Accessing my disk

[NLS]

And here is my old Workbench!
Thanks everyone for the help!

(system does not "freeze" now, nor asks for more password, but I need to check what the HOME: volume was supposed to be and why it is not there...)

[NLS]

A side note: I found Geert Uytterhoeven! He is now a Linux wiz. Very helpful, he proposed the same thing, to set the filesystem to FFS again. But I already made the fix with eliminating all passwd file passwords.

Love my old desktop. As I said last boot was November 98! So, 20 years back! I bet very few Win98 machines looked as professional as my Workbench/DOpus setup.

My startup-sequence (and multiple side scripts) is a huge thing (booting it easily looks like booting Linux, I may record it some time) and I remember painstakingly arranging what needs to be called before what, to make everything work properly.

BONUS QUESTION(s): Should I replace my 3GB very old Seagate with some non-magnetic component? Maybe a USB stick? An SD card? What are the adaptors I can use to make this happen? (transparently to the system) Will it be slower or faster? How will I be able to move all partitions as they are now to new device?

[nogginthenog]

Congratulations! Yes, Geert has always been a Linux wiz. He still actively maintains 680x0 support in Linux.

You should definitely replace your drive

This adapter works in my A4000 (€13 + plus a cheap CF card):
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Later I upgraded to one of these:
http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=...7&postcount=18

It will be quieter. Faster? Maybe. It's easy to transfer the OS from one drive to another on an Amiga.

Something else: Check the clock battery! After 20 years it probably will be bad.

[NLS]

I removed it. But a bit too late. Check the other thread about that.

[NLS]

Follow up on the retro-story.
Well I even debugged things that waited 20 years to be debugged.

For some reason HOME: was not getting mapped and needed in the startup scripts (because a requester popped to ask for it) and I had to find what was wrong.
Note that those scripts are roughly 700 lines total, no kid play, calling each other based on some things I needed back then. My scripting was fantastic though because it is FULLY commented, like I was planning to talk to my 20 years-later self!

So I pinpointed this to a muFS command "massign" (multi-user aware assign). Per muFS documentation, this doesn't release the process so it needs to run with "run" - which indeed is how I used it.
Funny thing I contacted Geert and he asked me "but why you run it with run?"... and I reminded him HIS OWN documentation.
Anyway... the initial problem was that I hadn't the proper muFS attributes set (readable and executable by group and others, plus "u" bit set, plus set root as owner).
So I fixed that, HOME was finally assigned as set in "passwd" file... And then ANOTHER bug popped!
For some reason the final command "endcli >NIL:" didn't exit! It just stood there, no error. I know it is that command, because I added debug echos and reached up to the end. I even tried not ending the script and tried to endcli from that command prompt. Indeed it was stopping there without closing CLI.
...Geert didn't know why.
So I thought... What changed? MAssign. But I need it. Maybe try another "run" command? I already have "bgrun" in my commands... maybe try that? AND INDEED BGRun solved my problem!

Thing is, I don't know why (OS own) "run" wasn't doing its job properly... any idea?

[Zedrick]

(I know this thread is a bit old, but not ancient - so I hope you don't mind replies in it.)

Originally Posted by NLS

Well I have news!
Seems the actuall passwd file is writable!

I'm in a similar situation with multiuser. Could you tell me where the password file is? Doesn't seem to be .MultiUser.keyfile.

[NLS]

No it's not there.
It's like Linux (or any *ix), the "passwd" file.
I don't recall the muFS path right now.

Note that if you have followed the lock instructions back then, then the file will not be accessible. But in my case I followed the instructions "loosely" so it was unlocked and I could edit it (mostly because nobody I knew could actually crack it as it was and the machine had very limited on-line access - dial-up on demand).
In that case, you PROBABLY need to "flag" the file-system (with a partition editor) as normal FFS, hoping to loose the extra muFS flags so everything becomes unlocked.

[Zedrick]

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, was expecting a passwd file, but have not been able to spot one anywhere. Partly because booting from another drive somehow still lets this drive assign all kinds of devicenames to left and right, making it a big mess... (probably logical in some way, but it's been 25 years since I actually used the Amiga as my main computer so I don't quite get what's happening or why.)

Anyway thanks for the reply, I guess I will need to change fs as soon as I get hdtoolbox to recognize the HD, and then hopefully I can mount it in linux to find the file and do the changes.

[Zedrick]

Just wanted to say thanks again. Mounted the system partition in Linux, found passwd, cracked it, booted to cli, logged in as the "superuser" (or whatever it's called in multiuser land), edited out some gvp-specific stuff in startup-sequence that I couldn't get to work with WinUEA, rebooted, logged in, voila! A very nice ST:Voyager-themed workbench with all kinds of cool menus and things and stuff. Not to mention warez, modz and p0rn (very tame by today's standards, but still). Also everything needed to go online in 2001 (also, I think the other users on this system logged in over telnet).

Now I just need to get the real Amiga running again, and negotiate space for it with the girlfriend.