ICD > HDDRIVER Falcon CF card

[jwd]

Brief history :

Bought Falcon from new in the 90s from System solution + HDDRIVER 4.xx.

Fast forward to nowish, Falcon HD dead, replaced with CF card, used latest ICD Pro (to partition) as HDDRIVER 4.xx didn't work, had floppy disk backup (sloow) of HD so is now fully restored on CF card.

Before I upgrade to HDDRIVER 11 can I install HDDRIVER 11 instead of ICD drivers on my current CF card WITHOUT destroying any data on my CF card?

If so, how (just so i'm confident in this before purchase)?

Many thanks

James

[uweseimet]

Hi James,

This depends on whether you partitioned your drive with a very old ICD version or not. Very old versions (I cannot tell how old) did not use an Atari compatible partitioning scheme when there were more than 4 partitions, and in this case you should not install HDDRIVER.
What you can do in order for some testing, just start HDDRIVER 11 from a floppy disk. This will at least point out whether there would be any fundamental issues.
In general, and not just because you are going to install a different driver, you should back up your data. Just like a regular hard disk drive, your CF card might fail. You should consider copying your data to a another memory card, with a second memory card adapter as the IDE slave device.

[jwd]

The CF card was partitioned with ICD Pro utils 6.55 Pro (1994) basically the last one they did so as new as ICD gets.

I only have HDDRIVER 4.xx so would like to upgrade to HDDRIVER 11.

Assuming my CF card is using a compatible partitioning scheme how would i actually replace (the individual steps required) the ICD auto boot with HDDRIVER auto boot?

thanks

[uweseimet]

I suggest that as a first step you just test everything with the HDDRIVER 11 demo version, which you can download on the HDDRIVER website. There'll you also find installation instructions. By installing HDDRIVER any other bootable driver will automatically be disabled. The demo has some limitations, of course, which are listed on the demo version page.

[jwd]

I took the plunge and purchased my upgraded version, was seamless like you said :)

1. HD Booted with ICD
2. Ran HDDRIVER.prg
3. Ran HDUTIL.prg
4. Double-clicked on C: drive and installed HDDRIVER (wouldn't save first time as I had my old 4.xx HDDRIVER.SYS still on C: drive, renamed old .sys file and worked fine).
5. Rebooted, voila ICD gone now boots with HDDRIVER v11.01 and all data intact.

So thanks again.

One very minor point, the ICD booter changed the resolution to 16 colours 80 columns on my Falcon when it booted (as NVRAM dead) I don't suppose there is an option in HDDRIVER to do the same?

[uweseimet]

Hi,

I'm afraid there is no such option in HDDRIVER, because a hard disk driver should not interfere with settings like that. There might be programs for the AUTO folder, though, which can deal with that. I suggest that you check one of the general purpose internet forums for assistance. An alternative desktop, e.g. Thing, might also be able to change the resolution during desktop startup.

[jwd]

Yes it was a gimmick tbh, maybe it will kick me to fix the NVRAM, its not like we don't have alot of time at home atm!

Just one other question, what does the dot (.) to the left of the drive/device sections represent? Some of my partitions have a dot to the left of the drive letter some do not.

I suppose you don't have a pdf version of your manual for download or is it only full hard copy only?

thanks

[uweseimet]

No, just as the HDDRIVER website says, there is no digital version of the manual.

The "." to the left of a drive says that this is a primary partition where you can install a hard disk driver on. TOS can only boot hard disk drivers from primary partitions.

The "." to the left of a device says that this is a device that can fully be managed by HDDRIVER, which is the case in particular for mass storage devices (hard disk, memory card, DVD-RAM, MOD, DVD/BD writer, ...) where you can create partitions on etc. Any other device can be managed by HDDRIVER's SCSI Driver, but these devices are usually no mass storage devices. They might be streamers, for instance, which require a third party driver, which can make use of HDDRIVER's SCSI Driver to send SCSI/IDE/SATA... commands.

Please see the SCSI Driver page for details on the SCSI Driver interface. HDDRUTIL can manage any device for which a SCSI Driver is available (i.e. has been started before HDDRUTIL). HDDRIVER can manage any mass storage device for which a SCSI Driver has been started before HDDRIVER. This also covers USB mass storage devices. HDDRIVER modules provide for drivers being installed even before HDDRIVER is started. See the HDDRIVER modules page for detail.s

[jwd]

Many thanks for the explanation.