Advice needed: Power packer, shrinkler or Cranker

[khph_re]

Hi all,
And merry Christmas!

I got my girlfriend an A600 for Christmas, spend ages setting up the Compact Flash through WinUAE....and the IDE port is broken :-(

I've heard you can use a boot floppy to mount Amiga partitions on compact flash using RDBMount.

My questions are:

• can I use Shrinkler, or Cranker to compress the files/data, or should I stick to good old faithfull powerpacker?
  
• Also, is there a disk formatter that can fit extra data on the disk, while still being OS compliant (I.e, not diskspare etc)?
  
• Can I mount the CF amiga partitions early in the startup sequence for assigns etc?
  
• Is there a RAM card/Accelerator that comes with IDE/SD?

thanks in advance for any help, i've forgotten most of this stuff.

[Jope]

Originally Posted by khph_re

the IDE port is broken :-(

Which ROM version/revision are you running? How is it broken?

can I use Shrinkler, or Cranker to compress the files/data, or should I stick to good old faithfull powerpacker?

For OS components, you ought to stick with powerpacker. You can use pploadseg and pack libraries etc. Check the powerpacker documentation. However, read on.

Also, is there a disk formatter that can fit extra data on the disk, while still being OS compliant (I.e, not diskspare etc)?

There's no disk formatter that fits your need. Anyway, the files needed for mounting the hard disk and moving the system take up so little space that you can fit it dozens of times on an Amiga disk. You'd want to minimize the time spent loading things from floppy anyway, just the bare essentials should be there to get the CF card mounted and then you'd load the rest of the files off the CF once it is visible.

Can I mount the CF amiga partitions early in the startup sequence for assigns etc?

Yes, this is exactly how we used non-autobooting hard drives back in the day. The boot disk's startup-sequence mounts the partition(s), moves all the system assigns over, assigns T: to RAM: and executes your actual startup-sequence from the hard disk. You can look at old Commodore provided install disks for inspiration on how to do it.

Is there a RAM card/Accelerator that comes with IDE/SD?

The PiStorm can do this at least.

[khph_re]

Thanks for the reply, and the info Jope:

Originally Posted by Jope

Which ROM version/revision are you running? How is it broken?

37.3000 Kickstart. Ebay seller said 'Please note although this is an Amiga 600 HD there is currently no HD installed inside the computer, but otherwise works fine - so as it is incomplete it is being sold as spares or repair'

-Sneaking suspicion he knew it wasn't working.

My A1200 Will boot from the A600's Drive and CF reader just fine.
Even tried the A1200's CF reader and that wasn't recognised either.
Black screen, not even floppy noises until whatever is plugged into the IDE port is removed.

For OS components, you ought to stick with powerpacker. You can use pploadseg and pack libraries etc. Check the powerpacker documentation. However, read on.

Ah, ok thank you.


There's no disk formatter that fits your need. Anyway, the files needed for mounting the hard disk and moving the system take up so little space that you can fit it dozens of times on an Amiga disk. You'd want to minimize the time spent loading things from floppy anyway, just the bare essentials should be there to get the CF card mounted and then you'd load the rest of the files off the CF once it is visible.

I see, I wanted to put some ease of use functions in place for her in the WBstart draw.

Yes, this is exactly how we used non-autobooting hard drives back in the day. The boot disk's startup-sequence mounts the partition(s), moves all the system assigns over, assigns T: to RAM: and executes your actual startup-sequence from the hard disk. You can look at old Commodore provided install disks for inspiration on how to do it.

One problem i'll have, is the CF card has 3 partitions.
A bare WB boot for WHDload/CD32load
A more fully featured OS for working her to work in.
And a storage Partition.

I'm guessing I will only be able to boot from one of the two partitions?

The PiStorm can do this at least.
I thought as much, I did want her to have a real Amiga experience, not an emulated one. I'll see if there are any other options.

[Jope]

Oof, you replied inside my quote, so it's manual copy paste for me now to reply back to you. :-)

One problem i'll have, is the CF card has 3 partitions.
A bare WB boot for WHDload/CD32load
A more fully featured OS for working her to work in.
And a storage Partition.

I'm guessing I will only be able to boot from one of the two partitions?

How do you plan on booting from any of them if there is no autoboot? If you are using the boot floppy, you can move the system assigns to any partition and continue from there. You can make a separate floppy for each boot target, or install some kind of menu program to your boot floppy to select the target you need.

Basically if your IDE port is broken (37.300 should have working IDE), your CF card would have to go into the PCMCIA slot.

If you end up fixing the IDE connector, you can make the partitions you want bootable and select the default partition using the boot priorities of each partition. Higher = higher. Then temporary bootup partition selection can happen from the early startup menu (hold down both mouse buttons on reset).

[khph_re]

Yeah, the bootable partitions work on the 1200 -
for when i get the connector fixed.

I'm looking into Amiga boot selector, just need to do some research on the startup-sequence, never been that good at this sort of stuff

Thanks for the advice/help.

[Jope]

Hope you get it sorted. The A600 has probably had its capacitors leak and that's why the IDE port is failing.