Connecting a FFS HDD to PC without destroying partition information

[SpheriX]

Does anyone knows how to connect an Amiga FFS HDD to PC, without destroying the partition tables? I've tried under XP and 98 and I had to repartition via HDToolBox (partitions erased). I know there is a FFS driver under UNIX, but don't know much about it. Any ideas?

[motrucker]

You ARE kidding, ............... right?

[DonnyEMU]

You might post something to Aros-exec.org.. Someone there might have some ideas :-)

-Don

[JetFireDX]

There shouldn't be any problem with just connecting the hard drives under Win XP. I have connected 4 different Amiga formatted IDE disks to my PC and used WinUAE to back up the data from the drives. I used the disk manager tool to make sure that windows was aware of the disk, but when it popped up the wizard to partition and format the new drives I just cancelled it and pointed WinUAE at it.

[pablotinch]

i have the same problem .
can i install os 3.1 by puting a hd with WinUAE , and then put it in me amiga 1200 .
does any know how ?

[Karlos]

Under windows 2000, using NTFS as the main filesytem I had absolutely no problem adding my amiga HD. It doesn't show up under windows itself but can be mounted in WinUAE directly.

I did this a few times when backing up a bunch of my amiga stuff to CD on the winbox.

[pablotinch]

can you tell me how .
i try with winuae and i got the error directory nor found .
what i have to do ?
thank for your time

[Karlos]

Hmm.

Well, I took an existing Amiga HD and added it to a spare IDE channel on my PC.

I didn't do anything in windows2000 itself. Unsurprisingly the drive did not show up, except in the BIOS settings.

I then ran WinUAE and went to the hard disk configuration section, and clickedthe "add hard drive" button. This opened a small window where my amiga HD appeared in a drop down menu. There was also a checkbox to set wether or not to mount the drive as read only or read/write.

Note that the Winuae config file I already loaded used a hardfile for a clean OS boot and some tools.

I then started the emulation. I needed to hold both mouse keys to enter the amigaos early startup and select the actual hardfile to boot from (being as I dont think winuae would like to boot a Warpos enabled OS3.x installation that was on the real HD).

Once booted, all the partitions that were on the HD were visible as normnal.

That really is all I did.

[pablotinch]

i put in me pic a old 2 gigas hardrive as a slave.
and then i went i winuae and went to hardrives , and then
i put add hardrive and winuae sees me 2 gigas , but when
i turn on winuae , it does not see it . what do i have to do ?

[Karlos]

Is the HD actually already partitioned and formatted under AmigaOS?

Furthermore, does it work in a real amiga (assuming you have one to test it in)?

[pablotinch]

is not is complete empty .
how do i partion  a hardrive with amiga format but in windows ?

[Karlos]

pablotinch wrote:
is not is complete empty .
how do i partion  a hardrive with amiga format but in windows ?

Ah. In that case, I am not sure - I haven't even tried the HDToolbox in WinUAE to even attempt this.

If it is possible, it should be just the same as it is on an Amiga, by running HDToolbox.

One caveat I can see would be the need to make sure you don't specify the device tooltype for HDToolbox (thus making sure you have to select it manually when it runs). I suspect it probably doesn't get mounted via the usual "scsi.device" as it would on a real Amiga.

If you can get as far as choosing the thing in HD toolbox, then you need to partition the drive (I don't know how much you already know about this but there is plenty of information available on this) as normal.

[pablotinch]

but the problem wen i turn on winuae , even they let me slect in the hardrive , does not seem to see it , when i turn in on like a emulation , i guess is because is a virgin disk , so i wander how do i format a virgin disk in windows and then can i use it in winuae for instal os 3.1 and then put in me amiga 1200
??

[Karlos]

I don't think you can format it AmigaOS compatible from the windows side. At least as far as I know, that is.

Do you have a working OS install for WinUAE already on a hardfile or something? If so, try HDToolbox to see if it can find the drive. Again I'm not sure what .device it would be under.

If you don't have a working OS install for UAE, I can't suggest anything other than using a real amiga to sort out the drive.

[Piru]

@SpheriX

Unless if you "initialize" the hdd with Windows XP, XP shouldn't trash anything.

Windows 98, however, does write 4 bytes to the disk, regardless what you do. It does NOT destroy the partition tables, just make the checksum mismatch and thus RDB will be discarded.

Here's how to repair the damage using linux, without need to repartition.