Best way to back up A4000 hard drive?

[mark_k]

Originally Posted by Starglider 2

One thing is I have a Mac not a PC. Would anyone know the command or process to clone the drive to a backup file on my internal Mac drive?

I'm going to go with this Mac compatible kit I think:

I can't help specifically with the Mac, but if the drive is IDE it probably won't work with most IDE-USB converters. [There have been a couple of other threads relating to that, try searching for "CHS".]

The reason is that old IDE drives only support CHS access, whereas newer ones support LBA access too. Most IDE-USB converters only use LBA access, so can't be used to read old CHS-only IDE drives.

WinUAE has a workaround for that which works with at least some JMicron-based IDE-USB converters, so if you have access to a PC or boot Windows on your Mac (Boot Camp, Parallels, VMWare?) you should be able to image the drive with WinUAE. I have a converter which looks similar to the one you pictured and it is the right type.

[k0x]

Originally Posted by mark_k

I can't help specifically with the Mac, but if the drive is IDE it probably won't work with most IDE-USB converters. [There have been a couple of other threads relating to that, try searching for "CHS".]

Very interesting point! Thank you for mentioning.

[Hewitson]

Originally Posted by Starglider 2

One thing is I have a Mac not a PC. Would anyone know the command or process to clone the drive to a backup file on my internal Mac drive?

I'd personally start with something like this instead of going straight to ddrescue:

dd if=/dev/disk?s of=~/image.img bs=64k status=progress

If any errors are detected dd will abort. Then more aggressive options can be explored.

[Starglider 2]

Update:

I was able to back up some of the IDE drives with DDRescue (GUI Mac version). Some however just scanned through every block as unreadable 0Kb.

What is the best way to read the IDE drives in UAE for Mac, to copy the files to a UAE virtual disk please?

[grelbfarlk]

I used a USB-IDE adapter on some very old IDE drives as small as 85MB, and it worked ok. It also helps if it's also an older USB-IDE adapter as it won't try to use faster UDMA modes.

[mark_k]

Originally Posted by Starglider 2

I was able to back up some of the IDE drives with DDRescue (GUI Mac version). Some however just scanned through every block as unreadable 0Kb.

What is the best way to read the IDE drives in UAE for Mac, to copy the files to a UAE virtual disk please?

Those would be the non-LBA-capable drives.

Using the hardware you already have, install Windows then run WinUAE to create image files. You should be able to create a VM (using e.g. VirtualBox?) and install Windows in that if you don't want to dual-boot via Boot Camp. You would "attach" your USB-IDE converter to the VM so Windows can see/control it.

[Starglider 2]

Originally Posted by mark_k

Those would be the non-LBA-capable drives.



Using the hardware you already have, install Windows then run WinUAE to create image files. You should be able to create a VM (using e.g. VirtualBox?) and install Windows in that if you don't want to dual-boot via Boot Camp. You would "attach" your USB-IDE converter to the VM so Windows can see/control it.

Thanks. So once I'm in WinUAE with the IDE adapter attached and recognized, what is the process to image the drives?

[Starglider 2]

Originally Posted by Starglider 2

Thanks. So once I'm in WinUAE with the IDE adapter attached and recognized, what is the process to image the drives?

Polite bump

[Starglider 2]

Originally Posted by mark_k

Those would be the non-LBA-capable drives.



Using the hardware you already have, install Windows then run WinUAE to create image files. You should be able to create a VM (using e.g. VirtualBox?) and install Windows in that if you don't want to dual-boot via Boot Camp. You would "attach" your USB-IDE converter to the VM so Windows can see/control it.

Just to be clear, is this functionality to read an Amiga CHS drive via USB unique to WinUAE (for Windows, obvs) and won't work on FS-UAE for Mac?

[indigolemon]

First, make sure you run WinUAE as admin, it needs this to hit the drive at a low enough level. Once you have it running, there's an option to create an image in there. I can't remember exactly where in the menus - sorry.

[Edit] oops, posted at the same time. I've never tried to do this with FS-UAE sorry!

[mark_k]

Originally Posted by Starglider 2

Just to be clear, is this functionality to read an Amiga CHS drive via USB unique to WinUAE (for Windows, obvs) and won't work on FS-UAE for Mac?

Yes that's correct.

How have you installed Windows, natively (Boot Camp) or in a VM?

I haven't actually tried reading a CHS-only drive with JMicron USB adapter, so maybe someone who has (Toni?) can chime in here. But you'll need to tell WinUAE the C/H/S geometry your drive uses. What is its make/model number?