Hard Disk Reference Using Hard Drives with your Amiga.

NOTE: I have tried my best to make this as accurate as possible. I will not be held responsible for any lost data or anything else that happens to either you, your dog, your computer, your sisters pet fish or anything else during after or before you read this. Thank you and enjoy the help file.

The Amiga Line of computers has the following options for hard drives:

• A1000: none built in. with optional cards can use SCSI or IDE 3.5 drives.
• A500: none built in. With optional cards can use either SCSI or IDE 3.5 or 2.5 IDE drives.
• A2000: None built in. With optional cards can use SCSI or IDE 3.5 drives.
• A3000: SCSI built on the motherboard. can use IDE with optional cards.
• CDTV: None Built in with opional expansion can use SCSI Hard Drive.
• CD32: None Built in with optional expansion case can use IDE 2.5 drives.
• A600: IDE (2.5) built on Motherboard. Can use 3.5 drives with optional expansion box or SCSI with optional cards.
• A1200: IDE (2.5) built on Motherboard. Can use 3.5 drives with optional expansion box or SCSI with optional cards.
• A4000: IDE built on Motherboard. Can use SCSI drives with optional cards..

HDtoolBOX
Once you have your hard drive plugged into the computer, turn the Amiga on and start HDtoolBOX. If you do not have a hard drive already in your system this program is located on your extras disk.

The first screen appearing is call the Hard Drive preparation screen. from this screen you can achieve the following things.

• Partitioning
• Preparing a new hard drive
• Configuring the drive type of the Hard disk
• Low level formatting of the disk
• Locating bad blocks on the drive
• Defining File System characteristics
• Adding, deleting or modifying File Systems.

The following information is also given on the main screen:

• Interface information: displays the type of drive interface either SCSI or IDE
• Address: The address for each SCSI device ranges from 0-6 for each SCSI device that you have attached to your system. You can only connect 2 IDE drives to any amiga at one time per controller.
• LUN: Shows the logical unit number. a value from 0 to 7.
• Status: Shows the status of the drive. if you have changed the settings and not saved them it will show CHANGED under this option.
• Drive Type: Shows the drives manufacturer name and revision.

Partitioning

A partition is a subdivision of the space on your hard disk. Each partition will appear on your Workbench as an ICON.

Ok here we go.

1. select the drive to be partitioned by clicking on its name in the list. This will cause the selected name to be highlighted.

2. Select the Partition drive gadget. This will take you to the partitioning screen.

you will notice that your hard drive is represented as a horizontal bar with the number of the last cylinder shown in the upper right corner of the screen. the active partition you are working on is displayed in black the rest is a gray color.

Before you start to partition your drive displays the following items you should know about:

• Partition Device Name: Displays the name of the selected partition.
• File System: Displays the file system of the selected partition.
• Bootable: if this option is check it means the drive is bootable.

To adjust the size of a partition click and hold the mouse button on the blue triangle under the partition bar. Slide the triangle to the new position desired and release the button. The new size of the drive is displayed under the triangle.

Sometimes you may want to make one partition bigger then another. Click and hold the selection button on the partition you want to move and while still holding the mouse button down slide the partition to where you wish then let up on the mouse button.

To add a new partition simply slide the existing partitions around until you have a solid block of unused space within the bar for your new partition. then select the New Partition Gadget. Click on the unused portion of the partitioning bar where you want your partition.

To rename your new or existing partition click on the Partitioning bar once you have selected the partition you want to rename. Then delete the existing name in the box and type in the new name and press return.

Once you are satisfied with your selections press the OK button. This will return you to the Hard Drive Preperation screen. Then select the Save changes to drive gadget. after wich time wait 10 seconds then Reboot your computer. Upon completion of the reboot an Icon will apear for each partition youcreated on the Workbench screen. Format each new partition with the format process by clicking on the icon and selecting the Format DISk item from the Icons menu. after wich you can rename each partition witht he rename option in the menus.

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