WinUAE harddisk files troubles

[Jose]

Giving latest WinUAE a go, temporarily, and stumbled across a problem with the harddisk files. First off it doesn't seem to be able to work as a real harddisk as it's implied, because partitioning them allways end up in partitions the format command (in Workbench menus) can't format, it just doesn't do anything. Second even trying to format them normally without 1st partitioning them doesn't work, I'm only able to format 1 hardfile ?
Finally what does the RDB option do ? Does it build an RDB instantaneously within the hardfile ? Maybe that's why I'm having all these problems then, so I should only try to format it and not even recognize the disks with HDToolbox. But yet if I do so the disks simply don't appear in Workbench. Maybe I should set uaehf.device somewhere, like I do when launching HDToolbox, for them to appear but where ?

[Leffmann]

Use f.ex the IDE0 controller and enable RDB mode, and it will behave like a real drive on the IDE port. If you're using HDToolBox you have to set up the drive first, partition it, save the changes and exit HDToolBox, then the drives will pop up on the Workbench and you can format them.

[Thomas]

Finally what does the RDB option do ?

A traditional HDF is like a big floppy disk: it does not have a partition table and is not recognised by HDToolbox. If you enable RDB mode, the HDF acts like a real harddrive and can be partitioned with HDToolbox. The RDB is not created automatically by WinUAE.

[Jose]

Nice to see you still around here Thomas

The only way I managed to get the hardfiles recognized and formated by uaehf.device was adding one on WinUAE interface and then recogne (by reading drivers configuration) it with HDToolbox and partition. Then removing this 1st one and adding the others one by one. It just wouldn't accept formating the others (allways used QuickFormat) any other way, even attempted writing FFS to the Harddrives but the result was the same: absolutely no response after attempting QuickFormat, even a simple info on the drive's icon wouldn't show anything. The filesystem's are there in the RDB, cause I checked with HDToolbox again after.

Maybe the drives just need to be mounted, I though this was done automatically under 3.1 ?

[Thomas]

uaehf.device strictly respects the "LAST ID" flag in the RDB. If the first HDF has this flag set, partitions on any further HDF are not mounted. In other words: if you add a new HDF to any existing configuration you have to check the old HDF with HDToolbox, too, in order to clear the flag.