Need an idiot's guide to installing CD0: on my Amiga :)

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

My grand experiment in adding a CD drive to the Series II hard drive controller on my A500 is approaching success.  After paying a whopping $2 for the drive and $8 for the cable, I've got them connected and when I run SysInfo on the A500 it shows the presence of the drive, and even that I've got a disc inserted in it (my old OS 3.9 CD from back in the good old days).

Now keeping in mind the fact that I haven't used a CD drive on an Amiga since about 2003, and then it was on an A1200 with 4xEIDE, never used SCSI, what do I do next?

I've got a pretty bare-bones 3.1 setup on the machine now and located CD0 in the Storage/DOSdrivers directory, tried configuring it via it's tool types but it wouldn't run.  Upon further investigation it appears that I have only a CD0: .info file, with no actual "file" attached to it.  Should there be one?  What should it say?  I can just manually enter this in a text editor if I need to, LOL.  

My methods for getting files onto this A500 are pretty limited right now, BTW.  Basically just if I've got an .adf I can burn it to disk via that parallel cable hookup that was posted about on here a few weeks ago.  I'd hoped that once I get this CD drive working, I can dump more files onto a disc from my PC and then read them back on an Amiga, but gotta figure out how to get this drive mounted, first!  

Any help is greatly appreciated, thanks!

[Thomas]

Yes, you need a CD0 file along with CD0.info.

Here is the contents of the original CD0 file from WB 3.1:

Code: [Select]


/* $VER: CD0 40.6 (31.8.93)
 *
 * CD-ROM file system entry
 *
 * This file enables the CD-ROM file system which allows you to read standard
 * ISO-9660 CD-ROM disks from an Amiga with a SCSI or IDE controller.
 *
 * The "Unit" line defines the SCSI address of the CD-ROM drive. Drives
 * often come configured as unit 2, which is the default. Check the
 * documentation for your CD-ROM drive to find the exact SCSI address.
 * Note that most drives let you change this number using jumpers.
 */

FileSystem = L:CDFileSystem
Flags = 0
Surfaces = 1
SectorsPerTrack = 1
SectorSize = 2048
Mask = 0x7ffffffe
MaxTransfer = 0x100000
Reserved = 0
Interleave = 0
LowCyl = 0
HighCyl = 0
Buffers = 5
BufMemType = 0
StackSize = 1000
Priority = 10
GlobVec = -1
DosType = 0x43443031

/* The Device and Unit fields are controlled by tooltypes in the CD0 icon.
 *
 * Device = scsi.device
 * Unit = 2
 */


(you can leave out the comments which start with /* and end with */. You can also leave out repeated space characters and empty lines.)

Make sure that CDFileSystem is present in the L directory.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

That looks like exactly what I need, I'll try it tonight, thanks!

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Thanks Thomas, worked great!  Was able to read my old OS 3.9 CD with no issues as a test.  Good thing I didn't try to install it, would've run like a dog if at all on my '010, but nice to know it works.    I assume there's no trick to reading a CD burned with a PC on an Amiga, right?  Didn't have any laying around last night, but that's my next step, LOL.  

[Matt_H]

There shouldn't be any issues reading PC-burned CDs, but there are some caveats

1. Some older CD drives tend to have trouble with CD-Rs. The best way to work around this is to burn at as low a speed as possible. Specific media type might also be a factor, but I've found that low burn speed usually works.

2. The CDFS shipped in 3.1 is not that good. Filenames aren't always the correct case, sometimes there are MS-DOS filename issues (8.3 and the ol' ~1) depending on how a disc was burned. Probably best to install a different CDFS. AmiCDFS is on Aminet and a good non-commercial choice. Using a different CDFS usually consists of putting the filesystem in L: and using the CD0 file provided with the package.

[nicholas]

BabelCDFS might be a good choice on an A500.

http://babel.de/amiga.html#sys

[videofx]

I use Asim CDFS and works great! Can read all the CD's on burn on my PC and I burn at 10X and I use Taiyo Yuden Silver CD's. Remember that the CD must be ISO-9660. Works on Amiga and all gameing machines with CD's like Sega Saturn, Genesis CD, Turbo Grafix, PS2, CD-i, etc

[nicholas]

I use Asim CDFS and works great! Can read all the CD's on burn on my PC and I burn at 10X and I use Taiyo Yuden Silver CD's. Remember that the CD must be ISO-9660. Works on Amiga and all gameing machines with CD's like Sega Saturn, Genesis CD, Turbo Grafix, PS2, CD-i, etc

I've found Asim CDFS to be the best too.  Does it play nicely on a 68000 though?