Classic Workbench hdf to real Amiga hdd

Ok, so all the posts I've found was about either creating a hdf off an Amiga hdd, or restoring a hdf to the hdd it was made from..

I've got completely lost in the cylinders/blocks/sectors world, so I need a straightforward guide how to do this:

- I have ClassicWB LITE hdf image. It's exactly 209.715.200 Bytes (200 Mb) that is 409600 Blocks on 12800 Cylinders (Blocksize 512 Bytes)

- I have a HDD according to the label: 2167Mbytes Cyl 4200 Heads 16 Sectors 63

- HDToolbox says this: Cylinders: 16800 Heads: 4 Blocks per track: 63 Blocks per Cylinder: 252 Size: -2077630K (-2028 Meg)

So how do I set up the HDD, partition it, transfer the hdf image to it in WinUAE for the disk to boot in a real A1200? I have some skills on how to setup WinUAE with the hdd and the hdf image, I just need the guide for the drive geometry setup and partitioning. thomas ? I'm sure it's breeze for you... Thanks!

[thomas]

4200 * 16 * 63 = 4233600
16800 * 4 * 63 = 4233600

Same result, so both are ok.

4,233,600 blocks * 512 bytes = 2,167,603,200 bytes = 2067 meg.

Size is ok, too. Just ignore the negative number and proceed.

As general information about the geometry:

The drive consists of several platters, each platter looks like a floppy disk. Each disk is divided into tracks which are concentrical circles around the middle axis. Each disk also has a read/write head which reads one track at a time. All heads are connected to each other like on a comb so that only the same track on all disks can be read at once. Therefore the collection of tracks which can be read at once is called a cylinder.

Logically the drive is divided into cylinders, each cylinder consists of the tracks which lie above each other and each track is divided into sectors (a.k.a. blocks).

So the number of heads is equal to the number of tracks per cylinder. The specified number of sectors tells the number of blocks per track. The number of blocks per cylinder is simply the number of blocks per track (a.k.a. sectors) multiplied with the number of tracks per cylinder (a.k.a. heads).

Cylinders * Heads * Sectors = total number of blocks a.k.a. highest logical block address (LBA)
Cylinders * Heads * Sectors * 512 = size of the disk in bytes
Blocks per Track = Sectors
Tracks per Cylinder = Heads
Blocks per Cylinder = Sectors * Heads
Cylinders * Blocks per Cylinder = total number of blocks on the drive

With todays hard drives only the total number of blocks (the highest LBA) is important. The other values can be choosen as you like. The only fact to be considered is that HDToolbox reserves two cylinders for the partitions table. So you should make a cylinder so big that two cylinders can hold all partitions and all file systems.

The highest LBA is usually printed on the label of the drive.

Hm, ok so thanks a bunch for sheding some light - maybe a bit too much to absorb everything in one go, but this is what I'm guessing:

I order for the "hdf partition" to be bootable, a partition of the exact size of the hdf has to be created. Since the new drive is bigger than the actual partition to restore, in order to create the exact partition size, the total number blocks of the partition (409.600) and total number of blocks of the HDD (4.233.600) both has to be dividable by the blocks per cylinder value.

So say: 800 Blocks per cylinder * 512 Cylinders * 512 Bytes = 200 Mbytes partition, and: 4.233.600 Blocks / 800 Blocks per cylinder = 5292 Cylinders, therefore the drive should be: Cylinders: 5292 Heads: 4 Blocks per track: 200 Blocks per cylinder: 800

And the partition is: Start cylinder: 2 End Cylinder 514

Does this make any sense? Will I be able to boot this drive after copying the hdf content to it?

[thomas]

You don't need to care about the HDF when you install the HDD. You cannot "restore" the HDF to the HDD anyway. To make it bootable just click the "bootable" checkbox in HDToolbox. After you have partitioned and formatted the HDD, you just copy the files from the HDF to the right partition of the HDD. Nothing else is needed.

ok, so I'm a bit more confused again. Isn't TSGui exactly is for saving and restoring hdf files? I've tried just copying files from ClassicWB to a new partition but my Amiga keeps saying it's not a DOS disk, and refuses to boot from it..

[Hewitson]

Try formatting it

Hewitson: formatting is not the issue. Of course the disk is partitioned and formatted before copying the files. However the disk will not boot even when all the files are visible and accessible on it.

[thomas]

No files are needed to boot, only the "bootable" checkbox in HDToolbox.

What does "will not boot" mean? Do you get the "please insert disk" animation?

Does it boot in WinUAE?

How big are your partitions? How much RAM does your Amiga have?

What are the configuration differences between your Amiga and WinUAE? Different Kickstart? Different amount of memory?

What does "files are visible and accessible" mean? How can you know this, if it does not boot?

Ok - thanks for all who contributed. Eventually the problem was solved by:

- Installing a vanilla Workbench 3.1 on the real hdd partition in WinUAE (a WB version that matches with in ClassicWB)
- Tested it and it booted (in WinUAE and A1200)
- Deleted all files from the partition (WinUAE)
- Mounted ClassicWB hdf (WinUAE)
- Simply ran a CLI "copy hd1: hd0_0: all clone"

And that was it - as thomas pointed out partition sizes doesnt matter in this case. (The newly created partition was 504MB while the original ClassicWB hdf partition size was 200MB.

Im still puzzled over why would the boot work correctly after installing stock WB and then overwriting (copying) the disk content. And why the boot would NOT work just partitioning, formatting and setting the disk bootable?

And to answer Thomas' questions:

Originally Posted by thomas

What does "will not boot" mean? Do you get the "please insert disk" animation?

It means I get a "Not a DOS disk" message at boot

Originally Posted by thomas

Does it boot in WinUAE?

Can't remember if I tried eventualy..

Originally Posted by thomas

How big are your partitions? How much RAM does your Amiga have?

I tried to re-create the partition to 2GB at first I think. The A1200 has a 8MB RAM expander board in it.

Originally Posted by thomas

What are the configuration differences between your Amiga and WinUAE? Different Kickstart? Different amount of memory?

I've tried to re-create the exact A1200 configuration in WinUAE of course - stock A1200 settings, except the 3.1 Kickstart ROM's and the 8 Mb RAM settings.

Originally Posted by thomas

What does "files are visible and accessible" mean? How can you know this, if it does not boot?

This was referring to the fact that when I copied over all the ClassicWB files, I could see those file on the mounted HDD partition in WinUAE, but I'd still get a "Not a DOS disk" on the real A1200