WinUAE, Corruption in HDF files upon transfer?

[kd7ota]

Hello,

Few days ago I decided to pick back up the Amiga, but VIA emulation.

Years ago I made some HDF files in WinUAE and they worked fine... But now when I try to mount them and access them, all I get is that they are uninitialized, and when I try to boot up the HDF by itself, just says its not a DOS disk.  The only thing I could recall is that I transferred the HDF to my external drive from my desktop. Don't think my hard drives are bad nor is my memory starting to be problematic.

Anyone else had similiar issues? Is there some kind of software that repairs the HDF? The HDFs were never bigger than 4gb, one is 1gb and another 2gb.

Any input is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[kd7ota]

After doing some messing around with an older version of UAE (1.5.3), those HDF files that the latest WinUAE (2.3.3) wouldn't work with worked great on 1.5.3. Wonder if there is something that changed that broke along the way? I made the original HDFs in UAE 1.5.3, but now wont work on the latest one.

Glad now I can do some backing up of files.

[kd7ota]

K, had to recreate the bug, and sure as hell it did it again...

So I made a HDF file under 1.5.3 that was 5MB in size, and then installed the basic 3.1 files over to it to make it  bootable. I then loaded the HDF over to 2.3.3, and it booted just fine... Ok, so I looked at the size of my workbench HDF from a few years ago, and it was 500MB, so I then made a 600mb file just to be sure I went over 500MB, and made it in 1.5.3. I copied over the files form 3.1 workbench disk to make it bootable.... I then loaded the HDF on 2.3.3 and BAM, says not a DOS disk. So somehow the HDF files that are being made in 1.5.3 are not working in 2.3.3 if they are bigger than a certain size...

So now you all know.

[Thomas]

Check geometry (Surfaces, Sectors, Reserved, Block size) when adding a HDF. New WinUAE version chooses better geometry for big HDFs, but when using an existing HDF you have to enter the same geometry as it was created with (probably 1, 32, 2, 512).

[ChaosLord]

Check geometry (Surfaces, Sectors, Reserved, Block size) when adding a HDF. New WinUAE version chooses better geometry for big HDFs, but when using an existing HDF you have to enter the same geometry as it was created with (probably 1, 32, 2, 512).

Thanks for the info.
I am curious as to what makes one imaginary geometry better than another imaginary geometry?

[Thomas]

In early versions of AmigaDOS the number of cylinders may not exceed 32767. With surfaces=1 and sectors=32 you reach this limit quickly (at 511 MB). With bigger values for surfaces and sectors you can make bigger HDFs without reaching the limit.

[ChaosLord]

Aha!  My cousin ran into that problem once before!  I had no idea what to tell him.  Now I know.

Do you happen to know what geometry the newer winuaes are using?
And/or what is the maximum hdf size now?

Why doesn't a WinUAE .hdf have a few ULONGS of header information to describe the geometry being used?  I mean its a virtual drive so it can do whatever it wants.

Do you happen to know what the value of MAX_CYLINDERS is under OS2.0+ ?

[Templario]

Hello,

Few days ago I decided to pick back up the Amiga, but VIA emulation.

Years ago I made some HDF files in WinUAE and they worked fine... But now when I try to mount them and access them, all I get is that they are uninitialized, and when I try to boot up the HDF by itself, just says its not a DOS disk.  The only thing I could recall is that I transferred the HDF to my external drive from my desktop. Don't think my hard drives are bad nor is my memory starting to be problematic.

Anyone else had similiar issues? Is there some kind of software that repairs the HDF? The HDFs were never bigger than 4gb, one is 1gb and another 2gb.

Any input is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

where you have saved the HDF images is a good condition? because your problem is as if the harddisk images have problems, you don't forget the windos protection, if you copy from one CD the HDF file this file has the protections against deleted and the WinUAE to read the hard disk needs access with the HDF file without protection. it is a common problem the Windos protection. "Only read" attribute.

[Thomas]

Why doesn't a WinUAE .hdf have a few ULONGS of header information to describe the geometry being used? I mean its a virtual drive so it can do whatever it wants.

Because the traditional HDF actually is only an interim solution created by the first UAE developers. There is nothing in the real Amiga world which is like a HDF.

In order to emulate a real Amiga harddrive, you should switch to RDB mode. Then you can really do everything you want. There is no limit to geometry or size. Setup is a little bit more difficult, though, because you need to use HDToolbox (as you do on a real Amiga, too).

And while you are at it, you should use VHD instead of HDF because then you don't occupy a lot of unused space on your Windows harddrive but only that portion which actually has data stored on it.

[kd7ota]

Check geometry (Surfaces, Sectors, Reserved, Block size) when adding a HDF. New WinUAE version chooses better geometry for big HDFs, but when using an existing HDF you have to enter the same geometry as it was created with (probably 1, 32, 2, 512).

Thanks! That pretty much nailed it on the head. Got an email about it too explaining it. Guess I was unaware of the differences and what was actually happening.

Thanks again for the input!