Messed up, cant get out

[Bikerbob]

Hey Uwe,

I was trying to figure out how to partition my drive now that the virus killed it, so that I would have some MiNT and MagiC partitions and other.

I also have a BlueScsi attached, but was trying to play with how to boot from the SCSI if I wanted. SO I turned off IDE in devices, aka 2.0 and left just the SCSI on. exited and booted, great, I have just SCSI now.. tried to reverse it?? I cant.. no matter what I do I cant get the machine to see the IDE bus now on boot.. It sees the bus and device (on a search) in HDutility, but it does not see it as an active device, and if I turn on 2.0 in devices it does not seem to save it.

SO I have a computer with a 2.0 IDE bus, but on boot it will only see a 1.0 scsi - even if I remove the scsi from the machine, it does not see the IDE.

one more thing - on boot it is reading from the IDE Boot - but its only reading that I want SCSI - not IDE - I cant seem to find a way.. maybe this has to do with WRITE protect?? have I somehow prevented HDutility from changing the boot device on the drive???

SIgh.. what did I do now?

James

[uweseimet]

Please configure HDDRIVER with "Devices and Partitions" or "Auto Configuring" and enable the respective IDE devices. Or use "Reset to Defaults" to reset all settings to the default values. The manual also explains this, and I would like to ask you to read the manual. Please don't get me wrong, but almost everything you are posting in this forum are topics explained in the manual ...
Write protection has nothing to do with the device configuration, by the way. Also note that when you re-configure HDDRIVER.SYS the previous binary is still present as HDDRIVER.OLD. Copying HDDRIVER.OLD to HDDRIVER.SYS restores the previous configuration. You can even export the current configuration as a human-readable text file with "Export Configuration". As a last resort one can always boot from a floppy disk, delete HDDRIVER.SYS and re-install HDDRIVER. Based on an exported configuration it is easy to see what the previous settings have been.

[Bikerbob]

Please configure HDDRIVER with "Devices and Partitions" or "Auto Configuring" and enable the respective IDE devices. Or use "Reset to Defaults" to reset all settings to the default values. The manual also explains this, and I would like to ask you to read the manual. Please don't get me wrong, but almost everything you are posting in this forum are topics explained in the manual ...

I am aware thank you - and I did all that as I explained.. NONE OF THAT WORKED.

Also note that when you re-configure HDDRIVER.SYS the previous binary is still present as HDDRIVER.OLD. Copying HDDRIVER.OLD to HDDRIVER.SYS restores the previous configuration. You can even export the current configuration as a human-readable text file with "Export Configuration". As a last resort one can always boot from a floppy disk, delete HDDRIVER.SYS and re-install HDDRIVER. Based on an exported configuration it is easy to see what the previous settings have been.

NONE of this will work if I cannot get the device and Drive to show up to change the configuration on will it?? how do I write to a drive that the computer cannot see?? I have booted from FLOPPY - IT sees both the SCSI and the IDE, but nothing I do will bring the IDE back to being recognized at boot. IF Devices and Partitions or AUTO Config does not work and if I cannot see the SYS or OLD to copy one to the other.. I cant see the IDE devices except in the Device Search or Autoconfig - it sees it, it sets the correct value, but it does not change anything.. hence my question about Write Protect..

I can make a video and post it on my google drive if your willing to look at it? I could remove the IDE from the computer and put it on a windows PC and wipe it.. It would seem what I did should be reversible thats all.

[Bikerbob]

Just so you know, the only way I was able to fix this was boot with power disconnected to the IDE.

Get into HDutility booted from Floppy - after plugging in power on IDE.

It then finds the IDE device - I partitioned it again.

I was not able to get to the "C" drive any other way to "fix" the .sys

James

[uweseimet]

Disconnecting the drive on boot is something I have already proposed to you in viewtopic.php?t=334.
But as long as you can use the Alternate key to prevent booting from hard disk, it is always possible to launch HDDRIVER.PRG from a floppy, to delete HDDRIVER.SYS (or to de-install HDDRIVER), and then to re-install HDDRIVER. This is the same procedure you do any time when you install HDDRIVER for the first time.
Using "Reset to Defaults" is a better way and also ensures that HDDRIVER.SYS (or the HDDRIVER file selected with "Locate HDDRIVER") uses the default settings.

[Bikerbob]

1.6.10. Edit Partitions
During partitioning for each partition one can choose a partition type different from the standard types. With "Change Partition IDs" you can alter the ID type of a partition subsequently, without losing any data. Additionally you can initialize and, except for Windows compatible partitions, de-activate and activate partitions. De-activated partitions are not visible when booting. The boot mask together with the boot preference determines which operating system (TOS or Atari’s SVR4 UNIX for the TT) is booted. Values specified by Atari are $00 (not bootable) are $80 (bootable TOS partition) and $40 (bootable SRV4 partition).


SO If I have 4 F32 partitions that have a mask of $00 .. according to what I read up there I SHOULD be able to De-activate them when I just want to use TOS for a while - giving me 4 extra drives available for USB media for example.

But if I try and de-activate and save it says invalid boot mask and will not save that. What am I not understanding.. these are not PC compatible.. from what I read up there I can have an F32 TOS. Now I intend to install MiNT - so these partitions will end up being EXT2 .. and the largest remain F32 - but again I have no intention of using them on a PC.. what am I missing - why is my attempt at de-activation not working?

James

[uweseimet]

If you cannot de-active partitions with a mask of $00 this may be a bug in HDDRUTIL. I will verify this, thank you for reporting this problem.

Regarding partition types in general, usually there is no need to manually manipulate anything. This is why HDDRUTIL displays an alert when selecting "Edit Partitions", saying that expert knowledge is required. Except for special ASV (Atari System VR4) scenarios changing the boot mask does not make sense, and may result in boot problems. TOS and ASV are the only operating systems that can directly be booted into. This is different to MiNT and MagiC, where you first boot into TOS and then enable the alternative OS by running a program in the AUTO folder.
For setups where both TOS and ASV are available with HDDRIVER installed you can select the OS to boot by a keystroke.

Regarding F32 partitions, they have nothing to do with EXT2. Nothing will end up being EXT2. I recommend asking a MiNT expert for the correct way to create EXT2 partitions for MiNT. I don't use MiNT, but IMO the right procedure is this:

1. Partition your drive with HDDRUTIL, and for the partitions you want to be EXT2 partitions manually enter "LNX" as partition type. Do not enter any other type mahually. There is no need to change partition types *after* partitioning, just use the required type right from the start.
2. After partitioning you need to run MiNT's mke2fs in order to create valid EXT2 filesystems on the partitions that have the LNX partition ID.

Only for TOS-compatible and F32 partitions HDDRUTIL creates a valid filesystem while partitoning. This means that only these partitions are immediately ready for use. HDDRUTIL automatically creates an F32 partition (unless you manually specifiy a type) when the partition size is bigger than supported by TOS. This way, users of MagiC or MiNT who want to use FAT32 partitions do not have to do anything else but partition their drive with HDDRUTIL.
If you enter a partition type manually (export knowledge required) you need to know how to correctly initialize these partitions, e.g. with mke2fs or the ASV tools, otherwise the partition is useless.

[Bikerbob]

Thanks Uwe, I was asking MiNT people and they were saying make RAW, I said I cant.. they said I should be. Somone Mentioned that maybe you have changed RAW to LNX.

Is there a list of valid Partition TYPES? I dont find any in the manual?

James

[uweseimet]

I guess that both RAW (see the XHDI specificiation for details) and LNX work for MiNT. LNX is more adequate for ext2 partitions, but maybe it just works for Linux-68k. Other well-defined non-TOS types are F32, MIX (Minix) and UNX (Atari's ASV). Just a note for experts: UNX partitions are just wrappers that reserve disk space for ASV, which has its own proprietary partition table inside the reserved area. The ASV tool "setvtoc" can set up this partition table.

You can manually enter "RAW" when partitioning like any other type. I repeat that there is no need for changing a type. Enter the required type when partitioning. You can enter any ID string when partitioning, but only the well-defined types usually make sense.
For DOS-compatible media using the type $83 might also work for MiNT. In this case the ext2 partition would not only be compatible with MiNT but also with Linux, e.g. for exchanging data, provided the correct byte-order is used. (Byte-order considerations are the same as with TOS partitions because they depend on the hardware, i.e. ACSI/SCSI or IDE, not on the partition types.) Once again, ask somebody familiar with MiNT if you want to know more. In case MiNT does not support this type it might be a good idea to add support for it in order to have an additional means of exchanging data between Ataris and PCs.

Regarding the boot mask I can confirm that $00 does not work, even though it should. I will fix that with the next release. A simple work-around is to use any other valid mask except $40 or $80 instead. As long as there is a regular boot partition for TOS or ASV before the affected partition the type does not even matter. The effective boot partition is always the first bootable partition where the boot mask matches the boot preference (if configured) in the NVRAM. Ataris without NVRAM can only directly boot TOS, but they do not support ASV anyway.

[Bikerbob]

I am sorry Uwe, I am reading and trying to learn.. you say any other valid mask besides $80 (TOS BOOT) $40 (ASV) and $00... which currently does not work, but in the manual the word "mask" appears once - where you define those 3 types.. SO what other valid mask is there?