How to make large hdf (6GB) in WinUAE

rsn8887 · 13 December 2015, 09:36

Can somebody please explain for dummies how I can make a large hdf ~6GB work in WinUAE for use with Workbench 3.0?

So far I have done the following, I am listing my problems:

- Create hardfile using WinUAE panel without using rdb mode. At first my hdf showed up as 950 MB NDOS drive in Workbench, then I formatted it using WB, and it worked but only had 950 MB instead of 6 GB.

- Do the above and change surfaces from 1 to 8. Usable size increased to 3 GB.

- I was unable to increase the usable size further.

- I created a 6GB hdf using RDB mode, but it doesn't show up in Workbench at all, not even NDOS so I don't know how to format it.

- I tried "use manual geometry" but no number would make my hdf show up as NDOS drive to allow me to format it

- Furthermore, when I use RDB mode, the device in WinUAE preferences list is always "UAE" even though I set it to DH1.

If somebody has gotten this to work, please help

Also: Once I enable RDB I cannot "unenable it". And what is that star in the table on the very left?!?!

OK I tried again without RDB Mode, and after formatting it suddenly shows the expected 6 GB!!! No clue what I did different, but now it works. Strange, but I am happy

Samurai_Crow · 13 December 2015, 10:25

OS version 3.0 doesn't support that big of a hard drive. It will start overwriting earlier parts of the drive after 4 gigs have been written.

Toni Wilen · 13 December 2015, 10:56

This problem has nothing to do with emulation. Usual 4G wrap around.

WARNING: Unless you have >4G capable filesystem (or OS39), you still get data loss sooner or later even if drive appears to work.. Read this carefully: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=61666

Also use of non-RDB hardfiles with size larger than 1G/2G is not a good idea, at least without also using OS3.9. Large non-RDB hardfile geometry won't be compatible with older AOS versions. Always use RDB mode.

rsn8887 · 13 December 2015, 11:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

This problem has nothing to do with emulation. Usual 4G wrap around.

WARNING: Unless you have >4G capable filesystem (or OS39), you still get data loss sooner or later even if drive appears to work.. Read this carefully: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=61666

Also use of non-RDB hardfiles with size larger than 1G/2G is not a good idea, at least without also using OS3.9. Large non-RDB hardfile geometry won't be compatible with older AOS versions. Always use RDB mode.

Yep, I just ran into checksum errors after copying a ton of files. Ah well it was worth a try. I will try RDB mode and a different file system whenever I have more time to fiddle with this. Thanks for the help.

Arnie · 13 December 2015, 21:07

If you must have 6gb then why not go for 2 hdf's one 2gb System and one 4gb Work?

Leandro Jardim · 14 December 2015, 00:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by rsn8887

Yep, I just ran into checksum errors after copying a ton of files. Ah well it was worth a try. I will try RDB mode and a different file system whenever I have more time to fiddle with this. Thanks for the help.

I dont know if its a similar problem as mine, but some time ago I tried to copy 10 GB of GoodNES ROMs to a PFS3 RDB hardfile, and AmigaOS always locked up. It got to the point that I am unable to use Workbench on WinUAE, because the hardfiles get unusable and I dont want to lose all the work of customizing it.

rsn8887 · 11 January 2016, 18:06

Although the automatic whdload support in FS-UAE's launcher is brilliant, especially when combined with the Attract Mode frontend plus Emumovies previews to give a nice menu selection, I would still love to also run my WHD games from WinUAE.

I would like to revisit this and, ideally, succeed in making a 6GB .hdf file that works with standard A1200 WB and holds all Whdloads. I installed PFS3 All-In-One (well, I copied over some files), but now I am lost. I forgot what an absolute nightmare HD installation is under Workbench 3. I have to know numbers and hex-values? Where do I select my file system? If somebody has a simple four step guide what to click to setup a 6GB HD and format it, that would be awesome.

Otherwise, and this is probably what I will end up doing now that I think about it, I think I will just create two 3 Gb partitions, since I can use IGame to select my games from a single list (using two separate source directories in IGame config). If setting up the 6GB HD is too much, I might go with that route. I can't wait to have all WHD games easily selectable, now that I forked out for the official key from WEPL (got it in my mail just an hour after payment and it works brilliantly, yay!)

Toni Wilen · 11 January 2016, 18:54

PFS3 (official version, not pfs3aio) comes with nice documentation how to install it properly to RDB.

rsn8887 · 13 January 2016, 05:28

Ok I realized if I ever want to use my hdf on a Fat32 card, I could not use >4GB filesize anyways. I got it to work with IGame and 2 3.5GB .hdf files and setting the two different repository directories.

I would love to try out Tinylauncher, too, but it looks like it does not support multiple source dirs for a single compound list.

AMIGASYSTEM · 13 January 2016, 17:35

You've tried X-bEnCh, It is a simple Amiga game launcher that allows you to run games based WHDload, but also ordinary executables, you can view a video tutorial [ Show youtube player ].

Regarding the hardfile, as you have been advised, best not to make them higher than 2 GB, eventually creates 3 HardFiles by 2 Giga each and perhaps to every hardfile a type of game, as a file system you can use the excellent SFS (Smart Filesystem); i made a video tutorial showing the steps to create a partition SFS

[ Show youtube player ]

rsn8887 · 13 January 2016, 18:33

Thanks I will try out X-bEnCh. Yes I think you are right. I made two 3 Gb hardfiles, using Surfaces = 4. They work fine on latest WinUAE, but not on UAE4ARM under Android. I suspect they will work under Android if it is limited to just 2 GB per file. I will try that tonight.

EDIT: Hmm it looks like X-bEnCh can not consolidate games from multiple directories into a single list either. I wonder if there's a way under Workbench to join multiple paths into one assign?

AMIGASYSTEM · 13 January 2016, 18:59

The command Assign if I remember correctly, It can merge multiple volumes to a single path example:

ASSIGN SYS: ADD DHX:

It should show the contents of DHX: in SYS:

rsn8887 · 16 January 2016, 17:47

Ok since I want my WHD collection to work with both Android (UAE4ARM) and WinUAE, I decided to simply use a large mounted directory and extract everything into FAT32 SDCard. It worked pretty well. Of all 3500 or so WHD games, only 5 had some error with non-FAT compatible filenames (FAT apparently does not support the filenames "con" or "com").

Now I have all games in a single hard disk which simply maps to a drawer.

I tried Tinylauncher, X-Bench, and IGame but IGame is by far the best because it allows quick and easy navigation of the games list using the mouse, or virtual joystick mouse on UAE4Arm, even when the list is 3500 games long.

In X-Bench it takes me forever to get from A to Z, for example. Concerning Tinylauncher, well it gives an invalid directory error and keeps rebooting (why is its config file not in the main dir?), and I doubt it has the easy list navigation of IGame.

So I am sticking with IGame and am now very happy with my WHDload: 3500 games working in Android on my Nvidia Shield Portable and in Windows 10!

EDIT: on a sidenote, while messing with my old Amiga hard disk hdf I found my old e-mails from 1995 (!) in ELM (cool program!). I was on the internet using AmiTCP and a modem in 1995. Brought back memories...

Connorsdad · 06 February 2016, 00:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by rsn8887

Ok since I want my WHD collection to work with both Android (UAE4ARM) and WinUAE, I decided to simply use a large mounted directory and extract everything into FAT32 SDCard. It worked pretty well. Of all 3500 or so WHD games, only 5 had some error with non-FAT compatible filenames (FAT apparently does not support the filenames "con" or "com").

Now I have all games in a single hard disk which simply maps to a drawer.

I tried Tinylauncher, X-Bench, and IGame but IGame is by far the best because it allows quick and easy navigation of the games list using the mouse, or virtual joystick mouse on UAE4Arm, even when the list is 3500 games long.

In X-Bench it takes me forever to get from A to Z, for example. Concerning Tinylauncher, well it gives an invalid directory error and keeps rebooting (why is its config file not in the main dir?), and I doubt it has the easy list navigation of IGame.

So I am sticking with IGame and am now very happy with my WHDload: 3500 games working in Android on my Nvidia Shield Portable and in Windows 10!

EDIT: on a sidenote, while messing with my old Amiga hard disk hdf I found my old e-mails from 1995 (!) in ELM (cool program!). I was on the internet using AmiTCP and a modem in 1995. Brought back memories...

Please, for all that is holy, help me to get this work on my retropie, I have been fighting with this for days 😭

Samurai_Crow · 08 February 2016, 10:48

Partitions bigger than 4GiB are illegal so mount a filesystem instead, if RetroPie does it that way.

17 July 2016, 11:45

Well - in WinUAE it is possible to mount a 8GB harddrive or a 8GB harddrive partition (id=0x76), but I didn't make it to create an hdf image of this partition - it doesn't boot (althow the source partition boots).

So I habe the same problem how to create/use an 8GB hdf file.
With the correct filesystem (e.g. pfs) is is possible, but there seem to some issue with WinUAE and 8GB hdf images.

fgh · 17 July 2016, 13:51

A hdf needs to be of the whole drive, not just a partition.
WinUAE works with HDF files a lot larger than 8GB. (Mine is 32GB)
Plenty of info about large drives in the thread toni linked to above.

Tomislav · 17 July 2016, 14:22

fgh wants to tell you that you must to press that "RDB mode" button while making HD image and to use HDToolBox to create partition(s).
Also you can read this: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=32256

fgh · 17 July 2016, 14:40

That was explained by Toni earlier in the thread.
I rather wanted to clarify that if you're creating an image from a harddrive, you need to image the whole drive, you cannot create an image of just a partition.

rsn8887 · 30 December 2016, 03:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by AMIGASYSTEM

The command Assign if I remember correctly, It can merge multiple volumes to a single path example:

ASSIGN SYS: ADD DHX:

It should show the contents of DHX: in SYS:

BTW this does NOT work. Workbench is not that smart.

13 December 2015, 09:36	#1
rsn8887 Registered User Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: USA Posts: 1,058	How to make large hdf (6GB) in WinUAE Can somebody please explain for dummies how I can make a large hdf ~6GB work in WinUAE for use with Workbench 3.0? So far I have done the following, I am listing my problems: - Create hardfile using WinUAE panel without using rdb mode. At first my hdf showed up as 950 MB NDOS drive in Workbench, then I formatted it using WB, and it worked but only had 950 MB instead of 6 GB. - Do the above and change surfaces from 1 to 8. Usable size increased to 3 GB. - I was unable to increase the usable size further. - I created a 6GB hdf using RDB mode, but it doesn't show up in Workbench at all, not even NDOS so I don't know how to format it. - I tried "use manual geometry" but no number would make my hdf show up as NDOS drive to allow me to format it - Furthermore, when I use RDB mode, the device in WinUAE preferences list is always "UAE" even though I set it to DH1. If somebody has gotten this to work, please help Also: Once I enable RDB I cannot "unenable it". And what is that star in the table on the very left?!?! OK I tried again without RDB Mode, and after formatting it suddenly shows the expected 6 GB!!! No clue what I did different, but now it works. Strange, but I am happy Last edited by rsn8887; 13 December 2015 at 09:54.

11 January 2016, 18:06	#7
rsn8887 Registered User Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: USA Posts: 1,058	Although the automatic whdload support in FS-UAE's launcher is brilliant, especially when combined with the Attract Mode frontend plus Emumovies previews to give a nice menu selection, I would still love to also run my WHD games from WinUAE. I would like to revisit this and, ideally, succeed in making a 6GB .hdf file that works with standard A1200 WB and holds all Whdloads. I installed PFS3 All-In-One (well, I copied over some files), but now I am lost. I forgot what an absolute nightmare HD installation is under Workbench 3. I have to know numbers and hex-values? Where do I select my file system? If somebody has a simple four step guide what to click to setup a 6GB HD and format it, that would be awesome. Otherwise, and this is probably what I will end up doing now that I think about it, I think I will just create two 3 Gb partitions, since I can use IGame to select my games from a single list (using two separate source directories in IGame config). If setting up the 6GB HD is too much, I might go with that route. I can't wait to have all WHD games easily selectable, now that I forked out for the official key from WEPL (got it in my mail just an hour after payment and it works brilliantly, yay!) Last edited by rsn8887; 11 January 2016 at 18:17.

13 January 2016, 18:33	#11
rsn8887 Registered User Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: USA Posts: 1,058	Thanks I will try out X-bEnCh. Yes I think you are right. I made two 3 Gb hardfiles, using Surfaces = 4. They work fine on latest WinUAE, but not on UAE4ARM under Android. I suspect they will work under Android if it is limited to just 2 GB per file. I will try that tonight. EDIT: Hmm it looks like X-bEnCh can not consolidate games from multiple directories into a single list either. I wonder if there's a way under Workbench to join multiple paths into one assign? Last edited by rsn8887; 13 January 2016 at 18:42.

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13 December 2015, 10:25	#2
Samurai_Crow Total Chaos forever! Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Waterville, MN, USA Age: 49 Posts: 2,186	OS version 3.0 doesn't support that big of a hard drive. It will start overwriting earlier parts of the drive after 4 gigs have been written.

13 December 2015, 10:56	#3
Toni Wilen WinUAE developer Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Hämeenlinna/Finland Age: 49 Posts: 26,502	This problem has nothing to do with emulation. Usual 4G wrap around. WARNING: Unless you have >4G capable filesystem (or OS39), you still get data loss sooner or later even if drive appears to work.. Read this carefully: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=61666 Also use of non-RDB hardfiles with size larger than 1G/2G is not a good idea, at least without also using OS3.9. Large non-RDB hardfile geometry won't be compatible with older AOS versions. Always use RDB mode.

13 December 2015, 21:07	#5
Arnie R.I.P Smudge 18-08-16 Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Leicester/UK Age: 66 Posts: 3,968	If you must have 6gb then why not go for 2 hdf's one 2gb System and one 4gb Work?

11 January 2016, 18:54	#8
Toni Wilen WinUAE developer Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Hämeenlinna/Finland Age: 49 Posts: 26,502	PFS3 (official version, not pfs3aio) comes with nice documentation how to install it properly to RDB.

13 January 2016, 05:28	#9
rsn8887 Registered User Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: USA Posts: 1,058	Ok I realized if I ever want to use my hdf on a Fat32 card, I could not use >4GB filesize anyways. I got it to work with IGame and 2 3.5GB .hdf files and setting the two different repository directories. I would love to try out Tinylauncher, too, but it looks like it does not support multiple source dirs for a single compound list.

13 January 2016, 17:35	#10
AMIGASYSTEM Registered User Join Date: Aug 2014 Location: Brindisi (Italy) Age: 70 Posts: 8,248	You've tried X-bEnCh, It is a simple Amiga game launcher that allows you to run games based WHDload, but also ordinary executables, you can view a video tutorial [ Show youtube player ]. Regarding the hardfile, as you have been advised, best not to make them higher than 2 GB, eventually creates 3 HardFiles by 2 Giga each and perhaps to every hardfile a type of game, as a file system you can use the excellent SFS (Smart Filesystem); i made a video tutorial showing the steps to create a partition SFS [ Show youtube player ]

13 January 2016, 18:59	#12
AMIGASYSTEM Registered User Join Date: Aug 2014 Location: Brindisi (Italy) Age: 70 Posts: 8,248	The command Assign if I remember correctly, It can merge multiple volumes to a single path example: ASSIGN SYS: ADD DHX: It should show the contents of DHX: in SYS:

16 January 2016, 17:47	#13
rsn8887 Registered User Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: USA Posts: 1,058	Ok since I want my WHD collection to work with both Android (UAE4ARM) and WinUAE, I decided to simply use a large mounted directory and extract everything into FAT32 SDCard. It worked pretty well. Of all 3500 or so WHD games, only 5 had some error with non-FAT compatible filenames (FAT apparently does not support the filenames "con" or "com"). Now I have all games in a single hard disk which simply maps to a drawer. I tried Tinylauncher, X-Bench, and IGame but IGame is by far the best because it allows quick and easy navigation of the games list using the mouse, or virtual joystick mouse on UAE4Arm, even when the list is 3500 games long. In X-Bench it takes me forever to get from A to Z, for example. Concerning Tinylauncher, well it gives an invalid directory error and keeps rebooting (why is its config file not in the main dir?), and I doubt it has the easy list navigation of IGame. So I am sticking with IGame and am now very happy with my WHDload: 3500 games working in Android on my Nvidia Shield Portable and in Windows 10! EDIT: on a sidenote, while messing with my old Amiga hard disk hdf I found my old e-mails from 1995 (!) in ELM (cool program!). I was on the internet using AmiTCP and a modem in 1995. Brought back memories...

08 February 2016, 10:48	#15
Samurai_Crow Total Chaos forever! Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Waterville, MN, USA Age: 49 Posts: 2,186	Partitions bigger than 4GiB are illegal so mount a filesystem instead, if RetroPie does it that way.

17 July 2016, 11:45	#16
logical Posts: n/a	Well - in WinUAE it is possible to mount a 8GB harddrive or a 8GB harddrive partition (id=0x76), but I didn't make it to create an hdf image of this partition - it doesn't boot (althow the source partition boots). So I habe the same problem how to create/use an 8GB hdf file. With the correct filesystem (e.g. pfs) is is possible, but there seem to some issue with WinUAE and 8GB hdf images.

17 July 2016, 13:51	#17
fgh Registered User Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Norway Posts: 817	A hdf needs to be of the whole drive, not just a partition. WinUAE works with HDF files a lot larger than 8GB. (Mine is 32GB) Plenty of info about large drives in the thread toni linked to above.

17 July 2016, 14:22	#18
Tomislav Registered User Join Date: Aug 2014 Location: Zagreb / Croatia Posts: 302	fgh wants to tell you that you must to press that "RDB mode" button while making HD image and to use HDToolBox to create partition(s). Also you can read this: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=32256

17 July 2016, 14:40	#19
fgh Registered User Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Norway Posts: 817	That was explained by Toni earlier in the thread. I rather wanted to clarify that if you're creating an image from a harddrive, you need to image the whole drive, you cannot create an image of just a partition.

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