Preparing a MSDOS boot disk in ADF format for being used with Amiga Transformer
 

I tried to use Amiga Transformer (PC Emulator) in UAE and came to the point where I need to insert a MSDOS boot disk. My plan was to create the disk as follows:

1. Create an empty ADF disk (3,5“ DD PC) in UAE
2. „Find“ MSDOS 3.3
3. Use CrossDos (Kick 2.1 or above) to copy all MSDOS files to the PC disk created in step 1
4. Export the disk as ADF
5. Use Amiga Transformer with the newly created disk

I managed to complete 1 and 2, but I am stuck with 3. I tried to install the CrossDos drivers (both in WB 2.1 and WB3.1) by double clicking the PC0 and PC1 icons in the DOSDrivers folder.

According to the docs, a PC0: and PC1: icon should appear next to the DF0: and DF1: icons, but this doesn’t happen. When I double click the app icons again, WB tells me that the drivers are already installed (but still no drive icon is shown). Does anybody know what I am doing wrong?

http://www.dirkwhoffmann.de/pics/crossdos.png

Or is there an easier way to get a boot disk in ADF format that can be used to run Amiga Transformer?

Why PC0:??? or PC1:??? are not showing up; the only thing I can
think of is that the CrossDOS installation is not correct.

Also. Did you know that CrossDOS comes with an IBM Emulator? It's called
CrossPC - but I think it only came with v6 of CrossDOS. Been so long I
don't remember.

Hope this helps! Gimme a yell.

An icon only appears if the disk is readable. For unreadable disks no icon appears.

You can run System/Format by double click and then select PC0 from the list to format the disk.


This won't work. A formatted floppy disk is not bootable. To make it bootable you have to boot MS-DOS and enter SYS A:
But without an MS-DOS boot disk this is not possible.

You should try to find an MS-DOS boot disk in .img format. You can rename it to .adf if you insist on .adf naming.

An icon does appear. If it's unreadable in AmigaDOS and is a MS-DOS type
disk (create-able in WinUAE) then two icons appear: DF0:??? and PC0:NDOS
(vise versa for AmigaDOS).

You can then format the PC0:NDOS disk in MS-DOS Format.

No, PC0:??? does not appear on WB 3.1 in WinUAE. But PC0 appears in the list if you run Sys:System/Format by double click.

See image attached.
PC:Unreadable next to Workbench3.1

This shows PC0:Unreadable because it is v3.1.4.1 of AmigaOS.
Before I upgraded it read PC0:???

BTW - I have MSDOS 3.3 if you need it.

I see what is going on now. I am using the distribution of CrossDOS (the paid version)
not the version that comes with v3.1.

Sorry for any confusion this may be causing. But if you mount PC0: from a CLI and then
do a format (e.g. Mount PC0: then the command 'format drive pc0: name Empty NOICONS')
it should work out.

See image for what I did with a v3.1 install. This is a "base" install - just the OS nothing else

For 68000 CPU and x86 PC emulator, I use PC Task 3.1.
For 68020+ CPU and x86 PC emulator, I use PC Task 4.4.

My A500 Rev 6 has Witcher 508i 50Mhz 68000 + 11 MB fast ram + IDE accel card while A1200 has 8 MB fast ram. I'm waiting for AC68080 accel card.

Attachment 69195
My WinUAE with A500 and version 3.1.4 KS and Workbench showing MS-DOS 5.0 720KB disk image.