WinUAE, Corruption in HDF files upon transfer?

[Thomas]

Check geometry (Surfaces, Sectors, Reserved, Block size) when adding a HDF. New WinUAE version chooses better geometry for big HDFs, but when using an existing HDF you have to enter the same geometry as it was created with (probably 1, 32, 2, 512).

[Thomas]

In early versions of AmigaDOS the number of cylinders may not exceed 32767. With surfaces=1 and sectors=32 you reach this limit quickly (at 511 MB). With bigger values for surfaces and sectors you can make bigger HDFs without reaching the limit.

[Thomas]

Why doesn't a WinUAE .hdf have a few ULONGS of header information to describe the geometry being used? I mean its a virtual drive so it can do whatever it wants.

Because the traditional HDF actually is only an interim solution created by the first UAE developers. There is nothing in the real Amiga world which is like a HDF.

In order to emulate a real Amiga harddrive, you should switch to RDB mode. Then you can really do everything you want. There is no limit to geometry or size. Setup is a little bit more difficult, though, because you need to use HDToolbox (as you do on a real Amiga, too).

And while you are at it, you should use VHD instead of HDF because then you don't occupy a lot of unused space on your Windows harddrive but only that portion which actually has data stored on it.