SxSI-SCSI HDD Image v2.20

[incrediblehark]

\\\ CURRENT VERSION: 2.20 \\\

Sharp X68000 SxSI-SCSI HDD Image v2.20 by incrediblehark:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ldCoBTb1Nq_9NzeifnANbuMIZqU6OOU3/view?usp=sharing

- CURRENT VERSION CHANGES -

v2.20 - (Special thanks to danham for the following contributions!)
   Updated Marble Magic to v2.00
   Updated Moon Soldier 2 to v1.01
   Added Marmalade Bomb
   Added Tiny Golf
   Added Xadlak Plus

   Created Install Guide PDF RevA.
   Added Pixel Works v1,00 to Tools\Graphics folder
   Added Fonts from IOCS Font 200 Shotai Disk to C:\FONT folder.
   Updated Music folder with more options for playback
   Added more MIDI files in .MID format
   Fixed MIDI playback for MMDSP (Thanks armitage!)
   Fixed Super Hang On loading issues, added note for 31khz mode
   Updated SFXVI
   Updated Chacha Fighter V to v1.21
   Updated First Crisis to 1.0
   Updated Knight Arena to 1996 version
   Updated Moon Fighter to version 2.11
   Removed ZMUSIC from Multimedia to save space
    (Will bring back in future release when I expand HDD)
   
   Added the following games:
   AMS
   Battle Submarine 9
   Bilingal
   Celcion
   Cliss
   Demon Slayer 1 & 2
   Full Furious
   Full Furious II
   Galaxy a go go
   Ignorance
   Jan-Pa
   Last Force - The Virtual Battle In 1930's
   Liberty Half
   Liberty Half Grade Up
   Magic Knights Rayearth
   Magical Panic 0.5
   Magical Panic!?
   Magical Shoot
   Mai (Dancing Mai)
   Metal Unit 1.0A
   My Eyes
   Neko Taiyaki
   Nervous Blackjack
   Proto-Link
   Prototype Shadow
   Quiz Warrior
   Real
   Sailor V Game
   SD Dondam
   SD Z Dondam
   Senshasen
   Shanghai II
   Shooting Stars
   Tatakae! Konyanko
   Tatakae! Konyanko EX
   Tekken Seisai
   Teruhime
   Vagrant Fighter
   Waku Waku Hime-chan
   XAX
   Yamihime


ABOUT THIS IMAGE

This HDD image borrows a lot of themes introduced by Shoometsu in his excellent
X68030 HDD image. I used their v20221004 disk image as my starting point and
inspiration, as I really admired their work. Shoometsu put in all the effort
to set up Autoexec.bat, Config.sys and the !Start.bat into something that was
well organized, clean and professional looking. Using their format, I was able to
learn a lot about LHES, the Human68k OS, and the batch scripting process. I decided
to merge what I could from all of the HDD images, along with adding a large amount
of new content and expanding the size of the image to 3GB. It really has evolved a
great deal since I started. My goal has been to create the definitve HDD image for
all SxSI and SCSI machines, with games and software that just works "Out of the box."

Some features of this HDD Image:
   
    - 3GB total size - the current maximum without data corruption
    - Patched HUMAN.SYS by HUYE - allows for proper drive mapping
    - Bootable on SxSI and SCSI X68000 machines
    - Bootable on X68000 machines with faulty floppy drives
    - Added new game installations of my own. You will find a lot of new content
      added that are not in other public images.
    - Added some SX-Window games to X68 folder, set up !SXWindow.BAT to run
      within LHES.
    - Added KO Windows environment
    - Added some floppy disk games that couldn't be installed as 2hd files
      for writing to actual floppies.
      (Batch scripts created to ease the process)
    - Re-organized games into new folders based on genre.
      This was in response to feedback from users on NFG Forums
    - Sorted  games into series collections with batch scripting
      to select a game.
    - Created new LOGO images to go along with Shoometsu's red X68030 logo.
      Check README.TXT for details.
    - All games in LHES are bootable by going into the game folder
      containing !Start.bat and quitting to the command prompt.
      ('Q' then 'Q' again)
      The exception is Phalanx which must be started within LHES by running
      !Start.bat.

Feel free to use this image in any way you wish. Any new content I added is
welcome to be shared, added to your own image or distributed however you'd like
among the X68K community, as long as there is no monetary gain involved.
Any feedback is welcomed and appreciated.
I hope you enjoy using this HDD image as much as I have enjoyed building it!


Thanks to eidis, caius, shoometsu and everyone else who has been keeping the X68000 scene going with game fixes, releases and other development!

NOTE: Install Guide is attached below, and included in the HDD Image .zip file

[aotta]

@incrediblehark you did a really incredible job! i'm playing your image with my expert HD and it's working fine with all (few TBH) games i tested since now.
I only add a couple of DRIVE commands to your autoexec.bat since i had a second HDA image in my SDCARD, so floppy drive wasn't correctly assigned.
It's great to have a 2GB image full of games, and i love the way you sorted them (i didn't like to search every time in the game2, 3 etc. folders!).
Thank you again!

[incrediblehark]

Hey thanks for the feedback, and glad it's working well for you so far! Let me know if you come across any issues.

[X-Col]

Thank you for this, must have been a LOT of work!

Loving most of the installs, however, I like some of the ones on my drive better.

i.e. Lagoon on yours does not allow saving of progress.

I might copy some of mine to your image.


Anyway, thanks again. :-)

[incrediblehark]

Hmm I'll have to go back and test it again, because I thought I had saving working for it with 2hdboot, as I was planning to play through and wanted to make sure. I'll see about changing to a full hdd install when I'm back to my computer

[X-Col]

Hmm I'll have to go back and test it again, because I thought I had saving working for it with 2hdboot, as I was planning to play through and wanted to make sure. I'll see about changing to a full hdd install when I'm back to my computer

It may be because mine is a SASI machine (overclocked ACE HD). I used 2HDSIM and it lets you save game fine.
I have Hard Disk installs of Wordsworth, DragonKnight4, New Zealand Story that work fine on my SASI machine, but fail on my SCSI machine (Compact).

I did use 2hdboot to install Granada and it doesn't crash during the intro.

So probably nothing you have done, just installs that work better on my machine :-)

Thanks again for the HD Image!

[SuperDeadite]

2hdboot loads images as write protected.  You can never save to disk when using it. 

Wordsworth, Dragon Knight 3, 4 have their own hdd installers.  They will happily install to scsi devices and not require any disks to boot once installed.  At least from original disks anyway. 

Granada's intro tends to crash when using MIDI.  Not an issue with FM.

[incrediblehark]

Ah, I was thinking that using + instead of - for the 2hdboot switch would allow saving to disk, as long as the disk was writable. Either way I'd prefer 2hdsim and will correct it for my next release.

Most games that could be installed on hdd were, I believe dragon knight 3 is one of them, along with overtake, and the ultima games to name a few more. I'm still away from my computer but when I get back home I'll get back to work on the image!

[amazin]

I'll try your image soon. Hopefully on yours Overtake (F1 Racing Game) is working. On mine it keeps asking for System disk in drive A, perhaps the game can be installed normally (with the built in installer) but having a virtual System disk mounted for checks.

Anyways, thanks for your work!

[incrediblehark]

Just got back from vacation and made the fix to Lagoon. Updated image in 1st post. I'll finish my initial run of testing (last folder of games) and go back through and start converting as many 2hdboot games as I can while still maintaining compatibility. Any other requests are welcome.

I'll try your image soon. Hopefully on yours Overtake (F1 Racing Game) is working. On mine it keeps asking for System disk in drive A, perhaps the game can be installed normally (with the built in installer) but having a virtual System disk mounted for checks.

Anyways, thanks for your work!

Sorry, just read this. Thank you! And yes overtake does work, I did the HDD install and went from there.

[3rdman01]

I love this image! I was working on one myself but this works far better than what I have. The only complaint I can leverage is that I cant find Gradius II. Perhaps I am blind but not a big deal as I can add it in myself.

By the way, I'm running it on an Expert II SASI machine without issue. Great work and thank you!

[cageman]

Great stuff! Stupid question: WinImage can't open the file after changing its extension to ima.

Managed to write the image using HDDGuru.  Now only to get it booted using an external BlueSCSI. No luck so far.

[incrediblehark]

I love this image! I was working on one myself but this works far better than what I have. The only complaint I can leverage is that I cant find Gradius II. Perhaps I am blind but not a big deal as I can add it in myself.

By the way, I'm running it on an Expert II SASI machine without issue. Great work and thank you!

Thank you for the feedback! And Gradius II is there, but the paths needed to be renamed in the series folder since I disabled vtwentyone. Thank you for the heads up, it has been fixed and I will upload a new revision later today.

Great stuff! Stupid question: WinImage can't open the file after changing its extension to ima.

Managed to write the image using HDDGuru.  Now only to get it booted using an external BlueSCSI. No luck so far.

Strange, it is working fine for me with Winimage on Windows 10. renamed the .hds extension to .ima, and sectected the drop down box "Image File .ima" and it shows up to write to the drive.

[3rdman01]

Great stuff! Stupid question: WinImage can't open the file after changing its extension to ima.

Managed to write the image using HDDGuru.  Now only to get it booted using an external BlueSCSI. No luck so far.

https://win32diskimager.org/
I use this...no need to rename anything. Just select the file and write the image.

Looking forward to the new image! Quick question, if you don't mind...OVERTAKE appears twice (one in the "Games" folder and another on the root of the drive). Are they both necessary for operation?

On another note, thanks again! I finally can get through the bosses in HellHound...for whatever reason, the copy I had would glitch out at the first boss making it impossible to proceed. Thank you!

[X-Col]

I transferred your 1st release to my 3GB HD because there is no room on this image for all my music MDX files. So I'll have to make these changes manually as it took AGES!

Also, none of the Wolf Team audio fixes have been applied so I modified the relevant files - https://vgmrips.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3448

[hyrulebr]

Nice work!

[3rdman01]

I may have found another minor issue...launching the Memtest68K in TOOLS launches the disk writer/formater. Not a big deal of course.

Been playing more and more with this image and I really love it. Thank you!

[incrediblehark]

I may have found another minor issue...launching the Memtest68K in TOOLS launches the disk writer/formater. Not a big deal of course.

Been playing more and more with this image and I really love it. Thank you!

Thank you! And to answer your questions... OVERTAKE folder on C: is for the HDD install, I have the paths set to that when launching the game. I recommend installing my current version as I made minor changes to games folders.

memtest68k is meant to be written to a floppy and booted. I think MTEST is the tool you may be thinking of, and it is on there as well.

I transferred your 1st release to my 3GB HD because there is no room on this image for all my music MDX files. So I'll have to make these changes manually as it took AGES!

Also, none of the Wolf Team audio fixes have been applied so I modified the relevant files - https://vgmrips.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3448

Thank you! I didn't realize these existed. Those particular games on my image have been fixed now, and image has been updated. I recommend anyone who used 1.05 or 1.06 to install this version as I fixed a lot of things, and will be current version for a while as I add more games and do another round of playtesting on actual hardware.

[amazin]

"Somehow" this 2GB image works even on my X68000 Pro with SASI -> SxSI !!!

I thought the limit was 1016MB per partition on the SxSI machines, how did you do that?

Thanks for the hard work!

[3rdman01]

FYI Phalanx doesn't to work (for me) on the latest build. It's the same result in an emulator.

[incrediblehark]

Phalanx is the one game that needs to be started within LHES, does it still not work when running !Start.bat?

[3rdman01]

Phalanx is the one game that needs to be started within LHES, does it still not work when running !Start.bat?

OMG you are right...its even in the readme. Doh!

[ateam]

I just wanted to report in. I'm using a Henkan Bancho Pro on an Expert with 6MB RAM, and so far, so good!

Originally, I experienced heavy slowdown when testing this image out.  However, it turned out that I needed to reformat my CFs to FAT32 with the smallest possible cluster size of 32kb, which also seems to be the recommended size for 4GB flash media in general.

Everything is as smooth as butter now.  Looking forward to testing this image out some more!  I'm also likely going to try my hand at adding the latest update of ChoRenSha68k to the image.

For those who haven't seen it:
https://yosshin4004.github.io/x68k/crs68k/official/index.html

Thanks so much for the great HDD image, incrediblehark

EDIT 2023-07-04: I got the v1.10 update of ChoRenSha68k working. It's just an easy import of the new files. There could be redundant or unnecessary files, but these are the ones I omitted:
-CRS68K.BAT (obviously)
-MCDRV068.x
-minimdcp.x

EDIT 2023-07-05: Because of 2hdboot needing to load contents of floppies into RAM, I've discovered that my 6MB is insufficient for at least one game: Valis II.  As a result, I've got an 8MB card coming (I figure this is the first game I discovered of perhaps many). Worth it!

[incrediblehark]

Awesome! Great to hear its working! I'll see about updating ChoRensha for the next release....

Speaking of, I'm hoping to have a new revision out soon. Amazin has shown me a patch to HUMAN.SYS that allows floppy drives to take priority, so no need to use many DRIVE commands to rearrange letters. It should also allow booting the HDD without any working floppy drives installed. That is all set and I have added some new games. I'm working on an expanded HDD version if possible with music added, as I have almost met the limit for free space on the current drive.

[ateam]

I'll see about updating ChoRensha for the next release...

Excellent. It's actually come to my attention that the music has been slightly altered in this new release. I personally don't mind it, and the graphics upgrade makes the whole thing worth it to me. However, you may want to consider including both versions, or even see about restoring original music?

Your call, but I figured I'd bring it to your attention.

EDIT: Wanted to also report that I can't get "Bonanza Brothers" to boot, either from prompt shortcut (QQ) or from LHES directly.

[kanjiology]

I'll see about updating ChoRensha for the next release...

Excellent. It's actually come to my attention that the music has been slightly altered in this new release. I personally don't mind it, and the graphics upgrade makes the whole thing worth it to me. However, you may want to consider including both versions, or even see about restoring original music?

Your call, but I figured I'd bring it to your attention.

EDIT: Wanted to also report that I can't get "Bonanza Brothers" to boot, either from prompt shortcut (QQ) or from LHES directly.

Also Bonanza Bros does not work on a real machine. It did not load on the V4 image either.
See: https://nfggames.com/forum2/index.php?topic=4394.msg30311#msg30311

Maybe someone can take a crack at it.

[incrediblehark]

Thanks for the heads up ateam! I have just added both versions to my current build, and will be released as soon as I'm finished testing (hopefully next few days).

I can also confirm that Bonanza Bros. is working fine on my HDD image yet to be released using 2hdsim on an XVI system. What issues are you having? I was able to play through a few levels with no problem.

EDIT: Just want to add that if this is a hardware specific problem I'll include the disk images in the FloppyGames folder for writing to real disks

[kanjiology]

Thanks for the heads up ateam! I have just added both versions to my current build, and will be released as soon as I'm finished testing (hopefully next few days).

I can also confirm that Bonanza Bros. is working fine on my HDD image yet to be released using 2hdsim on an XVI system. What issues are you having? I was able to play through a few levels with no problem.

EDIT: Just want to add that if this is a hardware specific problem I'll include the disk images in the FloppyGames folder for writing to real disks

It gets stuck while loading the game.

I had @ateam test and he ran into the same issue.

He was using a Expert, and I a Pro.

[dankcomputing]

I noticed that GOVERHD is on this image, and it's one partition that's 2GB in size. What's the actual HD/partition size celing when GOVERHD is in play?

[3rdman01]

Thanks for the heads up ateam! I have just added both versions to my current build, and will be released as soon as I'm finished testing (hopefully next few days).

I can also confirm that Bonanza Bros. is working fine on my HDD image yet to be released using 2hdsim on an XVI system. What issues are you having? I was able to play through a few levels with no problem.

EDIT: Just want to add that if this is a hardware specific problem I'll include the disk images in the FloppyGames folder for writing to real disks

It gets stuck while loading the game.

I had @ateam test and he ran into the same issue.

He was using a Expert, and I a Pro.

I have the same issue...Me with an Expert SASI.

[incrediblehark]

I noticed that GOVERHD is on this image, and it's one partition that's 2GB in size. What's the actual HD/partition size celing when GOVERHD is in play?

I am not sure of actual ceiling, but after discussing with X-Col who had been working with a 3GB image, that seems to be the max limit before corruption occurs. I think there was documentation stating somewhere that the start of a partition has to fall within the first 1016 MB to be bootable when patching with GOVERHD. In my new upcoming HDD image I have a 3000MB total drive set up with 3 partitions, the 1st Partition being my boot drive and 1000MB.

Thanks for the heads up ateam! I have just added both versions to my current build, and will be released as soon as I'm finished testing (hopefully next few days).

I can also confirm that Bonanza Bros. is working fine on my HDD image yet to be released using 2hdsim on an XVI system. What issues are you having? I was able to play through a few levels with no problem.

EDIT: Just want to add that if this is a hardware specific problem I'll include the disk images in the FloppyGames folder for writing to real disks

It gets stuck while loading the game.

I had @ateam test and he ran into the same issue.

He was using a Expert, and I a Pro.

Thank you both for testing out Bonanza Bros. As it is working on mine I think it may be related to hardware differences. If you set boot mode to 2hdboot does that allow the game to work? I'll see what I can do to solve your problem but will be tough to test as I don't own a SASI machine. Either way I will set up in the floppy games folder as an all else fails workaround for the time being.

[X-Col]

I noticed that GOVERHD is on this image, and it's one partition that's 2GB in size. What's the actual HD/partition size celing when GOVERHD is in play?

Yeh, incrediblehark and I were discussing this. The maximum partition size is 2GB before corruption occurs and a maximum of 2 partitions are allowed with GOVERHD. However (like incrediblehark says) the 1st partition has to be 1GB or less,  otherwise the second partition is not recognised. This amounts to a 3GB maximum hard drive size. This is what I have been using now for years without problems.

As for Bonanza Bros, it works fine on my ACE HD & XVI Compact using incrediblehark's image.

[ateam]

If you set boot mode to 2hdboot does that allow the game to work?

I gave this a try on my Expert and received a message saying an error occurred, asking me to reset. The Japanese message may or may not have been generated by the game software itself.

[incrediblehark]

Updated to current version 1.10! This is a large update and most likely last one for a while...

Please report any issues you encounter with using this image, and send me any requests! I'll do my best to add them to the HDD image.

If anyone knows of a method for loading system device drivers in a different area of ram at boot (if possible) I'd be interested in learning how to implement it.

[X-Col]

Updated to current version 1.10! This is a large update and most likely last one for a while...

Please report any issues you encounter with using this image, and send me any requests! I'll do my best to add them to the HDD image.

If anyone knows of a method for loading system device drivers in a different area of ram at boot (if possible) I'd be interested in learning how to implement it.

Excellent incrediblehark, well done!

Just one issue so far, Bosconian has to use 2HDBOOT otherwise the graphics get corrupted.

Again, amazing work!! :-)

Update: Naious: I notice that there is no PCM sound (drums etc) in the intro music, and it seems to be messed up in the interlude sequences. How the heck you managed to get it to install to HD at all is a mystery to me!
Upd 2: This was on my ACE, but notice that there is PCM in the intro using emulation (although still messed up in the interludes). Will give it a try on my Compact...
Upd 3: Fixed it! Substitute PCM8.X with ADPCM1.X from Street Fighter II and it works perfectly :-)

[kamiboy]

Regarding the sxsi drivers. I wonder whether it is possible to make an image that has a sxsi compatible partition that can boot on sasi machines without the sxsi drivers, and all it does is clear sram, then ibstall the SXSI driver and reboot the machine, at which time the fully fledged a scsi 2gb partition is booted into.

This would be very useful for sasi machines that have broken floppy drives or sasi machines that are not used long enough for the sram batteries to run out of juice.

I believe some sasi machines were made with internal tiny hard drives before the scsi machines hit the market. So technically this might be possible?

[incrediblehark]

Updated to current version 1.10! This is a large update and most likely last one for a while...

Please report any issues you encounter with using this image, and send me any requests! I'll do my best to add them to the HDD image.

If anyone knows of a method for loading system device drivers in a different area of ram at boot (if possible) I'd be interested in learning how to implement it.

Excellent incrediblehark, well done!

Just one issue so far, Bosconian has to use 2HDBOOT otherwise the graphics get corrupted.

Again, amazing work!! :-)

Update: Naious: I notice that there is no PCM sound (drums etc) in the intro music, and it seems to be messed up in the interlude sequences. How the heck you managed to get it to install to HD at all is a mystery to me!
Upd 2: This was on my ACE, but notice that there is PCM in the intro using emulation (although still messed up in the interludes). Will give it a try on my Compact...
Upd 3: Fixed it! Substitute PCM8.X with ADPCM1.X from Street Fighter II and it works perfectly :-)

Thanks for testing this out and reporting the issues, and for the Naious fix! I'll update my image this afternoon for anyone downloading it after this message.
UPDATE: X-Col's fixes applied and image re-uploaded. No need to redownload if you don't want as all fixes are within the original hdd image.

Kamiboy:

I really like the idea and I think this could be possible. I know the 2mb partition I have at the end has to be there to allow systems without working floppy drives to boot, but maybe we can add a small 2mb at the beginning to initialize the SxSI drivers for those SASI machines with busted drives. The hang ups might be how many partitions we can get away with on the image before corruption, and then writing the script to automate the process. The autoexec.bat would most likely need checks in place (if sram contains the driver, goto normal startup sequence).

I wasn't smart enough to figure out how to initiate a dos call to reboot from within the bat file, or look for a small program to accomplish this.

The other problem would be in setting the boot flag to your main drive. You could either just direct to start up in your sysdrv or gamedrv like I have or use the boot selector at machine start and select how you want your system to start.

An alternative could be to create a small HDD bootable of the master disk that will work on machines with bad floppies and swap out the sd card with the full hdd image when finished.

Just some thoughts, I'd like this to be accessible to as many people as possible so I'm definitely willing to experiment, but will need people to test on their hardware as well.

[HIggy]

Thanks @incrediblehark , great work.

I have this running on my first model X68000 on BlueSCSI V1, just renamed file on microSD no other changes needed.

I see it boots to D:, can I access C: when it boots up to try music etc?

I know I can quit out of LHES to DOS and CD to folder etc, but I like navigating via LHES menu.

Also what is difference between !Start and !Gamestart? - ah I see I should be Q and Q to start game, so should probably ignore ! Gamestart

[incrediblehark]

Glad to hear it's working for you! Yes I have it set to start on the D drive, just press L in LHES to select the drive you want to access.

If you'd rather have it boot to C when starting up, edit your Autoexec.bat to remove or REM the command at the bottom of the batch file %GAMEDRV% right above the LHES command

Note: !GameStart in some folders was just me cheating with long batch files to launch some games. If you use !Start.bat it will actually run the !Gamestart for that game.

[incrediblehark]

If you set boot mode to 2hdboot does that allow the game to work?

I gave this a try on my Expert and received a message saying an error occurred, asking me to reset. The Japanese message may or may not have been generated by the game software itself.

@ateam  I think I know the problem:

In the batch file, the setup for 2hdboot uses the -A argument, when it should be set to -a. Try editing your !Start.bat  to look like this:

SET BOOT_MODE=2hdboot

(down to Boot mode statements)

IF BOOT_MODE == 2hdboot SET BOOT_PARAMS=2 -a DISK_1.XDF -b DISK_2.XDF 99

I also was missing -b DISK_2.XDF in the script.

This should allow the game to boot on your non-SCSI machine with 2hdboot. The upper case A is a SCSI specific argument, to be honest I never could get it to work on my own SCSI machine so all 2hdboot games I switched to the lower case letters, I just never fixed it with with Bonanza Bros because the game worked with 2hdsim for me.

Reuploading image with this fix in place, download my new v1.10 and try this out for me when you get a chance!