Disk geometry file

[Michael Doma]

Dear community,

in WinUAE hardfile settings, you can choose a geometry file (.geo), but I can't find any documentation about this. What type of file is expected here, how to create it and when do I need it?

My second question is about the "Filesystem" file selector: When do I need this one and where can i find additional filesystem files to use here? Only FastFileSystem and CrossDosFileSystem are delivered with the workbench diskettes - but there are some more file systems nowadays...

Oh and does anyone know of a good ADF-Opus alternative for Windows (which can read IPF images too)?

Thanks in advance!

Best regards,

Michael

[Snoopy1234]

IDK about geo files other than the Geometry - Heads, Sectors etc can also be manually set for alt drive types.

PFS3-AIO is an alternative filesystem for drives >4GB with faster accesses. It can be added to Filesystem selections in HDToolbox as well as other applications. There may be others.

The HxC Emulator program is capable of giving an image filesystem breakdown if it's not copy protected and is IPF read capable.

[chip]

ADF-Workshop can read both DMS and ADF but not IPFs

You can find it on the TOSEC site

[Toni Wilen]

Geometry file is only for very very specific situations.

For example if you want to copy "geometry" and all identification data from some CF card and make emulated CF card to look identical. Or when emulating ancient pre-IDE/SCSI MFM HD controllers. (No, don't even attempt. It is very painful.)

[Michael Doma]

Wow! Didn't know there actually was such a thing as an MFM hard disk. Oh and look at the capacity: 10 MB!
(click to enlarge)

@Toni: About the filesystem file chooser: Is this for RDB mode, where the fs "rom" needs to be inside the rdb block?

Originally Posted by Snoopy1234

The HxC Emulator program is capable of giving an image filesystem breakdown if it's not copy protected and is IPF read capable.

HxC can save IPF but it doesn't seem to read IPF. Any help?
And thanks for the hint - it's a very interesting and excellent app for low level analysis:




Regards,

Michael

[shaf]

I've seen MFM drives as big as 40MB, I used to use the with A2090 Controllers.

[Snoopy1234]

Originally Posted by Michael Doma

HxC can save IPF but it doesn't seem to read IPF. Any help?
And thanks for the hint - it's a very interesting and excellent app for low level analysis:




Regards,

Michael

Obverse. HxC can READ an IPF image but can't save one. The SPS encoder and Keir Fraser's disk utilities disk-analyse are the only proggies that do. An IPF can be exported in a different format with HxC emulator.

BTW HxC emulator exec can also do a filesystem view like file-manager.

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by Michael Doma

@Toni: About the filesystem file chooser: Is this for RDB mode, where the fs "rom" needs to be inside the rdb block?

It is only "helper" option when creating single-partition (non RDB) hardfiles. It pre-sets the matching dos type which allows non-FFS formatting easily.

RDB does not matter, HDToolbox will overwrite it when creating partition tables.

Maybe it should be more clear that the option does not matter with RDB hardfiles...

[Michael Doma]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Maybe it should be more clear that the option does not matter with RDB hardfiles...

The hardfile dialog should generally be a bit more clearer, so that users don't have the feeling that they must dig into HDF details before they can successfully use hardfiles. My next goal is to "migrate" my WB onto a real hard drive - partly because WinUAE cannot emulate hard drive sounds (yet!)...

Originally Posted by Snoopy1234

HxC can READ an IPF image but can't save one.

Sorry Snoopy... after putting a copy of the capsimg dll in the HxC folder, it can read IPFs now. Oh and I believe it can also save, because theres a "*.ipf" filetype in the save image dialog. Will try!



As for an AdfOpus alternative, I have found that AdfView (explorer integration) doesn't work well on Win7, but now I have found Double Commander and the AmigaDX plugin:

sourceforge.net/p/doublecmd/wiki/Download/

totalcmd.net/plugring/amigadx.html

Download both. Install program (or use the portable version like I do). Go to preferences plugins - locate the plugin and type in which file types you would like to use (ADF, DMS, ADZ, HDF, HDZ, DMP). That's it.