HDDRIVER news are offered as RSS and Atom feeds. In addition the Hddriver News app for Android automatically notifies about news. Information on changes in previous releases are provided in the overview of changes and in the HDDRIVER forum.
July 24, 2024: DISKUS 3.99.5 is available
There is an updated version of the DISKUS mass storage tool. DISKUS (German only) is a powerful tool for maintaining mass storage devices (error analysis, data recovery, sector editor and much more).
July 21, 2024: DaynaPort workaround for MegaSTE, new approach
The internal host adapter of the MegaSTE cannot use the DaynaPort emulation of SCSI2Pi, PiSCSI or BlueSCSI V2 together with a bootable emulated hard drive: The DaynaPort drivers expect the DaynaPort uses LUN 0, but LUN 0 is required for a bootable drive. The authors of these drivers (both still active developers for the Atari) have been are aware of this problem for some time. Only a driver update can cleanly resolve it.
The initial makeshift from February, a modified HDDRIVER, I have not released because of the maintenance overhead. Instead there is a beta version of a program for the AUTO folder now, which maps ACSI ID 6 to LUN 6 of ACSI device 0. That way the emulated DaynaPort can use ID 0 LUN 6, but the drivers see the device as ID 6 LUN 0.
Users of HDDRIVER 12 who would like to test this beta version please send me an email.
July 12, 2024: Data exchange with current Linux versions
Since Linux kernel version 6.0 exchanging data between Linux and TOS with TOS/Windows compatible partitions is rather uncomfortable. A clean solution is a UEFI GUID partition table (GPT) instead of a Master Boot Record (MBR). HDDRUTIL does not yet support creating a GPT partition schema, but until then you can use Linux tools. The HDDRIVER forum provides more information on GUID partition tables and HDDRIVER.
July 6, 2024: SCSI2Pi 3.4 is available
SCSI2Pi improves the performance of the PiSCSI/RaSCSI board and extends the functionality. For the installation/update highly optimized, compact binary packages are available, i.e. in contrast to PiSCSI no time-consuming compilation is required. With the SCSI2Pi client tools the Atari can control SCSI2Pi via the SCSI or ACSI bus. In addition, the tools support SCSI2Pi as a realtime clock and as a network printer for the Atari.
June 21, 2024: HDDRIVER 12.05 is available
The most important changes in this version
- HDDRUTIL: "Edit Partition" now also accepts $00 as boot mask.
- HDDRUTIL: The list of explicitly displayed partition types in the partitioning dialog was extended.
April 3, 2024: HDDRIVER 12.04 is available
The most important changes since HDDRIVER 11
- Manual: The download now includes the up to date English and German manual as PDF.
- HDDRIVER: The SCSI emulation for IDE/SATA drives/memory cards supports all mandatory commands of the SBC-4 specification (SCSI Block Commands).
- HDDRIVER: With TT and Falcon SCSI the SCSI Driver supports 32 LUNs (sub-units) according to the SCSI specification. This SCSI Driver extension is backwards compatible.
- HDDRIVER: The code for initializing the PMMU of the Afterburner040 was extracted into an external program for the AUTO folder and a HDDRIVER module, resp. The README file in the FIXES/AB040MMU folder provides more information.
- HDDRIVER: AB040FIX (FIXES folder) was renamed to ALTRAMFX. It is required for Falcons with Alternate RAM (Afterburner040, DFB1, CT*) in order to use SCSI peripherals. The README file in the FIXES/ALTRAMFX folder provides more information.
- HDDRIVER: The Medusa Txx hardware is no longer supported. The Hades is not affected.
- HDDRIVER: Fixed a bug in the LBA-48 access mode, which is used with IDE/SATA drives > 128 GiB.
- HDDRIVER/HDDRUTIL: With the standard settings HDDRUTIL now installs HDDRIVER without support for the SCSI Driver target interface. This saves about 3 KiB of memory.
- HDDRIVER/HDDRUTIL: Numerous optimizations.
- HDDRUTIL: The device check uses an improved/optimized query of LUNs and now also detects non-consecutive LUNs.
- HDDRUTIL: The new function "Drive->Clear Data" clears the FATs and the root directory of a partition. This is equivalent to deleting all files, but is much faster.
- HDDRUTIL: "Edit Partitions" supports changing the boot mask bit. Together with an explicit boot preference (TOS or TT SVR4) this mask determines which operating system is booted by default. Only the values $00 (not bootable, $80 (bootable TOS) and $40 (bootable TT SVR4) were specified by Atari.
- HDDRUTIL: When copying sectors the current sector number and the total sector count are displayed.
- HDDRUTIL: The "Device Check" dialog now has a scrollbar.
- HDDRUTIL: The sector test after formatting is now optional.
- HDDRUTIL: The HDDRIVER configuration export also lists the HDDRIVER version and the path of the HDDRIVER file.
- HDDRUTIL: The bus information displays whether a SCSI Driver supports 32 LUNs for a bus.
- HDDRUTIL: Various user interface improvements.
- HDDRUTIL: Depending on the bus features the device check now checks for up to 32 LUNs.
- HDDRUTIL: The function "Test Sectors" was renamed to "Read Test" because there is now also a write test for the data of a medium. This test first reads the sectors and then writes them back. Nevertheless it is recommended to save the data before a write test.
February 23, 2024: Bugfix for the STiNG DaynaPort driver
There is a bugfix for the STiNG Daynaport driver. The previous driver caused issues with software using the XHDI protocol and crashed HDDRUTIL. This bug was fixed in the new driver version 0.81.