Transfer UAE Hard Disk to A1200

I am using a 20GB 2.5" Hard Disk which I can connect to my Desktop (using a 44Pin - 40Pin adaptor). I also remember seeing (in WinUAE) a function to use an actual hard disk to create an Amiga Hard Drive on.

I am currently using an AmiQuest PCMCIA Hard Disk with no casing. Every time I need to move of adjust the amiga I have to pick out the hard disk (and every now and again re-solder the wires when they separate). When I bought my A1200, the hard disk option was not available in Ireland. I guess we were too poor.

So I now will have the exciting ability to fix a hard disk inside the A1200 and I've been waiting like 12 years for this.

Problem is that I have been waiting a week now for the delivery of a 44Pin cable to connect my 2.5" hard disk inside the A1200.

In order to push ahead, I thought that maybe I could begin the setup of Workbench etc. on the hard disk in the PC (XP Pro SP2, although I could use Win98 if necessary) using WinUAE.

My question is, would I then be able to remove it from the PC and insert it straight into the A1200 pre-installed and ready to boot?

[thomas]

My question is, would I then be able to remove it from the PC and insert it straight into the A1200 pre-installed and ready to boot?

Simple answer: yes.

Be sure to adjust the WinUAE config to your Amiga (e.g. processor, kickstart, ram), then it should boot at once.

Originally Posted by Loogie

I am using a 20GB 2.5" Hard Disk which I can connect to my Desktop (using a 44Pin - 40Pin adaptor). I also remember seeing (in WinUAE) a function to use an actual hard disk to create an Amiga Hard Drive on.

I am currently using an AmiQuest PCMCIA Hard Disk with no casing. Every time I need to move of adjust the amiga I have to pick out the hard disk (and every now and again re-solder the wires when they separate). When I bought my A1200, the hard disk option was not available in Ireland. I guess we were too poor.

So I now will have the exciting ability to fix a hard disk inside the A1200 and I've been waiting like 12 years for this.

Problem is that I have been waiting a week now for the delivery of a 44Pin cable to connect my 2.5" hard disk inside the A1200.

In order to push ahead, I thought that maybe I could begin the setup of Workbench etc. on the hard disk in the PC (XP Pro SP2, although I could use Win98 if necessary) using WinUAE.

My question is, would I then be able to remove it from the PC and insert it straight into the A1200 pre-installed and ready to boot?

I was only able to get my HD to be recognized in UAE if it had been partitioned on the real Amiga. However once that is done it can be formatted and WB can be installed under UAE.

[D-Dan]

Read this thread http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?...ighlight=d-dan which gives details of how to do the entire prep with WinUAE (read through the whole thread - there are some amendments to the initial guide, IIRC).

Very helpful. Thank you very much.

I'll post back with how I get on.

I have created a boot floppy from the AROS floppy image(http://aros.sourceforge.net/download...floppy.tar.bz2) using RAWrite (http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/lin...itewin-0.7.zip).

This boots my PC to a very attractive Amiga looking OS (for Intel platforms). Very impressive.

In there I used the HDToolBox to create an RDB table on the drive. I also created a default partition. I then backed out, highlighted the drive and saved the changes to it. powered off an booted back into windows.

The drive now shows up in WinUAE as an "Add Harddrive..." option.

Having created a bootable HardFile I detected my 'SCSI' disk by running HardDisk:Tools\HDToolBox uaehf.device as specified in the thread linked above. It is detected as Interface:SCSI Address:0 LUN:0 Status: Unknown DriveType: (Blank). The only available option is to Change Drive Type and here I am stuck.

I must Define New... drive type but I cannot determine what the settings should be. My specifications are at odds with those that HDToolBox is looking for.
Windows sepcs the drive as follows (MSInfo32):

Model HITACHI_DK23DA-20
Bytes/Sector 512
Partitions 0
SCSI Bus 0
SCSI Logical Unit 0
SCSI Port 1
SCSI Target ID 0
Sectors/Track 63
Size 18.63 GB (20,003,880,960 bytes)
Total Cylinders 2,432
Total Sectors 39,070,080
Total Tracks 620,160
Tracks/Cylinder 255

The physical drive label specifies: Heads 16, Sectors 63 & Cylinders 16383
(Hitachi DK23DA-20)

The Amiga HDToolBox is looking for Cylinders, Heads, Blocks per Track, Blocks per Cylinder and (most nail bitingly) Park head where (cylinder) - which I have no idea of.

I have decided to treat the Blocks as if they were Sectors but the numbers don't add up and I cannot get the disk size in HDToolBox any larger than about 2GB.

Could someone please explain what figures I should be using here?

I have decided to push ahead. Downloaded SCSIQuery Tool from Aminet which can see the drive and gave me a total Blocks of 39,070,080 (which is the number of sectors, so Blocks=Sectors). That figure is also the multiplication of 63 (Blocks per track) x 255 (Tracks per Cylinder) x 2432 (Total Cylinders) (= 39,070,080 512-Byte segments = 20GB).

I saw from other searches that the Park Position for the heads is the uppermost or last cylinder, so I've set that to 2432.

I have specified the following:
Filename: drive definitions (default)
Manufacturers Name: Hitachi
Drive Name: HITACHI_DK23DA-2
Drive Revision: 00J2 (shortens to J2 - got version from SCSIQuery)
Cylinders: 2432
Heads: 16
Blocks per Track: 63
Blocks per Cylinder: 16065 (the 255 Tracks per Cylinder x 63 Blocks per Track)
Park head where (cylinder): 2432 (the last cylinder - hopefully)

My resulting drive size is -1444512K (-1410 Meg)

..which obviously is wrong, but what can you do...

Well, HDToolBox now sees the drive as having two partitions, each 1338MB. I have gone ahead and done a low level format of the drive. (Warm) Rebooted WinUAE and the drive shows up in Workbench 3.0 as DH0:NDOS. I performed a quick format on it (with all options selected (trashcan, ffs, dir caching etc.). Initialisation screens pops up for about 30 seconds then I get a Format Failure dialog with not a valid DOS disk and an option to Cancel. Cancel and the drive is there but it is 100% full and whenever I try to copy files to it I get Workbench popping up saying that the Volume DH0 is not validated.

Basically, the only way the Amiga will entertain the Hitahci drive is SCSIQuery or hdtoolbox uaehf.device.

Well, it's not perfect but I have configured the 20GB Hitachi with 2244 Cylinders, 16 Heads, 63 Blocks per Track, 1008 Blocks per Cylinder, Park head at 2244 for an overall size of 1414Meg. It seems to like that. I have been able to format the two partitions that were created (which came up funny at first with weird characters under their icons). But they formatted fine. I now have two 595MB drives. Still can't see them in the TooldBox without using uaehf.device option. But, they boot WinUAE good enough (to a CLI window rather than WB - loadwb takes me in). So, when the cable arrives, I will try plugging this straight into the A1200 an we'll see.
Hope I can sort out the drive size later though. Even if I can get it up to 4GB, that would be great.
Now, to bed.

[thomas]

Why do you make it so difficult ?

1. why don't you do the entire partitioning with AROS ?

2. why do you use an old version of HDToolbox ? You cannot use a 20GB HDD on an Amiga with Workbench 3.1. You need at least OS3.5. So you should use the HDToolbox which comes with OS3.5 to partition the drive.

3. Why do you try to enter the specs by hand ? Just click on "read configuration" and it will set everything for you.

4. To determine the specs yourself is quite easy: a HDD consists of cylinders, a cylinder consists of tracks and a track consists of sectors (blocks). So "sectors" = "blocks per track", "heads" = "tracks per cylinders" and "blocks per cylinder" = "blocks per track" multiplied by "tracks per cylinder". And sectors * heads * cylinders is the total number of blocks. This multiplied by 512 (bytes per block) is the capacity of the drive.

Note that the actual numbers do not matter at all. Important is that the total number of blocks is almost correct (never use more than the drive really has and don't waste too many).

On a drive labelled as 20GB you should be able to use at least 20,000,000,000 bytes (18.6 GB).

Note that the boot partition must be smaller than 4GB and resist at the beginning of the drive.

1) I did indeed use AROS to fully configure the drive, but Workbench would not see the drive. Only HDToolBox from WB3.0 with the UAEHF.Device option would 'see' the drive.
The other thread said that you could fully partition the drive in AROS (which I did) and that you would have resize it later in WB (which I wasn't able to do properly).

2) I don't have OS3.5 as I am running an A1200 (so I only have 3.0 ROM) and this drive is to be put inside the physical A1200. I don't mind if WB3.0 cannot see all 20GB, I just want an internal drive in my A1200 with as much space as an A1200 can support.

3) Read Configuration would not read the drive.
After I put in the figures that I thought were correct, the drive was recognised incorrectly as 1.4GB (and gave me two partitions of 1.4GB, which I assume overlapped somehow). However, I subsequently booted from an install3.0 ADF and then Read Configuration did read the drive but assumed that sectors were 68 and calculated all the figures incorrectly. I just said OK and I ended up with a functioning 1.4GB which isn't bad at all.

4) Thanks for the info on the hard disk specs. Somehow, my settings are at odds with those numbers.

According to MSInfo32 there are 255 tracks per cylinder, but there are 16 heads and 63 sectors per track (heads * sectors = 1008 but tracks/cylinder * sectors = 16065).

Cylinders * Heads (Tracks/Cylinder) * Sectors (Blocks/Track) = Total Sectors/Blocks
(According to Hard Disk label) 16383*16*63=16,514,064 (incorrect)
(According to MSInfo32) 2,432*255*63=39,070,080 (correct)
I am pretty sure there aren't 255 Heads so the Heads must not be equal to Tracks/Cylinder.

To confuse things more, the cylinders figure on the hard disk label is 16383 but according to MSInfo32 it's 2432!

Finally, when the figures are entered as 2432, 16, 63, 1008 I get 1.4GB. This is wrong but allows me to use the hard drive in WorkBench3.0.
I think my figure is incorrect, mainly because there are huge inconsistencies in the numbers depending on what program is asking.

But you're right. I'm sure there is an easier way to do this and I can't believe it's taking so much typing already

[thomas]

Well, 16, 63 and 16383 are upper limits for the IDE standard and some old BIOSes will not show more than that. However this calculates to a total of less than 8 GB.

As I told you, the only important value is the total number of blocks (39,080,080). The other values can be freely choosen. Different programs will choose different values. For example the OS3.0 HDToolbox will always choose 16*63=1,008 blocks per cylinder. With this value you'll have to enter 38,760 cylinders. The new HDToolbox of OS3.5 will choose 2,016 blocks per cyl, so you'll have 19,380 cylinders.

The old HDToolbox will always calculate a wrong size, because it simply calculates the number of bytes and stores it in a 32bit signed integer. Everything above 2GB will be negative and everything above 4GB will be wrapped around to 0.

[D-Dan]

IIRC HDInstTools (aminet) will deal with larger HDs - so maybe try that with WinUAE rather than Wb 3.1 HDToolBox.

I tried HDInstTools, but without the uaehf.device switch it was never able to see the drive.

I also went back and tried resetting the drive with 16, 63 and 1008 along with various values for the cylinder (including 38,760) but OS3.0 just couldn't format the drive.

Windows subsequently prompted me to Install the drive again (which it didn't before so something screwed up). I set it up as a Basic disc in Windows again - with no partitions. Rebooted to AROS and created RDB with MAX partition.

Using OS3.9 (the WinUAE configuration would now only see the drive after I did the above) I was able to Install, Partition and Quick Format the drive properly. I kept to <4.0GB partitions. My OS3.0 now appears to see all three partitions (I made the three partitions 3.9GB and left the last 6 GB unpartitioned) and copies files to and fro with no problems - as yet.

Incidentally, I did not make this clear before: HDToolBox Read Configuation (in OS3.0) could not detect the drive at first. However, once I had manually entered the specifiactions for the drive (that I thought might work), saved them and restarted WinUAE, Read Configuration was subsequently able to detect the drive. While it's settings were incorrect (in that they only saw 1.4GB - and created two 600MB partitions) the two partitions it created did format correctly and I was able to install and run WB3.0.

Thanks for eveything. I very much appreciate the assistance. Very good of you to spend the time helping me out.

[thomas]

It seems you didn't understand: you cannot use more then 4GB *of the drive* ! You should only create *one* partition of 3.9GB. Or several partitions with a total of 3.9 GB. Anything above the 4GB border *of the drive* will overwrite data in the first 4GB.

The area above the 4GB border is only accessible if OS3.9 is running (simply installing it is not sufficient, it must be running).

And of course you must not touch the drive from Windows. Whenever you install anything on the drive with Windows (even if it has no Windows partitions) your Amiga data will be destroyed.

Basically, I just re-initialised the drive in windows before re-creating the RDB on in AROS.

Also, a 4GB drive is fine. I created the other two to see if they operated in OS3.0 and they do. If the second and third partitions fail in the future, so be it. I still have a 4GB drive on my A1200. Which is great.
If the data on the drives gets corrupted, I'll redo with only one 4GB drive.

However, I have copied about 100MB onto the second partition in OS3.0 and it seems fine so far.

[thomas]

I created the other two to see if they operated in OS3.0 and they do. If the second and third partitions fail in the future, so be it.

You still didn't understand. You will loose *all* data if you write to the second and third partitions. OS3.0 can only access the first 4GB of the drive. If you try to access beyond the 4GB border the accesses are wrapped down and you still write to the first 4GB, overwriting your important data on the first partition !!

*Never* try to access any single byte above the 4GB border with OS3.0 !

To test: fully format the first partition and you will see that the 100MB file on the second partition will be corrupted. Second test: fill the first partition with files, then fill the second partition with files. Now check every file on the first partition. You will see that many of the files will be corrupted.

[BippyM]

I had a 4.3gb HD a few years back on my HD and I can assure you Thomas is right!

If I wrote anything on the 0.3gb at the end of the drive it would corrupt data on the first partition I had !!

Please listen and understand what Thomas is saying, he is an Amiga expert so if you ignore his advice you will be burnt!

[wlcina]

so I have plenty of 20gb 2,5" hdd , I want to use them in amiga 1200, I can use only first 4gb ?

Thomas, I promise you that I understand. Everything that you have told me is invaluable and I appreciate it. You don't have to worry, I am simply playing around with my old Amiga, not storing anything remotely imprortant. I will format the second partition, as you said, because it will be interesting to see it fail.

It is ridiculous to imply that I am ignoring him! Everything's OK, Bippy.

I guess I will have to be more careful with what I say in future.

WLCINA: I think that my Amiga OS3.0 has problems addressing blocks over 4GB. OS3.0's 32bit addressing (2 to the power of 32 bytes) can only count up to 4096MB. However, if you use the newer OS3.9, it will see all 20GB of your hard disk.