HDF file wont boot in Winuae

[Thomas]

my Amiga 810mb 2.5 HD (Seagate ST9810AG)

Was it connected to an RDB-compatible controller, e.g. the internal IDE controller of an A1200 or A600? If not, which controller is it?

Using a MAC Pro and a 2.5 ide > USB 2.0 adapter, I used the terminal command dd to output the contents of /dev/disk1 to an HDF file.

I am not familiar with Mac Pro and its syntax. Does /dev/disk1 specify the whole harddrive or only one partition?

What does WinUAE say in the text box below "HD controller" when you add the HDF (see hardcopy as an example, there it says "500MB RDSK...")? Does it automatically enable RDB mode (i.e. disable the button)?

If the hdf contains only one partition, then you need to adjust the values for surfaces and sectors according to how the partition was mounted on the Amiga. TSGUI can tell you the values if you run it on the Amiga. There is no way to tell later.

[Thomas]

The hard drive is IDE but I don't have a IDE 44 > 40 cable available for my PC, hence using the USB adapter.

You can add the harddrive to WinUAE through the USB adapter, too.

[Thomas]

TSGUI won't help with RDB mode HDFs.

What did you select as controller?

Which config do you use?

[Thomas]

What if you hold down both mouse buttons before the emulated Amiga starts (set CPU speed to approximate A500 in order to have enough time). Do you see the partitions in the early startup menu?

Add tsgui.lha as a second harddrive by add directory or archive -> select archive. When you boot now, you'll get a DOS window. Enter

stack 8000
cd tsgui
tsgui

Does the drive list show your partitions?

Select "select raw device" from the menu. Does the unit chooser show your HDF?

How did you transfer the HDF from your Mac to the Windows PC? Could it be that it was treated as text and that newline characters were converted to cr lf? The HDF must be transferred as binary.

[Thomas]

The HDF is in RDB mode (RSDK = Rigid Disk Block = RDB). You cannot use it in non-RDB mode. A non-RDB HDF contains only one partition and no RDSK block. Your HDF contains three partitions. You have to set surfaces, sectors and reserved to 0 (that's what the "Enable RDB Mode" button does).

Please do what I said above, i.e. run TSGUI in WinUAE and tell me the results of the tests.

[Thomas]

And the rest? Does it list it as a raw device?

In WinUAE's harddrives list, is there anything in the column left of "Device"? (Like the E in front of Share in my hardcopy)

[Thomas]

It's in the menu.

[Thomas]

Sorry for the delay. I didn't see that you added something to the thread because edited posts don't appear in the unread posts list.

Please after selecting the raw device choose "save RDB to file" from the menu and attach the resulting file here.

If it does not let you save the RDB please cut off the first 2 MB of the HDF, compress it with ZIP or RAR and attach it here. If you don't know how to cut off a part of a file, let TSGUI save the virtual HDD into a new HDF and cancel the process after a few seconds.

[Thomas]

I've thought about this and to be honest this is taking far too much of your time

Actually I enjoy solving such challenges and I am still interested in what went wrong or how it is possible to make a HDF which looks like it is partitioned but cannot be read.

And last but not least there is still the chance that there is nothing wrong with the HDF but there is a bug or a not yet implemented feature in WinUAE which prevents it from booting.

Because of this Ive now bought a 4GB CF card and PCMCIA reader, so can effectively backup the Amiga that way, plus now using TSGUI

Using real Amiga to make a backup is rather slow compared to modern hardware.

You already removed the HDD from your Amiga and connected it to an USB reader once. I would suggest to do this again but this time use the Windows PC instead of the MAC. WinUAE should be able to access the HDD directly and it can also do a full volume image copy (similar to what dd does).

[Thomas]

Then there is something wrong with the RDB. Does it still boot on the real Amiga?

If an Amiga HDD is connected to a Win98 machine, a few bytes are overwritten although the Amiga parttions cannot be accessed. This certainly renders the HDD unusable for the Amiga. This special case will be repaired automatically by WinUAE. Perhaps the MAC does something similar which is not known to WinUAE yet.

Please do what I said above as second option, i.e. let TSGUI read the first few MB of the HDD and attach the result here (compressed).

[Thomas]

Can you "save RDB to file" on the real Amiga?

If yes, what happens if you use this saved RDB to "restore RDB from file" in WinUAE?

[Thomas]

The RDB is of not much use because it's obviously correct.

The experiment shows that the HDF is not accurate. Something went wrong either with dd or when you transferred the HDF from the Mac to the PC.

I would suggest that you create a new HDF on the PC or on the Amiga. The one you have is unusable and I doubt that it can be repaired easily.

[Thomas]

Do you run WinUAE as administrator? It needs administrator rights to access real harddrives.

[Thomas]

Perhaps the USB adapter is the culprit. Do you have another one?