Thomas

[Thomas]

==> note: must read block instead of cylinder, and the size given by rdbrecov is not correct,

The entire output is correct. You told it that one cylinder is one block, so it gives you cylinder numbers which equal block numbers

 also, last partition name is JEUX

There is a root block with the name "TEMP" in it. If there is another one with "Jeux" in it, you probably have to run RDBRecov again with more specific parameters. However you should look after that later.

So correct me if my calculations are ok or not ?

Well, your interpretation of the values is all wrong, so I didn't check the calculations which are probably correct but useless.

FFS Bootblock found at cylinder     144: Size = 205056 cyls Dostype=444f5305 / Name="TITI"
FFS Bootblock found at cylinder  205200: Size = 614592 cyls Dostype=444f5301 / Name="TOTO"
FFS Bootblock found at cylinder  819792: Size = 409824 cyls Dostype=444f5301 / Name="DATAS"
FFS Bootblock found at cylinder 1229616: Size = 164016 cyls Dostype=444f5301 / Name="TEMP"

Well, you didn't read my post very well, otherwise you wouldn't have let it get this far. I told you to interrupt it after the first possible bootblock.

Nevertheless, the data tells us all we have to know.

As the first partition always starts at cylinder 2, we now know that the partitioning program you used to partition the drive for the first time thought that one cylinder has 72 blocks. This is the value we have to calculate with.

If I divide all values by 72 we get this output:

FFS Bootblock found at cylinder     2: Size = 2848 cyls Dostype=444f5305 / Name="TITI"
FFS Bootblock found at cylinder  2850: Size = 8536 cyls Dostype=444f5301 / Name="TOTO"
FFS Bootblock found at cylinder 11386: Size = 5692 cyls Dostype=444f5301 / Name="DATAS"
FFS Bootblock found at cylinder 17078: Size = 2278 cyls Dostype=444f5301 / Name="TEMP"

Now, after this, i launched HDInstTool but it gives mi this warning : Piktogramm nicht gefunden, die Einstellungen können nicht geladen werden

If you followed my instructions to unpack the hdinst archive, go to the desktop, open the empty2 disk, open the HDInstTools drawer and double click the HDInsTtools program icon. It should start without any warning. Then choose your preferred language from the menu (default obviously is german) and make sure the automatic mode is disabled.

Now click on "Setup Drive". Enter Cylinders = 23044, Heads = 1 and Blocks Per Track = 72. Click on Use.

Now for each partition (except TEMP) click on Add Partition and then on Edit Partition. "Start Cyl" should match the "found at cylinder" value, then enter the size next to "Cylinders".

For the last partition you should try to use the entire remaining space. This is probably what you did before, too (when you replaced TEMP by Jeux).

You might want to change the file system so that the Dos Type matches that listed by RDBRecov.

Now click on Use until you are back in the main menu and click on Save Changes To Drive. You are asked if you want to reboot, click on yes.

Now all data on all partitions (perhaps except Jeux) should magically be back.

Bye,
Thomas

[Thomas]

Yes, you are right. It seems like HDInstTools is not able to do this kind of editing. Must be a bug.

So we have to use HDToolbox. IIRC you said you have HDToolbox on one of your HDD partitions.

So run RDBRecov again with

rdbrecov cs 72 c 23044 s 512 ml ram:ml

Then enter

mount rdbr0: from ram:ml

to mount your TITI partition (use RDBR1 for TOTO, RDBR2 for DATA and so on).

The icon of the mounted partition should appear on the desktop. Open it, run HDToolbox and do all the partitioning in HDToolbox.

I added one filesystem to see the one available on my WB disk and i dont have the FFS,

Seems like FFS is only on the Install disk. But the same version also is in the Kickstart ROM, so you don't need to worry about not having any file system on the HDD.

Bye,
Thomas

[Thomas]

First strange think is "Block per Cylinder", i assume they mean the blocksize !?

If they write blocks per cylinder they mean blocks per cylinder. Why do you always believe the software is wrong ? Is this what Windows does to people ?

If you change a value in one of the text input fields you have to press enter or tab to make the changes active.

Blocks per cylinder is calculated as blocks per track * heads. So you should use 72 as blocks per cylinder.

FYI: heads is the same as tracks per cylinder. So blocks per cylinder = blocks per track * tracks per cylinder.

Also if it tells you that the actual number of blocks on the drive is 1660176, then the real number of cylinders is 23058 (= 1660176 / 72).

These are the values to use:

heads = 1
blocks per track = 72
blocks per cylinder = 72
number of cylinders = 23,058
total number of blocks = 1,660,176
bytes per block = 512
capacity of the drive = 850,010,112 bytes (810.63 MB)

You might also try to rerun RDBRecov with the new cylinders value. Perhaps it finds the JEUX partition now. (I am quite sure it does.)

In HDToolbox i have the definitions of my drive

Well, I usually doubt what I saved earlier. I prefer to always use "define new". Newer versions of HDToolbox don't have this feature any more, they always read the actual geometry from the HDD.

BTW, what happens if you click on "read configuration" ? Which values does it use then ?

Bye,
Thomas

[Thomas]

Im wondering if i'll try to put it on my PC.  I haven't tried again to plug it and try to make UAE run it.
 I'll maybe post another thread for this, or maybe there's a simple answer ?

Well, you should make a backup of the RDB or at least write down the output of RDBRecov, so you can easier recover your partitions again. Last time your PC destroyed your partition table. You should also check your PC for viruses or other software which might write to a "empty" HDD. Usually a PC with WinXP or 2000 does not write to an Amiga HDD without a reason.

BTW, a little question : is there any future plans for a possibility to see back a new amiga ? a new OS ?
My opinion would be to choose a standard harware, like a console game, and stick on it with minor changes.  but is there still any company behind ?  I doubt, after 10y it's over, no ?

What should I say ? You must be blind if you didn't see the news about the AmigaOne and AmigaOS 4.0.

http://www.amiga.com/amigaos/
http://www.intuitionbase.com/
http://www.amigaworld.net/

Perhaps you even overlooked AmigaOS 3.5 and 3.9 ?

http://os.amigaworld.de/index.php?lang=en

Bye,
Thomas