Installing Games to Hard Drive that Don't have a WHDLOAD install

[trip6]

How do I install games to the hard drive of my A1200 that don't have a WHDLOAD install or their own hard drive installer from their original floppy disks? Can someone advise me on what I need to do\how I need to do it? I have a registered version of WHDLOAD if that helps...

[yetihw]

I'm not even close to an Amiga master but in my experience the game in question must be hard drive installable from the original disks like the old sierra online games all had a hard drive installer.


edit: I just reread your question and realized my response was total crap......sorry.

[Christian Johansson]

If the games aint installable and there isn't a WHDLoad installer for it, there aint much you can do i'm afraid.

You can check if there is a JOTD (similar to WHDLoad) install for it http://jffabre.free.fr/amiga/patches.html

[AccyD]

Why not just copy the disks over into folders on your harddrive and use the assign command in your startup sequence to make w/bench look there for the disks?

[orange]

because they are probably NDOS, right?

I guess you can always try and write whdload slave, yourself.. if you have time, desire and patience.

[trip6]

Can you give an example of this copy the disks and use assign method that you reference?

[Christian Johansson]

an example:

copy df0: #? all work:games/wings
assign disk1: work:games/wings
assign disk2: work:games/wings

Something like that. And if it works you could add the assign commands to your s:user-startup so you don't have to type them everytime.

[alexh]

WHDload is not the only hard drive installer.

There are JST (although most have been WHDloaded now) and Girv and lots of one-off-hacks.

Best to post the names of the games and let us tell you if an installer actually exists.

[spirantho]

Basically, if there's no WHDLoad installer and you want to install it to the hard disk, you need to write a WHDLoad slave yourself. There are some JST installers but WHDLoad has most of them covered anyway.

99% of the games that you find will be NDOS disks, so won't be able to be copied to your hard disk at all, and 99% of those that aren't NDOS will have their own installers anyway.

Effectively, you need WHDLoad. No WHDLoad = no HD install.

[DyLucke]

Where could i find these Girv or one-off-hacks?

I remember back in my A500 time there were released some HD installers eventually, that worked for computers that time, that means pre-AGA and pre-tons-of-memory needed.

Where could i find some of these? I've got an A1200 with plenty of WHDLoad, but my A500 is still hungry of HD stuff, and WHDLoad is a "no-go" with only 1Mb

 :-D

[zipper]

Here you might find some installs or links to them which aren't WHDloaded - perhaps.
http://jffabre.free.fr/amiga/index.html
I think on old Aminet CDs might be installers, too. Didn't they got removed from Aminet later?

[DyLucke]

Yep, that's JST, it's an alternative to WHDL, but i remember there were specific installers released by crack teams back in time. The only problem for JST is the same WHDL has, needs 2mb or more. Back in time i remember seeing installers that only required 1mb to run.

Maybe the ones that were removed from Aminet.  :-?

[AmiDude]

The most Amigans think that they are dependent from WHDLoad.
That's not true...
I run several games from HD that doesn't have a
HD-installer, or without the use of WHDLoad.
If the game is no NDOS, just copy the disk contents
to a directory on HD. Eventually you can assign the
game.
Then you can use little programs like "RunIt", "Run500",
"SetChipRev" or "Degrader" to run the game.
If your processor is 68040/68060, then turn of cache
and burst with the Cpu command: "c:cpu NOCACHE NOBURST".
This does the trick for me 9 out of 10 times with
old games that doesn't have a (WHDLoad)HD-installer.
 :-D

[Eclipse]

WHDload also contains a lot of bug fixes and solves incompatibility issues, especially if you have an accelerator card.

[AmiDude]

I admit that WHDLoad is a nice piece of software,
but not all WHDLoad games work flawless on expanded
Amiga's. With WinUAE it's even with more errors.