Creating a secondary PFS3 HDF image for Minimig usage

[Gaula92]

Hi there


I already have a very nice PFS3 HDF image I created with amitools like this, thanks to the help of Thomas in this forum:

 rdbtool -f -p DH test.hdf create size=512Mi + init rdb_cyls=4 + fsadd pfs3aio dostype=PFS3 + add size=98% name=DH0 fs=PFS3 bootable=true automount=true pri=1 Bla max_transfer=0x0001fe00 mask=0x7ffffffe num_buffer=30

Now, I want to create another PFS3 HDF for using it along with the first one on the MiSTer Minimig core.
It doesn't need to be bootable, it will be DH1 instead of DH0, etc.
So I created it like this:

rdbtool secondary.hdf create size=1200Mi + init rdb_cyls=4 + fsadd pfs3aio dostype=PFS3 + add size=98% name=DH1 fs=PFS3 Bla max_transfer=0x0001fe00 mask=0x7ffffffe num_buffer=30

The problem is that the core won't detect both images at the same time: I can use the second image but ONLY if I have disabled the first.


So, what could be the problem here? Thomas, are you around, sir?

[thomas]

I can only guess, but try this:

Boot up with both HDFs connected. Run HDToolbox. If it tells you that drives have been added or removed and if the first HDF shows as changed, save the changes.

[Gaula92]

@thomas: And there you go again! Wow, just WOW!
It works now as expected after the HDToolBox threatment. Can you *please* explain me why was that needed? I didn't even have both drives connected, only the main one (yes, you told me to connect both but I had configured the wrong HDF filename...).
Then, after running HDToolBox on the first disc, I connect the second... and it works!! Magic!!

Thanks, from the bottom of my heart

[thomas]

Originally Posted by Gaula92

Can you *please* explain me why was that needed?

There is a "last drive" flag in the RDB. If it is set, the driver stops scanning for further drives.

This is meant to speed up the boot process, mainly for SCSI. If you have a slow-responding device like a CD drive or a tape drive with a higher SCSI ID, the machine boots faster if those drives are not examined for partitions. They don't have partitions anyway.

The mechanism also made it into the IDE scsi.device. If you partition a single harddrive, then HDToolbox sets the flag and if you add a second HDD later, it is ignored unless you run HDToolbox and let it clear the flag.

I find it rather strange that rdbtool sets this flag, though.

[Gaula92]

Originally Posted by thomas

There is a "last drive" flag in the RDB. If it is set, the driver stops scanning for further drives.

This is meant to speed up the boot process, mainly for SCSI. If you have a slow-responding device like a CD drive or a tape drive with a higher SCSI ID, the machine boots faster if those drives are not examined for partitions. They don't have partitions anyway.

The mechanism also made it into the IDE scsi.device. If you partition a single harddrive, then HDToolbox sets the flag and if you add a second HDD later, it is ignored unless you run HDToolbox and let it clear the flag.

I find it rather strange that rdbtool sets this flag, though.

Very interesting.
I don't see any mention to "last drive" on the rdbtool docs:

https://amitools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/tools/rdbtool.html

So maybe the author mistakenly forced it on?

[Solskogen]

Ask. They respond quite quickly on github.

[cyberhead97]

The flag Thomas is referring to seems to be the flags property in RDSK block, see section "6.1 What is the Rigid Disk Block ?" at http://lclevy.free.fr/adflib/adf_info.html.

Usually the flag is set to 7 (bit 1+2+4) in many common cases meaning:
1 No LUNs exists to be configured greater than this one at this SCSI Target ID
2 No target IDs exists to be configured greater than this one on this SCSI bus
4 Disk indentification valid

But I can't find any option in rdbtool to change it.

[Solskogen]

rdbtool has something called fsflags. Try setting that to 0.

[cyberhead97]

Originally Posted by Solskogen

rdbtool has something called fsflags. Try setting that to 0.

Docs says "fsflags - Change flags of file system", so it changes flags for a given file system, not the Rigid Disk Block itself.

[cyberhead97]

I added support for changing Rigid Disk Block flags in my imaging tool Hst Imager available at https://github.com/henrikstengaard/hst-imager.

Usage is available at https://github.com/henrikstengaard/h...imager-console

Flags can be changed with following command:

hst.imager rdb update 1gb.img --flags 7

Output will like this updating flags and displaying Rigid Disk Block info:

>hst.imager rdb update 1gb.img --flags 7
[21:24:05 INF] Hst Imager v0.1.0 (12/01/2022 19:25:12)
[21:24:05 INF] Henrik Noerfjand Stengaard
[21:24:05 INF] [CMD] rdb update 1gb.img --flags 7
[21:24:05 INF] Updating Rigid Disk Block at '1gb.img'
[21:24:05 INF] Flags '7'
[21:24:05 INF] Done

>hst.imager rdb info 1gb.img
[21:24:10 INF] Hst Imager v0.1.0 (12/01/2022 19:25:12)
[21:24:10 INF] Henrik Noerfjand Stengaard
[21:24:10 INF] [CMD] rdb info 1gb.img
[21:24:10 INF] Reading Rigid Disk Block information from '1gb.img'
[21:24:10 INF] Info read from '1gb.img':

Rigid Disk Block:

Product | Vendor   | Revision |    Size | Cylinders | Heads | Sectors | Block Size | Flags | Host Id | Rdb Block Lo | Rdb Block Hi
--------|----------|----------|---------|-----------|-------|---------|------------|-------|---------|--------------|-------------
100MB   | HstImage | 0.1      | 99.9 MB |       203 |    16 |      63 |        512 |     7 |       7 |            0 |         2015

File systems:

# | DOS Type          | Version | Name    |    Size
--|-------------------|---------|---------|--------
1 | 0x50445303, PDS\3 | 19.2    | pfs3aio | 57.7 KB

Partitions:

# | Name |    Size | LowCyl | HighCyl | Reserved | PreAlloc | Block Size | Buffers | DOS Type          | Max Transfer       | Mask                   | Bootable | No Mount | Priority
--|------|---------|--------|---------|----------|----------|------------|---------|-------------------|--------------------|------------------------|----------|----------|---------
1 | DH0  | 98.9 MB |      2 |     202 |        2 |        5 |        512 |      30 | 0x50445303, PDS\3 | 0x0001FE00, 130560 | 0x7FFFFFFE, 2147483646 | False    | False    |        0

[21:24:10 INF] Done