WHDLoad and SFS

[jimmy_n]

I've been having trouble getting any of my WHDLoad games to work on my system, an A1200 with Apollo 1260 66Mhz, 32Mb fast, WB3.9 BB2.  I've just copied my old HD contents accross from my PC, which I was using with WinUAE (all the WHDLoad games run fine on WinUAE).  Everything was working on the A1200, except WHDLoad.

However, after attempting to boot with no startup-sequence to see if this would cure the problem, I found that I could not access my DH1: partition which had all the games on.  AmigaDOS gave me the error 'DH1: Not enough memory available', after typing DH1: and pressing enter.  DH0: however, I could access fine.  Both DH0: and DH1: are using SFS.  I then rebooted, and tried copying a game accross from DH1: to DH0:.  It ran fine from DH0:, but wouldn't run from DH1: giving the error 'Exception: Access fault ($4008)'.  I don't see how it won't run from DH1:, when it's the same filesystem and all the other data on DH1: seems fine.  Has anyone had anything similar to this?

Thanks in advance.

[adolescent]

If your DH1: is a large partition (4GB+), you won't see it unless SETPATCH has installed the necessary SCSI.DEVICE patches.  Try letting the system reboot once, then boot without startup-sequence and it should work.

As for WHDLoad on SFS, it does work.  I have my games on a 20GB partition using SFS and never had a problem.

[jimmy_n]

Ok - I ran setpatch in AmigaDOS and now I can see my DH1: partition.  I tried running WHDLoad from the command line, but to no avail - I still get the same error.  Yet I try running the same game from DH0: with the command line and the same parameters and it works!  Which is a shame because my DH0: partition is not large enough for me to copy all the games over.  D'oh.

[Legerdemain]

Check your maxtransfer settings on DH1: with the help of HDToolbox. If it is faulty it could be that the files on the disk isn't working as they should. I've forgotten to change the maxtransfer many times, and if it isn't working it isn't always showing in a way one think it would show, when I've played around with SFS on different partitions.

[jimmy_n]

I checked the maxtransfer for DH0: and it's set to 0x0001FE00, my DH1: is set to 0x00FFFFFF.  Could this be the problem?  One thing tho, I did copy a couple of games from my DH1: to DH0: and they started working, so if the files were corrupt on DH1: then surely they shouldn't work when copied to DH0:?

[Framiga]

use always the same MaxTransfer value for ALL the partitions. (and the same Mask as well)

Mask  0xFFFFFFFC (or E as final)

MaxTransfer 0x0001FE00 (for IDE its ok)

For all partitions of the same disk. (dosbuffers at least 400)

[Legerdemain]

I checked the maxtransfer for DH0: and it's set to 0x0001FE00, my DH1: is set to 0x00FFFFFF. Could this be the problem? One thing tho, I did copy a couple of games from my DH1: to DH0: and they started working, so if the files were corrupt on DH1: then surely they shouldn't work when copied to DH0:?

If DH0: seems to be working fine with 0x0001FE00 (it never has for me) change your DH1: partition to that value aswell. I've always used 0x0001FFFE, which never have failed to work properly, under any circumnstances. There are some safe values to enter, and there are some values which you could try out and use if they work. 0x00FFFFFF is anything but a safe value. But, it doesn't really affect that much in the end... or rather, the difference with a perfect value and a working value isn't going to make the world of a difference.

Concerning the files, they don't necessarily need to be corrupt (if looking at my own eperiences). I've managed to move files from a partition with bad maxtransfer without the file being broken in the end, although it didn't run as it should on the partition. But I would recommend that you change the maxtransfer and then copy the files to DH1: again from a source which you know is working.

MaxTransfer 0x0001FE00 (for IDE its ok)

This is simply not true. That seems to be the deafult value, and that is also what I always seem to forget to change. It haven't worked well one single time for me, and I've used many HD's through the years, even two different A1200's. So, sometimes it is ok, but sometimes it is apparently not.

[jimmy_n]

Thanks guys, I got it working.  I changed the maxtransfer of DH1: to the same as DH0: (0x0001FE00) and now it's working fine.

[patrik]

This page about Mask and this page about Maxtransfer is rather interesting, if anyone is wondering what they are all about.


/Patrik