Supported Hardware/Emulators
- All Ataris, the Milan, the Suska board and MIST. Other Atari compatible platforms may also work. Check the compatibility with the demo version.
- Atari SH/Megafile, ACSI, SCSI, IDE, ATAPI and SATA drives, removable media drives (SyQuest, ZIP, JAZ, PD, MOD, SuperDisk/LS-120, ...), memory cards, SSDs, DOMs. For Atari's SH drives formatting is not supported.
- Drives and memory cards up to a capacity of 1 EiB (Exbibyte). SCSI drives with a capacity > 1 GiB connected to the ACSI bus require a suitable host adapter to use their full capacity, e.g. an adapter by Inventronik, an ICD Link or a LINK96/97. (Depending on the drive TOS, MagiC or MiNT can only use the first 16 TiB. Software using the SCSI Driver and supporting 64 bit sector numbers can access sectors beyond the 16 TiB limit.)
- The GigaFile SD card drive (ACSI and SCSI) by Inventronik and the UltraSatan SD card drive (ACSI) by Lotharek.
- The RaSCSI/PiSCSI board for the Raspberry Pi, e.g. with SCSI2Pi.
- BlueSCSI V2, tested with the desktop version.
- 8 devices on the SCSI bus (TT or Falcon are also a SCSI device) and 8 devices on the ACSI bus.
- 8 sub-units (LUNs) per SCSI/ACSI device. With TT and Falcon SCSI the SCSI Driver supports 32 LUNs, e.g. with SCSI2Pi.
- 8 IDE/SATA/ATAPI devices: 2 with the Falcon, 4 with the Milan, up to 8 with suitable third-party IDE hardware.
- USB mass storage drives with third-party modules.
- Drives/media with physical sector sizes of 512, 1024, 2048 and 4096 bytes.
- SATA Advanced Format Drives (AFD), especially 512e and 4Kn hard drives.
- Multi-media drives: DVD-RAM, DVD+RW and BD-RE media can be used like hard drives, e.g. for backups.
- The Atari emulators Hatari and ARAnyM, including access to native Linux devices.
- The Atari emulators MagiCMac and MagicPC, including access to native SCSI devices.
Not officially supported Hardware
For this hardware there is positive user feedback. How well HDDRIVER works with this hardware may depend on the firmware version. It is not possible for me to test this. Important: This is not about what HDDRIVER considers correct, but what the official specifications say. Test your hardware setup with the HDDRIVER demo version and the SCSI Driver/Firmware testsuite.
- BlueSCSI 1.1-20220917, but not 1.1-20221203. Tested with the desktop version at the internal SCSI port of a MegaSTE and TT. With a ribbon cable at the external port there were issues, though.
- ZuluSCSI: Working according to user feedback.
- ACSI2STM: Incompatibilities with the SCSI-2 standard, at least with old firmware versions.
- SD4ST/SD4ST+: Incompatibilities with the SCSI-2 standard, at least with old firmware versions.
- SCSI2SD: There have been recurring firmware issues in the past.
- Falcons with Alternate RAM (Afterburner040, DFB1, CT*): Working according to user feedback.
- SatanDisk: Working according to user feedback.
Unsupported Hardware/Emulators
At least with old firmware versions, this hardware/emulation violates specifications. New firmware may fix the bugs, but it is not possible for me to test this.
If you want to use unsupported hardware or hardware other than that listed, you should test this hardware with the HDDRIVER demo version and the SCSI Driver/Firmware testsuite. If the testsuite does not report errors and the demo version works, the full version will most likely also work.
Partitioning and Data Exchange
- TOS/Windows compatible partitions for data exchange with PCs and Macs without any additional software or hardware.
- Windows (Windows XP and newer) compatible partitioning (including FAT32) directly on the Atari.
- Support of the super floppy layout (media with no root sector, e.g. floppy disks).
- Partitions can be assigned to drives A: and B:.
- With TOS 16 (A:-P:), with MagiC 25 (A:-Z: except U:), with MiNT or Big-DOS 31 (1:-6: and A:-Z: except U:) drives.
- FAT16 partition sizes of up to 1 GiB (2 GiB with MagiC), depending on the TOS version (see FAQ for details).
- With MagiC or MiNT access to VFAT and FAT32 partitions (long filenames, partition size up to 2 TiB).
- With MiNT access to Minix and Linux partitions.
- Support of MBR (Master Boot Record) and UEFI GPT (GUID Partition Table) partitions.
- Partitioning in MBR, GPT and super floppy format.
- Automatic byteswapping for all buses and devices.
Speed, Performance and Optimizations
- Special operating modes for fast ACSI and IDE data transfers.
- Optional blitter support for particularly fast IDE transfers, especially with STs.
- With MagiC non-blocking transfers (ACSI and SCSI): Applications keep on running while data are being transferred in the background.
- On the TT and the Milan, HDDRIVER can be booted into TT-RAM, e.g. to increase the IDE transfer rate with the Thunder IDE interface. Booting into TT-RAM also saves valuable ST-RAM.
- Configurable cache size (GEMDOS cache).
- Integrated FOLDRxxx, CACHExxx, JARxxx and SCSIDRV functionality speeds up the boot process, saves memory and relieves the AUTO folder.
- The device IDs to scan are configurable, so that no time is wasted by scanning for non-existing devices during boot.
- For maximum performance and compact code, HDDRIVER is entirely coded in highly optimized 68000 and 68030 assembler.
- Optimized through the use/emulation of advanced SCSI commands.
Device and Media Maintenance
- Formatting and partitioning, TOS and Windows compatible.
- Editing of partition data, such as partition ID or cluster size.
- Loading/Saving of entire drives or partitions from/to image files.
- Complete or partial copying of media, e.g. for cloning, backup or for exchanging data.
- Partition table recovery if the root sector or the partition table is corrupted.
- Configuration settings of SCSI, ATAPI and SATA drives can be changed, such as cache settings.
- Initiating self-tests for devices that support this feature.
- Sector test (read test and write test).
- Device scan
- Simple and quick installation, all existing data are retained.
- Modern user interface.
- Automatic detection of ACSI devices that support high capacity media, such as ICD compatible host adapters, GigaFile or UltraSatan.
- Support for TOS compatible filesystems on rewritable optical media (DVD-RAM, DVD+RW, BD-RE).
- Automatic and reliable media change detection (hot-swap).
- Configurable number of drive IDs to be reserved for removable media/memory cards.
- Boot drive selection (from which AUTO folder and ACCs are loaded) by simply pressing a key.
- Support for dual boot (operating system selection by keystroke) for TOS and Atari's System V Release 4 (ASV)
- Write protection for selected drives and for boot and root sectors.
- Auto-Sleep, Auto-Park and password protection for ZIP and JAZ drives.
- Configurable device and partition order, configurable LUN support.
- With SCSI2Pi/PiSCSI/BlueSCSI up to 8 emulated devices with the MegaSTE's internal host adapter.
- With TT and Falcon SCSI HDDRIVER's SCSI Driver supports linked SCSI commands and 32 LUNs (sub-units).
- Support also for SCSI-3 and newer.
- Support for CHS, LBA-28 and LBA-48 addressing for IDE/SATA drives.
- SCSI emulation/translation for IDE, ATAPI and SATA drives.
- Execution of HDDRIVER modules when booting.
- Automatically detects device properties (supported commands) and TOS features and adapts intelligently to them.
- The HDDRIVER software package includes a number of useful tools.
- All programs are bilingual (English and German).
- Detailed English and German manual as PDF, optionally also printed.
- Full version and updates available as download.
- Optionally available on a floppy disk or bootable pre-installed on a memory card.
- Reliable support directly from the author.
- The Hddriver News App for Android keeps you updated.