How to format/use a CF card with WinUAE for use in an A1200?

[mingle]

Hi all,

While I'm on a roll, I thought I'd ask another question in relation to my new A1200:

I'm thinking of using a CF card to replace my internal HDD and wonder if it's possible to prepare the card (ie: load my old A1200 partitions or something like AmigaSYS) using WinUAE or some other PC-based utility, before plugging it into the A1200...

Is it possible?

If so, are there any FAQs or tutorials to help me out

All help and comments appreciated!

Cheers,

Mike.

[MozzerFan]

Here's how I did it:

- Start winuae with the disableharddrivesafetycheck option ,for example "C:\Program Files\Cloanto\Amiga Forever\Emulation\WinUAE\winuae.exe" -disableharddrivesafetycheck

- Load your config and goto the harddrive section and choose addharddrive. Select the cf card. Don't forget to select the read/write option.

- Start emulation.

- Start hdtoolbox (set the Device tooltype of hdtoolbox to uaehf.device)

- Install and partition the CF
- Reset the system

- (Quick) Format the CF
- Copy all the files you need to your CF

- Install the cf in your a1200

One thing: I did this under the 3.5/3.9 environment of Amiga forever 2006.
I also tried it with a os 3.1 environment, but with hdtoolbox of 3.1 (and also hdinsttools on aminet) it was impossible to partition the cf card.

Hope this info is of any help.

Edit: Edited some small things to be more clear.

[mingle]

Hi Lloyd,

Thanks for the info... I've had limited success...

I'm using Amiga Forever 2008 (running the "Workbench 3.x" setup under the "System" tab). I can add the CF card in the "Add Harddrive" section of the WinUAE configuration (are there any otehr setting apart from read/write that I need to change?)

However when I start the emulation and run HDToolBox, I can't see any hard drives added...

I've got the CF card connected to my PC via a USB multi-card reader - could that be the problem? Do I have to connect it directly to the IDE interface of my PC?

Cheers,

Mike.

[MozzerFan]

Have you set the SCSI_DEVICE_NAME tooltype of HDtoolbox to uaehf.device?
I connected the CF to my system via a usb cardreader too and have no problems. I did have to use the scsi_device_name=uaehf.device tooltype though, otherwise hdtoolbox wouldn't see the CF.



edited:corrected tooltype

[MozzerFan]

Also it's really important to start winuae with the  disableharddrivesafetycheck option. If you have added the CF and start emulation, it should give you a message during startup that the safety check is disabled. If you don't use this option, hdtoolbox will also not see the CF.

[mingle]

Hi Lloyd,

Woo-Hoo! It worked! HDToolBox was set up with the ASKDEVICE tooltype option, which for some reason didn't display the uaehf device...

Anyway, it seems to have worked! I don't have my A1200 to try it with yet but that's for next week...

By the way, I tried with AmiKit 1.5.1 this time and it worked fine...

Thanks again for your help! :-)

Cheers,

Mike.

[MozzerFan]

Glad it worked  :-)

[mingle]

Ha Ha!

I spoke too soon!

After the install and partitioning, I 'rebooted' WinUAE, and I can see the icon for the newly partitoned CF card - it's labeled as "MDH0:2*", but I can't format it...

All actions for the icon are greyed-out and when I double-click, nothing happens either...

Maybe I'll give AmigaForever another go...

Cheers,

Mike.

[MozzerFan]

Like I said, I did this under the 3.x config of AF2006. I don't use Amikit, so I can't speak for that. I have no problems formatting the card after a reboot.

[mingle]

Cool...

I just ran WinUAE with my old WB3.0 setup and I was able to format the CF card without any issues...

:-)

Mike.

[MozzerFan]

Now all you have to do is copy all system files to your CF.
After you've done that, you can use winuae to see if it boots correctly from the CF. Man I love winuae.

[mingle]

Hi Lloyd,

You're right: WinUAE is simply awesome...

I installed WB3.1 on the CF card by 'booting' from the WB3.1 floppies in WinUAE and all went well,

I think I must've done something wrong, as I can't boot from the disk, but it shows up if I boot from other drives...

In WinUAE (under the "Hard drives" tab) it's showing up without a volume name...

Is there any way to make a hard drive bootable without having to wipe it?

Cheers,

Mike.

[MozzerFan]

Have you set the bootable  and bootpri options when you partitioned the CF? If not you can try to start HDtoolbox again and set them. I THINK you won't have to wipe the drive when doing this, but I'm not sure.

Edit: Just tested this and setting this option afterwards won't wipe the drive.

[MozzerFan]

BTW also check your mask and maxtransfer settings. When you install the CF in your A1200 and you run into 'the usual maxtransfer settings trouble' (corrupted files etc) you might have to lower your maxtransfer settings.

[mingle]

Hi again (thanks muchly for your time on this!)

I tried again and definitely made it bootable, and the boot-prioroty was set to "0"

Bingo! I now have a fully working 8MB CF card!

This is a test-run for when I get a 4GB card fro my A1200...

I've leaned a lot and it's been a great help, thanks again!

Cheers,

Mike.