Amiga 600: How to upgrade to WB 3.1?

[andersbm]

Hi again Mike.

Well that's good and bad news. Good because it does seem to work afterall. Bad because I was hoping that 3.1. would give me a tiiiny bit better graphics ;-) And also, the refference to "the blue look" is just me remembering my old Workbench 3.1.

"A clean slate" install sounds like just the thing for me! :-)

But just a newbies question: I have a 20 GB old iPod HD installed in my Amiga. Can I partion this HD in two and then make 1 for WB 3.1. and 1 for "Games"? Have NO experience with HD on an Amiga 600 whatsoever :-)

[andersbm]

And yes, PS: Thanks for the hints about the more "modern" look. I'll definately look into that :-)

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Hi again Mike.

Well that's good and bad news. Good because it does seem to work afterall. Bad because I was hoping that 3.1. would give me a tiiiny bit better graphics ;-) And also, the refference to "the blue look" is just me remembering my old Workbench 3.1.

"A clean slate" install sounds like just the thing for me! :-)

But just a newbies question: I have a 20 GB old iPod HD installed in my Amiga. Can I partion this HD in two and then make 1 for WB 3.1. and 1 for "Games"? Have NO experience with HD on an Amiga 600 whatsoever :-)

3.1 compared to 1.3 is like night and day, much more professional looking and easier to customize.  3.1 compared to 2.1... yeah, you probably won't see as much difference initially.

Re: the hard drive, if you google you'll find about a million threads on using large hard drives on an Amiga.  AFAIR AmigaOS did not natively support hard drives larger then 4GB until 3.5 or 3.9.  Prior to that you need to use a different file system like SFS or PFS (as opposed to the native Amiga FFS file system) to use that much space.  While there are many valid good reasons to consider their use, IMHO FFS ain't that bad and it's what you've got to work with currently, so what I'd recommend is the following:

DH0: Workbench, 400MB
DH1: Work (music, graphics programs, whatever), 1700MB
DH2: Games, 1900MB

This keeps all your partitions smaller than 2GB, and your formatted capacity within the 4GB space.  This is the "safe" option, feel free to go bigger if you want the "risky" option.  All of these settings can be changed within HDToolbox on your 3.1 Install disk.

*disclaimer - I'm sure someone will come along and tell you different in about a minute.  

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Also for way more technical details than you'll ever need, ref. the Wiki entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_Fast_File_System

Perfect for reading if you're having trouble sleeping.  

[andersbm]

DH0: Workbench, 400MB
DH1: Work (music, graphics programs, whatever), 1700MB
DH2: Games, 1900MB

This keeps all your partitions smaller than 2GB, and your formatted capacity within the 4GB space.  This is the "safe" option, feel free to go bigger if you want the "risky" option.  All of these settings can be changed within HDToolbox on your 3.1 Install disk.

*disclaimer - I'm sure someone will come along and tell you different in about a minute.  

SUPERB!

I'm only going to use the A600 for games (for a start at least), so going for new file formats etc. is just waaaay over my head! ;-) Hve done the partitions now and hope to boot the install disk succesfully in a min :-)

[andersbm]

 All of these settings can be changed within HDToolbox on your 3.1 Install disk.

*disclaimer - I'm sure someone will come along and tell you different in about a minute.  

ARGH! Just ran into a problem. Partioned the HD in three as you suggested. However, first of all my WB 3.1. does not want to boot. It simply opens WB 3.1. and has a disk image on the "desktop". Secondly, the three partions are all "NDOS", so i cannot open, read or write to them.

How do I fix this? :-)

all best
Anders

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

ARGH! Just ran into a problem. Partioned the HD in three as you suggested. However, first of all my WB 3.1. does not want to boot. It simply opens WB 3.1. and has a disk image on the "desktop". Secondly, the three partions are all "NDOS", so i cannot open, read or write to them.

How do I fix this? :-)

all best
Anders

After the partioning, reboot your system (booting off the 3.1 Install disk), then format each partition and give it a name from within Workbench - click on the partition (probably named "NDOS" or some gibberish name), then right-click and choose "Format" from the menu.  Once each partition is formatted then you should be able to run the install script on the disk, and install onto your first partition (DHO) which should be the one made bootable in HDToolbox.

Can you tell I've done this a lot lately?  

[andersbm]

After the partioning, reboot your system (booting off the 3.1 Install disk), then format each partition and give it a name from within Workbench - click on the partition (probably named "NDOS" or some gibberish name), then right-click and choose "Format" from the menu.  Once each partition is formatted then you should be able to run the install script on the disk, and install onto your first partition (DHO) which should be the one made bootable in HDToolbox.

Can you tell I've done this a lot lately?  

Ha ha ha - I REALLY appreciate that you have done it a lot lately ;-)

Just finished formatting the smallest partition ("WB"). Will now continue with the two large ones ("Games" and "Programs"). Will be back in a few days ;-) ;-)

And thanks for all the help so far. Advices like these makes me so much more fond of my Amiga 600 :-D

Anders

[andersbm]

After the partioning, reboot your system (booting off the 3.1 Install disk), then format each partition and give it a name from within Workbench - click on the partition (probably named "NDOS" or some gibberish name), then right-click and choose "Format" from the menu.  Once each partition is formatted then you should be able to run the install script on the disk, and install onto your first partition (DHO) which should be the one made bootable in HDToolbox.

Can you tell I've done this a lot lately?  

Maaaaaan! It worked SO well! After the "clean slate" installation Workbench 3.1. is now in operation. Seems smooth and damn fast! So once again: Thanks a lot for your kind help :-D

As I mentioned earlier, I will mostly be using the Amiga for gaming. I have WHD Load, which I'm going to install later today. Also downloading Killer Gorilla as many people have recommended it to me.

But one question: If I want to download and install some of the new skins, graphics, fonts and icons that you suggested in an earlier post, should I do this NOW or can I do it after installing WHD Load and other software? (I guess my question really is: Will the installation of the new skins etc. become more of a hassle if I have a lot of games and programs installed already?).

Cheers
Anders

[fishy_fiz]

No need to worry about the order you do things in. There are exceptions when it comes to patches, hacks, etc., but bringing them up now will probably only serve to confuse you. How full or empty your drive is doesnt influence these things anyway.
For now just install what you'd like and deal with those "hiccups" when/if you get to them

Things like skinning, new icons, etc. are tiny (a few megabytes), so there'll be no problems.

[andersbm]

No need to worry about the order you do things in. There are exceptions when it comes to patches, hacks, etc., but bringing them up now will probably only serve to confuse you. How full or empty your drive is doesnt influence these things anyway.
For now just install what you'd like and deal with those "hiccups" when/if you get to them

Things like skinning, new icons, etc. are tiny (a few megabytes), so there'll be no problems.

Thanks a lot for good advice :-)

It's also a matter of "the style of the Amiga look" ;-) As much as I would like better graphcis and colours, there also some nice oldschool love for the old original Workbench look :-D

I'll start with installing the essentials (pretty musch just WHD Load and Killer Gorilla for me), and will then return to add on nicer looks and features in the future.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Good plan, glad ya got it working!

[andersbm]

Good plan, glad ya got it working!

Thanks a bunch man!

Already ran into my first problem however :-(

Did you ever try installing WHDload on a Amiga 600 running WB 3.1.?

I'm getting the strange error that "Can't find tool Installer". Now, when I look in C: , it's there! Also I installed EasyADF from the floppy with no problem what so ever. So yeah, the Installer is there.

How come that WHDload does not want to install?

Hope to hear from someone soon.

All best
Anders

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

Try checking the icon tooltypes for the installation script.  Is its default tool set to C:Installer?

You may also want to update to the latest version of the installer tool for 3.1, here:

http://lilliput.amiga-projects.net/TechDetails3.htm

(7th down on the list under "Component")

[andersbm]

Try checking the icon tooltypes for the installation script.  Is its default tool set to C:Installer?

You may also want to update to the latest version of the installer tool for 3.1, here:

http://lilliput.amiga-projects.net/TechDetails3.htm

(7th down on the list under "Component")

Thanks a lot Mike :-) The default tool is set to "Installer", so I don't think the problem is here.

I'll try to download the newer version of the Installer tomorrow. Hopefully that will fix it! :-)

[paul1981]

Thanks a lot Mike :-) The default tool is set to "Installer", so I don't think the problem is here.

I'll try to download the newer version of the Installer tomorrow. Hopefully that will fix it! :-)

Like Mike says, change it to "C:Installer" (without quotes).
Not sure why C: isn't in your command path but that's another question entirely. More likely is that the Installer command isn't in C: to begin with.

Incidentally, the installer command doesn't get copied over to the hard drive when you install Workbench. This can be done manually by locating the file on the Install3.1 disk and copying it over to C:.
Using that new version though that Mike suggests is a good idea because there's a lot of install scripts that don't work with the old version of the installer command anymore.