Winuae configured HD with SFS help

[montyontherun]

Hi All,

Here's hoping you will be able to assist me.

For the past couple of days I have been configuring a 60gig HD to use in my A1200.

Using Winuae I have manage to install SFS, partition the drives to my reqirements, boot drive I have made 1.2gig and installed WB 3.1.

When using the HD in winuae all is perfect, boots fine, partitions available etc etc

After putting the drive back in to the A1200 I get nothing, the HD light flashes on then just a black screen. Pressing both mouse buttons on boot brings up the Early Startup Control screen, and all partitions are there, e.g.

Enabled - DH0 priority 0 SFS0 scsi-0
Enabled - DH1 not bootable SFS0 scsi-0
Enabled - DH2 not bootable SFS0 scsi-0

etc up to DH4

I set up my drive using the guides and software listed from the SFS Guide here

I have kept the partitions to 4gig apart from the workbench partition as stated above 1.2gig. I have the drive primed and ready to install IDEFix so other partitions are visible once sorted.

Any suggestions guys?

Cheers

D.

[Jope]

The HD is your only HD when using it in WinUAE? No HDFs configured?

[Toni Wilen]

Does it boot without black screen if you select "boot without startup-sequence" in early boot menu?

[montyontherun]

Originally Posted by Jope

The HD is your only HD when using it in WinUAE? No HDFs configured?

Yes mate, with all other HDF's removed, directory drives and floppies removed it boots perfectly.

[montyontherun]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Does it boot without black screen if you select "boot without startup-sequence" in early boot menu?

hmm the only thing I did not try, I will try it tomorrow and get back to you.

Cheers

[montyontherun]

OK,

Hi again, still no joy with this damn thing!

Still get the black screen on boot evern after selecting "Boot with no startup sequence"

removed the drive and put back into my winuae and all is well, boots just dandy!

I am starting to think it is my Amiga, it is a stock system with no expanded memory and my winuae is configured the same.

Is there a memory requirement for SFS?

I have deleted my boot partition and installed WB3.1 using the FFS and it boots fine but it does not recognise the other 2 partitions that are in SFS format, will installing IDEFIX97 solve this issue and make them visible.

In HDToolbox the partitions are all ok still.

Thanks again guys for any advice.

D.

[thomas]

In WinUAE select A1200 model from quickstart and then add your HDD with controller changed to IDE0 instead of UAE. Does it still boot?

[montyontherun]

ok,

Here's the latest.

In wineau I set the HD Contoller to IDE0 and it did not boot (identical to when installed in the A1200) (Thanks Thomas for the info)

So, I have noW deleted the partitions and started from scratch, here's what happens now.

1) I created a single DH0 partition around just over a gig in size (excessive I know) and formatted this as SFS (SFS is all installed and configured in the RDB *Version 1 revision 279 DOSType SFS\0).
-After install WB3.1 now boots fine in wineau when in HD Controller mode IDE0 (I am assuming this is what the physical A1200 would be)

2) YIPEEE I thought, so I preceeded to create a larger partition, this size just over 6gigs.
-in ID0 Mode the partition is not visible
-I then checked to see if the partition was still there, so changing the DEVICE setting to uaefh.device within the HDInstTools information and loading clearly shows the new partition.

3) Resetting the HDInstTools DEVICE back to scsi.device and saving I reset the HD Controller in Winuae back to IDE0 and restart WB3.1 with the idea of creating another small partition 500mb and see if that appears...guess what it it does not appear on IDE0 either, what the hell is going on? getting annoyed now!

I can't think what the hell the issue is, each drive is formatted with SFS, IDEFix97 is installed, I use HDInstTools from OS3.9.

One thing that does worry me is the install of IDEFIX97 is that it wants to install CD-Roms but I don't have any. I am assuming hitting Cancel does not do anything to effect the HDs etc.

Maybe I am doing something wrong in IDEFIX?? but then why would the partitions appear under UAE Controller?

This is really starting to get on my nerves now, I just want to get it all set up I don't really want to resort to using the normal file system/loads of partitions.

Cheers guys..

D.

[thomas]

Perhaps this could be of help for you: http://www.amiga.org/forums/showpost...5&postcount=27 ?

It does not use IDEfix, though.

[montyontherun]

Originally Posted by thomas

Perhaps this could be of help for you: http://www.amiga.org/forums/showpost...5&postcount=27 ?

It does not use IDEfix, though.

Thomas, I love you man!!!!

It was the whole loadmodule piece that I was missing, once this was added to the startup-sequence it all worked a treat and the partitions have appeared. I have also disabled IDEFix, seems no need to use it now.

Big test will be if it all boots ok on my Miggy tonight!

I have learnt a great deal these past few days about installing large hard drives and this was the missing piece of the puzzle.

Thanks and watch this space.

One happy campa

[thomas]

IDEfix replaces scsi.device, so you can either use LoadModule or IDEfix, but not both.

You need IDEfix if you want to use the second channel of a 4-way adapter. Commodore's scsi.device does not support this. Also IDEfix is a bit faster.

To use IDEfix' features on the boot HDD, you need to replace c:idefix by c:loadide reset quiet in startup-sequence.

[montyontherun]

Originally Posted by thomas

IDEfix replaces scsi.device, so you can either use LoadModule or IDEfix, but not both.

You need IDEfix if you want to use the second channel of a 4-way adapter. Commodore's scsi.device does not support this. Also IDEfix is a bit faster.

To use IDEfix' features on the boot HDD, you need to replace c:idefix by c:loadide reset quiet in startup-sequence.

Cool, all useful stuff for me at the moment so thanks. I have now installed the Boot partition with WB3.1 and created a 2nd Partition called Main both using the SFS filesystem.

I have one more question for the time being..

Within HDInsttools the drive overview is 57,215MBytes which is correct.

2xpartitions

DH0=1239MB
DH1=6824MB

I was expecting DH1 to show 56gig (ish) as a partition as I selected the remainder of the drive. Also from the WB desktop the Main partitions folder view states:

"Main 0% full, 2,544 free, 183M in use" should this not at leased say 6824 or 56gb? or does WB mess around with what it thinks the sizes are?

So for the time being I have no idea just how much space I have on DH1 (Main)

Sorry for all the questions.

Cheers.

[thomas]

You installed the drive too early. Without patch scsi.device can only see little more than 8000 MB (see the 8th step in the guide on amiga.org: "It should list your HDD as 7.8G."). You need to load the patched scsi.device or LoadIDE before you run HDToolbox and install the drive.

Installing the drive again will erase all partitions. If you don't want this, you might try this program: http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/fixhddsize

Also from the WB desktop the Main partitions folder view states:

"Main 0% full, 2,544 free, 183M in use" should this not at leased say 6824 or 56gb?

This won't work before OS 3.5. You will never see numbers bigger than 4095 MB in WB 3.1. You might even experience negative values and strange messages like "not enough free space on the drive" although there should be plenty.

Only programs which are aware that amounts bigger than 4G exist will display the right sizes. 4G is the largest amount which fits in a 32 bit variable.

[montyontherun]

I thought I did run it first, no big dramas. I ran the fixhdsize and it came back all well and good and claims to be installed correctly.

I will have a play some more later.

Cheers