[Coco] Need help using ram drive as default drive

[Vanderberg Family]

Thanks for responding.

I seem to have misled all of you.  I will try again.

I am not in a position to buy a hard drive controller so I am faking it in a very small way with ramdisk.

Goal - ramdisk as default drive so help and error files work quickly enough to be of use and /d0 not required as it is my work disk (80t 720k).  /d1 is mostly used to quickly load ramdisk with prebuilt ram disk images.  At this time I routinely use 3 images (from diff floppies).  #1=CMDS, SYS, et.,  #2=Basic09 stuff I don't want wasting space on ram drive normally and #3=Game & App stuff when diff config is required.  So in essence I have a ram-based hard drive which can be quickly reloaded with the appropriate image.  Normally of course it contains CMDS, SYS, etc.  Also provides a way to retain some data through boot for use in another config.  Reminds me of one I used years ago with small scsi drives mounted in removable trays - swap a drive & it is a whole diff machine.

There have been several answers assuming requirements beyond what I am trying to do (interesting ideas, though).
On cold boot I format ram drive and restore the CMDS-SYS image from /d1, chx /r0/cmds and i'm hot.
On warm boot I only need to chx /r0 and there we are.
This all works fine and saves me a lot of frustration.  The only flaw is not having helpmsg & errmsg - Boo.
Mention was made of actually booting to ram disk for warm boots (Would love to if possible - call that phase 2).
Someone also suggested prepopulating ramdisk in rsdos (OK, way beyond my skills and maybe overkill? like the idea, though).  However, just using ram drive as default, not necessarily boot, is all I really need.  Sounds easy.  Not for me - see below.

Also, to answer, I use cobbler only to reflect dmoded changes to the current boot disk.  Sysgo in memory crept in when I started over with stock standard.bl without quite enough attention (too much coffee I am afraid)
Using os9gen and your standard.bl (with mods for my hardware, of course) to create boot disk - works fine - boots fine as above.
Problem comes in when I comment /ddd0 and enable /ddr0 in standard.bl. - making only that change, My boot fails with >>>>> Pipe Clock Clock2 i2xtot*g

I tried the above stock and also after copying /r0_192k.dd to /ddr0_192k.dd and using ded to modify the R0 reference to DD (44 C4 - correct?) to try to avoid the expected /ddr0 choke on the preexisting /r0 with diff format.  Did this make sense to you?

In other words, I am trying to change a working standard.bl to use the /ddr0 descriptor from the distrib disk.
So, my question is what needs to be done in addition to selecting the /ddr0 descriptor in order to enable ram drive as default?  If I am thinking correctly, that change will achieve all I have described.  THEN I can think about /r0 as a boot device on warm boots - another question for another day.

And again I thank you and all others for the help.
Ed



-----Original Message-----
>From: "Boisy G. Pitre" <boisy at tee-boy.com>
>Sent: Jun 22, 2011 4:30 AM
>To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
>Subject: Re: [Coco] Need help using ram drive as default drive
>
>Robert/Ed,
>
>I read the posts subsequent to my initial post.  Yes, by using a RAM disk, data persists as long as the CoCo is not turned completely off, in which case, the process of copying all needed files to the RAM disk must be done again.
>
>Assuming your RAM disk was volatile, or that you didn't mind copying files each time you rebooted, you would need, as Robert indicated, to use the ram disk booter.
>
>Ed, I highly suggest that you abandon the use of cobbler and look at Disk 2 of the NitrOS-9 disk set.  It has scripts to all the work of creating a track file and a boot file, and your customization can be done there.  For starters, see this link:
>
>http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/nitros9/index.php?title=Getting_Started_with_NitrOS-9#Customizing_Your_System
>
>It explains how to customize your system using this scripting process.
>
>
>--
>Boisy G. Pitre
>http://www.tee-boy.com/
>
>On Jun 22, 2011, at 7:19 AM, Robert Gault wrote:
>
>> Vanderberg Family wrote:
>> 
>>> I boot to NitOS9 from /d0
>>> Format /r0 and then backup /d1 to /r0 from a prebuilt ram disk image with CMDS, SYS, sysgo, startup, etc.
>>> chx /r0/cmds
>>> 
>> 
>> Ed,
>> 
>> OK, now that makes sense. It also means that any reboot problems which then occur without turning off the system are the result of the wrong modules in the OS9Boot file on /r0 (but see below). Any problems with programs going to /d0 for information are the result of those programs being hard coded for /d0.
>> 
>> You must set up the /r0 disk so that the boot module on track 34 reads from /r0 not /d0. You should make the /dd descriptor module on /r0 be identical to the descriptor for /r0 except with an internal name of /dd. Modules Init and Sysgo can stay as they are as long as they refer to /dd and /dd is now /r0.
>> 
>> There is one other problem which you seem to have solved but not stated how. If you were to boot from /d0 and then backup /d1 to /r0, any reboot would have the /d0 data in memory and you would not be making use of /r0 for rebooting.
>> 
>> There are two ways around that problem. You could use a utility to change the Boot module in memory so that it accessed /r0. You could start a RAM disk from Basic and boot from the RAM disk rather than /d0.
>> 
>> The above can give you clues for solving the problems yourself. The only way to get more exact answers would be to make available your /r0 disk so others could test it.
>> 
>> --
>> Coco mailing list
>> Coco at maltedmedia.com
>> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>
>
>--
>Coco mailing list
>Coco at maltedmedia.com
>http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco


________________________________________
PeoplePC Online
A better way to Internet
http://www.peoplepc.com