Accessing my disk

[NLS]

(a few years ago I would answer my own post - but nowadays, so many years without touching real Amiga hardware, although I have plenty stored, I am again a newbie)

So I have my A4000/040 (which is actually 060, whithout me every buying 060 - long story) in the closet and some time soon I will need to "salvage" it the best I can.

For hardware, I understand someone will need to recap it probably (yes?). Along with my A500 and my C64 and my VCS.

For software though, my hard disk, things are a bit more complicated.

First of all (possibly the easy part?) I am not even sure what kind of bus is my 300MB disk (was it IDE?). Actually I am not sure it is 300MB or swapped to something larger. Anyway is it plain IDE? (to see if it can be connected to a PC)

You see, I remember I used a multi-user file system INSTEAD of FFS, that was available in Aminet. Not even sure which, but I suspect we can find it. Stupidly enough, as I was the only user of the computer. Still I "logged in" my Amiga every time.
Thing is, I have NO idea of my old password and is quite possible I cannot recall it at all. So... how do you think we can access the contents and possibly copy things to a normal FFS disk or even better a disk image?

This is the initial "investigation", we are far from actually doing this, but if you can help me, give me hope or anything... please do.

[AMIGASYSTEM]

If you used the application AmiStation you have not registered the program, the default password is maintenance.

If instead you have registered the program, you could access the system by disabling the AmiStation command from the Startup-sequence, find the command at the top of the Startup-sequence, this solution will work even if you have another program installed

[NLS]

No no. It is not that.
I am not speaking of a simple login trick.
I used a complete multi-user filesystem. In other words the whole disk is formatted this way.
I think it is MUFS, MUSF or something.

[AMIGASYSTEM]

So you used it PFS2 or PFS3

[NLS]

Possible.

[talybont]

http://aminet.net/package/util/misc/MultiUser18bin

This probably.

[talybont]

Here's a thread with a similar question, but no answer if it worked:

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=16587

I would take a backup of the disk before doing anything though.

[NLS]

I remember both.
I think I stopped using my Amiga, around 2000. So whatever was "latest" then.
I actually remember using my A4000/040 as main computer when Win 2000 was released, because I distinctly remember that I had a Compaq workstation (scrap from work) that I had it boot early Win 2000. It was below specs for 2000, so it took 15 minutes to boot and maybe 5 minutes to reach from login to actual desktop. Still I used it to encode stream from an FM radio ISA card (!) over the network and I could receive the stream on the Amiga with 10 second delay (I suspect on 10Mbit ethernet? Damn I have so many blanks on what I did back then). I distinctly remember both on my desk (Amiga left, Compaq right), so it must be 2001 or something.

Good idea in the thread, but all these mean (a) I have access to these without booting Amiga itself (I don't want to risk before a recap)... possibly rip an image and do things on that on WinUAE, (b) that MUFS doesn't "encode" things using my user/pass and just adds a layer that can be ignored if forcing it to switch to FFS.

I guess the first thing to do is actually remove the disk and see if the bus is indeed IDE and then see how I can clone this to an image than "fight" that image.
Help on this? Tools to use? (NOT on Amiga - explained why, above)

[malko]

I did use "muFS" back in time. Was working like a charm. Sad that like you, I forgot everything...

[NLS]

damn we need to find a solution

[talybont]

Check the disk interface first. If you don't have an extra controller card in your Amiga it's probably IDE as that is the built-in interface in the A4000.

Then it's a matter of connecting that drive to a PC and use a Linux live CD to clone the drive to a file (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/disk_cloning), or maybe something similar for Windows.

[demolition]

It is probably either IDE or SCSI. If it is IDE, then you can relatively easily connect it to a PC and create an image using Win32 Disk Imager. Then you can make a copy of this image and start messing around with it in WinUAE without the risk of losing data. SCSI can also be imaged on a PC but those interfaces are a bit harder to come by. To read old SCSI HDDs, I have an old desktop PC with a SCSI controller. There's also some SCSI to IDE adapters however they can be a little expensive, particularly seeing as you only need it for this particular drive.

There are different options to connecting an IDE drive. If you have an available on-board IDE connector in your PC, then that should work. Alternatively, you could use something like this, which is what I use:
https://files.sandberg.it/products/i.../133-43_lg.jpg

[NLS]

I am most probably using on-board IDE. Don't remember getting a SCSI controller for Amiga. Then again I don't remember many things.
For example a friend fitted the 060 (and lost -!!!- my 040) card, during a period of a few months I have lent my Amiga to him and I really cannot understand how he actually booted the machine. Did he use his own disk? (it wouldn't be possible otherwise... I surely didn't give him my login details and he surely couldn't boot the machine without a proper startup-sequence to make the appropriate patches for 060). Is my disk still in the case!? Is is that lost too? Brrrr...

I possibly have some old SCSI controller for PC, but doubt it will work with modern hardware, PLUS there were so many SCSI implementations, that I just have to happen to have one that matches.

I think I can find at least one PC with IDE still, plus I have kept at least one IDE-USB external box (although I don't trust it for such job).

First thing I need to do is OPEN the case and see what I actually have I guess.
Also take hi-res photos of all my hardware guts to see if I really need recap and how badly.

Thanks all for your help. I will resurrect this thread when I have progressed to the point I actually need to read the disk (and that the disk still exists and still works).

[NLS]

OK newer news!
Here is what happened:
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=94682
...and back to this topic, as now it is not a WinUAE issue.

So, the disk in my A4000 was luckily mine. But UNluckily, indeed has muFS installed.

At some point during boot, I get a "MultiUser Login Request", where it asks for login ID (I suspect which one I used) and then password (that I cannot in the slightest recall)... No way to cancel this.

I tried mounting my disk image (my actual hard disk is safely stored again - and even for the image I made a copy), as secondary disk to another working Workbench image. I get many icons in my desktop, which reminded me that the hard disk is split in many partitions!!! I can actually read many of them, but I suspect, not all.

And a boot options capture will verify me (check attached image).

What do I do now? Any ideas?
Maybe a way to hack this after all these years?
I suspect I boot from ADOS HDM, it loads muFS and transfers control to HDS which is muFS "formatted". I don't remember at all how this is done.
Also you can see more muFS partitions.
Totals: 1 NBS1 (??? wtf is that?) partition as "swap" (did I do all these? damn!), 5 FFS partitions, 4 muFS partitions...

[AMIGASYSTEM]

If you do not see any partitions or volumes, verify that the two disks do not have the same volume or partition names !

[NLS]

...actually booting it as secondary, does allow me to read all files in all partitions!

I manually checked all drives listed in boot options and it can see the contents. So partially the problem is solved. I can probably recover much like that.

But I still want for the system to boot, without using muFS (or with a hacked muFS).
I suspect I will need to contact the original author on how to properly make the partitions FFS again. ANYBODY HAS ANY INFO?

I can find where I call muFS in my huge multi-script startup-sequence, but I cannot edit it! It is read-only!

I wonder if manually setting the volume as FFS (how?), can let me use normal FFS security.

Any ideas?
I can try anything as I do this on an image copy of my original disk.

[talybont]

Originally Posted by thomas

If the login screen belongs to Multiuser then it is not that easy. In this case you have to boot from the Install disk, run HDToolbox and change the DosType (aka identifier) of all partitions from MUFS to DOS\3. Then reboot from the Workbench disk and use a text editor to remove the login command from s:user-startup (it isn't in startup-sequence). Reboot again without a floppy in the drive and the login screen should have disappeared.

Have you tried this?

[NLS]

Haven't. This is what I will try next.
I also try to contact Geert Uytterhoeven (original muFS author) in case he can help...
(and wants to)
(I doubt his academic email still works)

[AMIGASYSTEM]

Originally Posted by NLS

...actually booting it as secondary, does allow me to read all files in all partitions!

Yes, as I had expected

I wonder if manually setting the volume as FFS (how?), can let me use normal FFS security.

No change of filesystem will make you lose data, my advice is to create a "new" HardFile of the same size or larger with the same partitions and with Dopus4 copy (transfer) data from one disk to another.

[NLS]

Well I have news!
Seems the actuall passwd file is writable!
So I just erased the (encoded) password for my user, using the "clean" workbench as boot! I even used CED from my disk to do it.
I actually found more than 20 users in there!
(friends etc.)
Never expected that!

Using my own username ("nls") and resetting only that password, lets me in (LAST LOGIN WAS 9th NOVEMBER 1998!!!), my HUGE startup-sequence goes forward (I remember it was a work of art back then) and at some point does ask my (but this time inside the shell window) for another password.
Doesn't seem to want my nls (zeroed) password. Probably something else (will have to go through my script).
I am now going to erase all passwords and test things.
But the script goes forward anyway (I am sure it failed a part)... and "freezes" before loading DOpus 5 (no fail or anything, just waiting forever). In the background there is Workbench loaded so system actually works!

Ah also the system whined that "I booted in the future before" (because 98 is "later" than 18) and asks if I want to change the date.

I will keep muFS for now since I can login and will see what happens.

Good stuff.

BTW, I think I found Geert's email.