Premier Manager IPF Write Protection

[Octopus66]

I have been tearing my hair out recently trying to understand what is causing Premier Manager to crash on my A1200 030/28 3.2 ROMS and I think I understand the steps to reproduce this issue.

I am using a Gotek Flashfloppy 3.41 with IPF files converted to HFEv3 and today I noticed that when disk 1 is inserted after the boot selection has moved past DF0: the Gotek performs a small write operation to the disk. This happens when the disk 1 is inserted at workbench screen for example.

This write operation renders the game to crash prior to intro with music. Weirdly the game will run to intro without music using relokick 1.4a which was a source of confusion to me.

Now when using the HFEv3 files and read only permissions it seems to resolve the issue. Any ideas why the Amiga will write to the disks on insert? I don't believe this is a virus... as it consistently happens after 30 seconds turn off and I have no evidence of viruses elsewhere.

[Snoopy1234]

Kingsoft games like Phalanx need to be write enabled to load too, it's a check routine in the coding on the disk. IPF images are write-protected outright as they're preservation status images and not writable.

[Octopus66]

Hi Snoopy - yes interesting, but I am concerned about Amiga OS writing to the disk on insert. Is that normal behavior? I don't recall this happening back in the day.

IPF may well be write-protected, but HFEv3 can be write enabled.

[Snoopy1234]

Hi Octopuss66, IDK, I do know my A1200 wrecked a couple of fdd's with spontaneous and unsolicited write/seek operations when a disk was in. This was over some time and I put it down to Social anxiety or poltergeist activity. I installed a re-capped floppy drive and it's been fine. I never did find the real answer. Someone may know if certain games like bootloader titles do similar things. Write protected just prevents it happening. The game could also be coded in such a way that the gotek is incompatible.