Bootblock to choose other drives for OCS ?

[kremiso]

i remember back in the day some cracked games had some bootblocks,
with which it was possible to select/fake some RAM or choose the boot drive;

i'm searching for an extremely user friendly one, just to choose the boot drive (df1 or df2), possibly without use the keyboard but maybe just the mouse buttons or the joystick;

it should work on a OCS system, kickstart 1.x
or also with ks2.x, if more faster than keep pressed the two mousebuttons procedure (i mean to enter to the pre-boot sequence)

i'm searching also on Aminet atm, found a couple of multi tools but too much options, not what i'm searching for; also some not working on OCS, or not having the required thing

if at all possible, select another bootdrive via bootblock, on OCS

[redblade]

Yeah try this boot block by N.O.M.A.D ??
http://janeway.exotica.org.uk/release.php?id=99482
http://janeway.exotica.org.uk/release.php?id=21802

[kremiso]

thank you, i need to test both of them
i need power packer to decrunch them? seems unusable as they are

someone has this other one already installed to share?
http://aminet.net/package/util/boot/MegaBoot

i was trying to install it, no luck

why they not add directly the bootblock file?

[kremiso]

i reached to test all the previous three bootblocks
seems another thing i remembered completely wrong

in all the menu it is only possible to kill the external drives, and not to choose the boot one

[redblade]

Originally Posted by kremiso

i reached to test all the previous three bootblocks
seems another thing i remembered completely wrong

in all the menu it is only possible to kill the external drives, and not to choose the boot one

Yes this is true, the reason to disable external drives was to give your amiga more memory.

Also the reason why you can't boot of an external drive is that the games used custom loaders that were set to drive df0: by default.

I THINK (I'm not too sure) the Action Replay III cartridge allows you to boot using the external drive, I'm guessing it would only allow AmigaDOS disks only, obviously experts with Action Replay III (i.e Galahad) will comment on that as he spent a lot of hours using the device and will know every feature/bug.

[kremiso]

and what about the kickstart 2.x ?
wondering if could be possible to have a bootblock that take the place of the early startup procedure (keeping the two mousebuttons pressed at boot)

i mean faster to use, with just the drives boot option?

[redblade]

So you want a boot block on Disk df0: which will auto boot the AmigaDOS disk in df1: ? df2: ??

Or you might need to install a tool which patches the boot function on reset to boot df1-df3. The only tool I know of is Action Replay IV for Amiga 1200 by ParaDoX.

[kremiso]

Originally Posted by redblade

So you want a boot block on Disk df0: which will auto boot the AmigaDOS disk in df1: ? df2: ??

yes, exactly as that, possibly
want is a big word, just wondering if could be doable

on a kickstart 2.x system, because it seems the minimum requirement

[Jope]

On a 2.x system, it will automatically attempt all connected drives anyway. If you have a hard drive, you should lower your boot partition's bootpri to be smaller than what the additional drives have so that it won't go DF0 -> DH0 immediately. You can view the boot priorities in the early startup menu.

Do you have some other kind of setup where you have the same disks or disk images in separate drives all the time?

[kremiso]

Originally Posted by Jope

...Do you have some other kind of setup where you have the same disks or disk images in separate drives all the time?

Sort of, i'll try to explain better
it's a request for my cousin, who has a 500 (ks2.x) and two external drives (no hdd).
We are using a lot the Toni Wilen 'ussload' savestate reloader, to cut out many long intros or slow loading games sequences, to have the game itself ready to run.
The bizarre idea was born with the intention to run even games that only use the internal drive (ie Shadow of the Beast), keeping the game disk in df0: and the boot disk (with ussload and statefile) in df1: (or df2: in case of games that use df0: and df1: like Ruff n Tumble).
Changing only the disk bootblock to df0: (gamedisk), with another that could maybe skip the df0: and start another drive instead?
avoiding entering into the early boot every time?

[Jope]

You'll eventually run into non-dos disks, that have a special boot block and you can't replace it then.

Why not just have a pile of floppies next to the machine and insert the disk you wish to boot?

Some kind of ram + hard drive + WHDLoad setup with a game selector menu would be ideal for having them all inside the machine, but I realise this costs money.

[kremiso]

Originally Posted by Jope

Why not just have a pile of floppies next to the machine and insert the disk you wish to boot?

yes, we are definitely not stuck, and we are doing like this

the bootblock request is just to facilitare the procedure, correctly order/relabel the disks, and sometime to avoid some diskswaps too

Originally Posted by Jope

You'll eventually run into non-dos disks, that have a special boot block and you can't replace it then.

i could be wrong here, but seems not using ussload;
i have already tried to erase just the boot block in some nodos games, and all seems work fine;
this is probably due to the fact that the tool store the disktrack info without recheck when reloading the state (not sure), and restore the disk in the last track loaded/used

[Jope]

If you're using USSLoad to load snapshots of games that have already been loaded, then they won't visit the boot block again.

[kremiso]

yes, seems exactly as that
that's the reason i was thinking at the boot block change idea
to have a couple of releases ready to go, ie with the gamedisk always in df0: (with just the new boot block), and the boot ussload disk in df1:
without entering in the early startup everytime

imo it would be great for the many miggy titles that are locked on df0:
again, if a sort of boot block could be doable in first lol

atm, i'm testing something myself

[kremiso]

found a good compromise, with a bit of hexedit
seems that just setting to zero some bytes into the nodos gamedisk boot block (i mean in the disks that let the boot process stuck in df0: ), let the df0: boot skip, and pass directly to the next drive
ofc kickstart 2.x minimum request

noob thing, nice

[Jope]

Ah yes, a perfectly valid simple solution. I was thinking in a too difficult way.