OS 3.1 command help please!

[save2600]

Help please, I think I've turned into an AmigaTard® as of late!

I'm trying to create a 3.1 Workbench boot disk on a vanilla 1200 and am having problems getting the Path and Assign commands to work.

Specifically: I am trying to get 3.1, when it says: "can't find devs:kickstarts" to KNOW where it is on a partition on a HD. AND I'd like 3.1 to know that my copy of WHDLoad is on the HD as well.

Editing WB3.1's startup-sequence, I can't get the Path command to do anything correct, nor the Assign command. Not sure if both are needed, or just one.

I've tried so many different options to no avail. Please help!

[mpiva]

Just some clarification first.  When you are saying you are trying to create a boot disk are you refering to a floppy disk or are you booting from the hard drive?  If you're getting a message that it can't find "devs:kickstarts" then my first question is do you actually have a directory in devs called "kickstarts"?  If not, Assign or Path aren't going to help you any.

[save2600]

3.1 Boot disk from floppy. System boots and 3.1 sees all my partitions.

DH0:Devs does indeed have a directory called Kickstarts...

[meega]

Assign DEVS: DH0:Devs ADD

I wonder if that might work...

[mpiva]

why not just boot from the hard drive?  That will solve your problem AND be a lot faster. If you insist on booting from a floppy add the following to your S:User-Startup

Assign DEVS: DH0:Devs ADD

Having said that, I'm not 100% sure the system will look for "kickstart" in ALL the directories assigned to DEVS: or only the first one.  If it only checks in the first, change the above to:

Assign DEVS: DH0:Devs
Assign DEVS: SYS:Devs ADD

[save2600]

Thanks guys, Looks like that did the trick - for the most part.

But I am now getting 'can't allocate ShadowMem' on most of the games  :-(


@ Michael,

Long story, but I'm trying to do the multi-boot thing because this A1200 has an 020 and a 10gb HD w/ no fast ram. OS3.9 was preinstalled on DH0 and all partitions are in place. Don't want to mess up 3.9. Sooner or later,  will add fast ram and/or accelerator someday.

[mpiva]

save2600 wrote:

Long story, but I'm trying to do the multi-boot thing because this A1200 has an 020 and a 10gb HD w/ no fast ram. OS3.9 was preinstalled on DH0 and all partitions are in place. Don't want to mess up 3.9. Sooner or later,  will add fast ram and/or accelerator someday.

Ah. Can I make a recommendation though? Copy that Workbench3.1 disk to one of your other partitions (it doesn't matter which one as long as it's not the 3.9 partition).  Mark that partition as bootable but give it a lower priority than the 3.9 partition (unless you use 3.1 more, then give the 3.1 partition a higher priority).  Now you can boot into 3.1 or 3.9 easily by holding down both mouse buttons on startup and selecting which partition you want to boot from in the Early startup menu.  It's easier and faster than carrying a floppy around.

Alternatively, there are utilities on Aminet that you can put as the first line in your startup-sequence so that, depending on some key being held down upon startup, an alternative startup-sequence is executed.  You can have an "OS3.1" directory in your system partition with all the 3.1 files and have the utility run a script that reads:

Assign SYS: DH0:OS3.1
Execute S:Startup-Sequence

Off the top of my head, I don't remember if the default assignments (S: Devs: C: Libs: etc) are assigned to SYS: or :.  If it's SYS: the above will work, if it's you'll need to use:

Assign SYS: DH0:OS3.1
Assign S: SYS:s
Assign C: SYS:c
Assign Devs: SYS:devs
...etc
Execute S:Startup-Sequence

It may seem like more work but it will be worth the extra effort in the long run.

[save2600]

I thought about doing just that... adding 3.1 to my other partition, BUT... the way the HD was partitioned is as such:

DH0: 200mb
DH1: 9gb

:-(  

So... I figured I wouldn't be able to boot 3.1 from that large of a partition without some other patches involved (ie: that >4gb barrier) . See... right now, leaving the system intact, when OS3.9 loads, it loads all the patches and then resets the computer. It is at that point that I stick the 3.1 disk in and all seems good. My partitions are recognised and I can play some of the WHDload games. OF course, booting straight from 3.1, I loose DH1.

Configuring hassle aside, I don't think booting this system from floppy is all that bad. I just need to figure out why most of these games give me the error of 'can't find expmem' or 'can't allocate shadowmem' - or whatever.

For example, 2mb chip ram should run Pinball Fantasies/Pinball Dreams just fine. But WHDLoad is now giving me these memory errors.

OF curiosity, my chip mem is really low upon booting OS3.1. It's something like 1.3mb. And I'm not in hi-res or too many colours or anything like that. I guess I am patching much of OS3.9's goodies, but even on my other systems running OS3.9, chip mem is around 1.8mb.