[Coco] Using HDB-DOS for DriveWire 3
Tim Fadden
t.fadden at cox.net
Sat May 9 17:22:58 EDT 2009
N8WQ wrote:
> Yes, I would like to have a blank .vhd image. I don't know what
> size to shoot for though. As you can probably tell I am a newbie at
> this. :)
>
> O. Alan Jones
>
I am thinking that the /x? drivers supplied is a specific size, but I am
not sure. The way I did it was to first use dmode to modify /x0 for the
number of sectors I wanted. Saved it, and made a new os9boot with the
new descriptor. You could also use cobbler. Then I used the toolshed
tool os9 to create an image with the same number of sectors as I had in
the /x0 descriptor. This may not be required. I can mount the image I
created on one of the unmodified /x? and it works just the same.
If you tell me exactly what size disk etc, you want. I could create it,
or give you vague instructions and make you figure it out, :-) or exact
instructions in which you would learn less. he he he
With the toolshed program os9, you can make images that only have the
allocation table, and grow as you put data on it, or create file the
full size from the beginning. They seem to work the same to me, but I
was told that you must create it full size. So far I have not found this
to be true.
Here is a way to create a disk image without using the toolshed tools:
Boot into os9 with the nitros09DW3 image in /x0.
Then on the Drive Wire Server, select an empty floppy say, /x3. Instead
of selecting a file to mount, select type as os9, and type in a file
name of your choice, say, newdisk. the server will create the file
newdisk.os9
Now from os9, try a dir on /x3 you should get a 253 error "Non-Shareable
file busy"
Now type in: format /x3
........ Follow the prompts, and do both a physical and verify
format. If you watch the drive wire server interface, you can see the
read/write to the file, and you can watch the file on the pc grow in
size as it goes along.
It will take a while, but when done, you will have a new blank disk
image of about 8.3 meg . If you want a different size, use dmode on the
/x? you are formating, beforehand, and it will be the size you specify.
I could not find any of this documented, but it seems to work just fine.
P.S. don't get hung up on the .vhd extension. I have used .dsk, and
.os9 for the image extensions, and they both work the same with Drive
Wire anyway. I finally ended up using .os9 for the standard, as that is
what it is.
If you have any questions, feel free.
Tim Fadden
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