Creating blank HDFs in Ubuntu

[Fibble]

Hi, not sure if this is the right forum but hoping someone here can help.
I am attempting to use amitools in order to create blank .hdf files.
When I try creating an HDF using this command taken straight from the amitools docs:

xdftool empty.hdf format Work size=10M ffs

the file is created, but isn't then writable.
When I try to open it in ADF Opus, I get an error stating

ReadRDSKblock : RDSK id not found

Running

xdfscan -v empty.hdf

gives this result:

                scan  empty.hdf
                NDOS  empty.hdf
@000000:ERROR:invalid boot block dos type

I am able to use ADF Opus to create blank HDFs without problems, but of course I can't use it in a bash script. Its output scans this way:

xdfscan -v new.hdf
                scan  new.hdf
                 ok   new.hdf

Any advice would be welcome.

[Hewitson]

No idea what the issue is. An alternative would be to use dd, firstly to create the actual HDF, and then secondly to install a ripped bootblock, RDB, etc.

If there is a problem with this program I am willing to look at the source code if available.

[jbl007]

This is a bug. Did you install from git?
However... the following command works:

xdftool empty.hdf create size=10M + format Work ffs

Originally Posted by Fibble

ReadRDSKblock : RDSK id not found

This is normal, plain .hdf doesn't contain partition information. If you want that: use

rdbtool

.

[Fibble]

Originally Posted by jbl007

This is a bug. Did you install from git?
However... the following command works:

xdftool empty.hdf create size=10M + format Work ffs

Thanks, that did the trick! Yes, I did install from git.



As far as the partition error, that's just what ADF Opus gave when I tried to open the file. My understanding was, I shouldn't need do do any partitioning at all; sure enough, with the command you gave above, I am able to open, write, and read the generated .hdf.