Real Amiga HDD backup and restore

[simon_m74]

Hi,

I have scanned over a few of these threads, but cant find the answer to my problem.

I have an old video game machine, that has an Amiga 3000 at its heart, brains and brawn! - Its an old Virtuality CS machine.

I really need to backup the SCSI HDD that is in it, as well as other drives I have the access too, and restore them, so I can have more games on my system.

I can use WinUAE, to add the hard drive without a problem, and it tries to boot into the game, but without the custom hardware, it stalls. I have created a HDF from it to play with - before I corrupt the original ( and impossible to get again ) data on the drive.

I have set up an Amiga 3000 config with workbench installed, on WinUAE.
As workbench has hard drive tools - including backup and restore, I want to use that function to do so.

Here`s my problem.
If I add the HDD or HDF as a Hard drive, or file. it will boot fine to that drive.
But it defaults to that drive to boot, and not workbench.
If I get WinUAE to load workbench, it does not see the HDD or the HDF ( well it does see the HDF as a single file).

I loaded the HDD backup software, and it does not list DH3 ( or what ever the drive is as )
When I add the drives, I have :
DH0 - Programs ( virtual drive -by Add Directory )
DH1 - Work ( virtual drive - Add Directory )
DH2 - Games ( virtual drive - Add Directory )
but the SCSI REAL HDD ( via Adaptec PCI card )
Can bee seen and added, but it shows as :
n/a : VR Drive

The system when booted to workbench does not see the drive `n/a:`

How to I add a hard drive or a hdf file and give it a DH# : ??

Thanks

Simon

[thomas]

You cannot give your harddrive a DH#. A real harddrive is handled differently from a mounted Windows folder or traditional HDF. A real harddrive (or an RDB-mode HDF) has a partition table and the names of the partitions are specified in this table.

In order to boot from your DH0 folder while the real HDD is connected, you should increase the boot priority of DH0. The boot priority determines which partition is booted from. Probably your real harddrive has a priority which is higher than 0. As all other drives default to 0, the real HD is used to boot from. If you set DH0 to prio 5 for example, WinUAE should boot from DH0.

Note that WinUAE needs to be run as Administrator to access real harddrives.

[simon_m74]

Thanks Thomas,

All the drives had the boot priority as "0", but the VR Scsi drive booted first.
If I put the others to "1" - and the VR as "0", it does boot to the Workbench setup I have, but from there it does not see the VR drive.

Any suggestions , as I really want to some how backup and restore these amiga drives, as the data is impossible to get again!

I want to use WinUAE to back up if possible as I can seem to do that within a windows environment.
I cant read the drive at all in windows, only via WinUAE.
I dont have a way of using the original Amiga 3000, ( or my 500 / 600 ) to back them up. So I have to backup/restore somehow on a PC.

Thanks

Simon

[demolition]

Does the VR HDD boot using the startup-sequence? If so, then you can just disable the startup-sequence and copy your files from CLI to another HDD.

[simon_m74]

Hi Demolition,

Sorry for being naive on this, what do you mean by startup-sequence?

when it starts to boot, I get an AmigaDOS screen, and it says about Kickstart 40.(something), then starts to list various settings for the Virutality system.


Simon

[Toni Wilen]

I think easiest way to solve this problem is to examine winuaelog.txt.

Run winuae, open Paths panel, tick full logging option, boot (with your WB harddrive boot priority increased), when booting has finished, press F12 to open GUI, Paths panel, select winuaelog.txt, open it and attach it here.

[simon_m74]

Toni,

Do you want me to do that with the HDF, or the real HDD ?

Simon

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by simon_m74

Toni,

Do you want me to do that with the HDF, or the real HDD ?

Simon

No difference if HDF is single-file 1:1 image of the HDD.

[simon_m74]

Toni..

I dont have that tick box ?

I do have a `create log file` on the miscellaneous page
any help ?

[thomas]

Use the latest version.

[simon_m74]

Just about to install and try

Thanks

[simon_m74]

winuaelog.txt

Here is my winuaelog file.

If someone can help me set the system up to be able to view the HDF or the Readl HDD, so I can back it up and restore using workbench.

Thanks

Simon

[thomas]

The log looks ok. I don't see a reason why it should boot from WB_2.x but does not show it on the desktop when you boot from System.

Try to move the HDF to the top of the list (then you need to increase the boot prio of System to 2, because WB_2.x has prio 1).

If it still does not show, open a Shell window and enter Info. Are WB_2.x and Work shown in the list? With which status?

In the Shell window enter Assign. Do WB_2.x and Work appear among the list of Devices? Which volumes are shown?

Which operating system is installed in the System folder?

[simon_m74]

This is the Info from the shell.

Any help on why I cant see the VR drive ( set as DH3 )

but I can view the files from it ?

Simon

[thomas]

I already told you that you cannot set a DH# (DH3) for a partitioned HDF or a real HDD.

The list shows WB_2.x and Work mounted and read/writable. These are the two partitions on your HDF. If you see a System2.0 icon and a Work icon on the desktop, then these are the contents of the HDF.