Help on recovering files from Amithlon.HDF

[BiL0]

Hello,

sometimes ago I created an HDF file with winuae, from my hard disk where I had the installation of Amithlon.

now I need to do the opposite and mount that HDF file in winuae so I can recover some of the files or put it back to an HD.

however when I point to the HDF file in winuae and I load my 3.1 workbench I can't see the disk.
HDTools says that is not a DOS disk etc.

do I need to open this with 3.9? or 3.1 should be just fine?

any help appreciated

thank you

BiL0

[thomas]

sometimes ago I created an HDF file with winuae, from my hard disk where I had the installation of Amithlon.

Please be more specific. How did you create what?

however when I point to the HDF file in winuae and I load my 3.1 workbench I can't see the disk.
HDTools says that is not a DOS disk etc.

If it is a traditional HDF (one partition without any meta data), then you need to specify exactly the same geometry in WinUAE (heads, sectors, reserved) as the partition had when it was mounted in Amithlon.

If there is more than just one Amiga partition in that HDF, then we'll need to go back to the first part: more details please.

[BiL0]

Hi Thomas
Thank you for the reply,
I created the HDF by attaching the HD via USB and Winuae did the rest.
There are 2 partition on the image but I wouldn't know how to get the info you are asking.
Only once I was able to see the disk via the hdtool when I selected in the option IDE rather than UAE (when you mount the HDF file)
I'll try again and see if that gives me more info in regards.
However even when HDTools was able to see the disk, still OS3.1 was saying that is not a DOS disk.
Thanx again for your reply.
BiL0

[thomas]

There are 2 partition on the image but I wouldn't know how to get the info you are asking.

PC partitions or Amiga partitions?

Was this the HDD the Amithlon PC booted from or was it a second HDD where only Amiga data was stored?

If the drive was partitioned for booting the PC, then it probably has a PC partition table in the beginning, there perhaps was a MS-DOS or Linux partition which ran Amithlon and another partiton of the magical type 0x76. The latter then contains an Amiga partition table with the (two?) Amiga partitions.

If this is true, then it will be rather difficult to access the Amiga data. But not impossible. Perhaps giggledisk can help you to mount the Amiga partitions. What you need to do in any case is to click on "RDB mode" when you add the HDF to WinUAE. And *never* save anything to the HDF if you want to keep your data. Or create a copy of the HDF before you start with experiments.

If you want to use UAE controller (not IDE) with HDToolbox, then you need to change the tooltypes of the HDToolbox icon to read SCSI_DEVICE_NAME=uaehf.device instead of SCSI_DEVICE_NAME=scsi.device.

[BiL0]

thank you Thomas,

I'm not sure if both partition were Amithlon partition.
yes this was the disk where amithlon was booting from.

originally I had a partition for DOS so that the system can bood and then 2 partition for Amitlon.

when the HDF file was created I'm assuming was created only for the partition of Amithlon (but I could be wrong).

I never thought it was so bad to go back to a physical HD

do you know of any program that could put back the HDF to HD?
like winuae did one way do it the other way?
I can't find anything like that on the web.

well thank you for all the support and reply so far

I'll see if I can find out all the info you suggested

Bil0

[BiL0]

No luck so far.
Thomas if I provide you with my hdf file would you be able to have a go with it?
my aim is to put it back on a disk as it was but I can't see that option happening anytime soon
if it would be visible in winuae then I could possibly create a new HD with the correct partitions etc and copy the files across but at present I can't see it in any of the system I have running on Winuae.
and I tried with 3.1 and 3.9 but no luck
3.1 HDTools sometimes works sometimes not
3.9 most of the times fails and I need to reboot.

let me know and thanx so far for your help

B

[thomas]

Thomas if I provide you with my hdf file would you be able to have a go with it?

Yes, I could, but ... how big is it?

[BiL0]

RAR compressed is 432MB
decompressed is 875MB

not huge but big
I'll send you the link via PM so you can download this.
if you manage please don't share with the world my keyfiles hehehehehe

and thank you so much to take the time to try this

B

[thomas]

Ok. No need to hurry, I'm at work now. Will probably begin tomorrow at home.

[BiL0]

no rush thomas,
I haven't used this for so long.
I wanted to recover the image as I had it running on a old laptop and I want to give it away when I release that I didn't have the correct HD anymore.
if I can manage to recover the working system I'll put it up for adoption if anyone wants it.
I had wifi working and all you wanted from a laptop system running amithlon.
so maybe someone would like it play with it.

so no rush at all on your side either
thanx again for trying

Bil0

[thomas]

Did it already

As I said, Giggledisk was the tool of choice. Although it does not work correctly, it was of great help.

Instructions:

- run WinUAE
- on the Quickstart page select "High-End expanded example config"
- if "start in quickstart mode" is disabled, click on "Set configuration"
- go to RAM, move Z3 to 128 MB
- go to Harddrives, click on Add Hard File, select your Amithlon.hdf, click on Enable RDB Mode and Ok.
- go to Floppy drives, put the attached Giggle.adf into DF0
- click on Start and be amazed.

Note that the startup script on the floppy disk modifies the system partition so that it boots with the right screen mode and without error messages on WinUAE. You might want to make a backup copy of the HDF before you use it.

[BiL0]

That was fast!!!
Thank you Thomas for the help!
I'll create the new HD today and tomorrow hopefully by attaching it to Winuae I should be able to see both partition and copy the files across.
Thank you again for your help so far, I'll let you know how I get on

B

[BiL0]

that worked perfectly
well Thomas thank you very much.
I will let you know once I finish with recovering the laptop

thanx again
B