Some HDD related newbie questions

[spud]

So, now that I have an OSSC (Which I still need to get the hang of more profoundly) that solves my video challenges I want to extend my Sharp X68000 software collection.

My Sharp X68000 ACE came with a SCSI2SD and SD card with games. It boots to this image when turning on the machine, and prioritises booting to floppy when a disk is in the drive. So I guess everything in the FAQ has been applied already (https://gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=x68000:hard_drive_on_sasi_machine).

• Now if I want an additional SD card with a different image (e.g. Mini with games like populous and sim city). do I simply flash the image to the SD card and swap it with the current (I have an SD extension cable on the way so I don't need to reach inside the case everytime) and it will boot to the other SD card, or should I go through the whole boot from SASI drive setup again?
• If I want to create an HDD setup myself, I guess I have to go through at least some of the FAQ instruction to reach the SD card to be able to format it? Or will for example installing a GUI OS (Ko/SX Windows) guide me through this setup as well?
• Does it matter what size the (micro)SD card is as long as you keep the partition size below 1GB? It seems impossible to find 1GB MicroSD cards these days.

Thanks again for all the answers!

[leonk]

SASI boot loader is loaded into the SRAM on the machine, not the SD card.  So you can change cards as often as you want.

You can get another SD card.. create the smaller partition (I think limit is 2GB .. been awhile) and the rest of the space will just be wasted.. no big deal with cards being $10 these days. 

Your bigger problem is getting the games onto the SD card.  The partition is not in PC format and there are really no simple to use copy programs on PCs.  The other problem you'll run into is the games themselves.  A lot of games have copy protection on them.  They check to make sure they're running from the floppy drive, and not hard drive.  So they simply wont work.

If you want a truly complete solution, that will allow you to also play copy protected games, getting something like the FDX68 might be a good idea.

[ShootTheCore]

Check the file archive area in the Wiki on this site - the V4 image with Service Pack applied gives you a large chunk of the X68000 library in terms of what's playable in English.

As for setting up new SD cards, the procedure I've been using is to use the XM6 Type G emulator under Windows to create a new hard disk image, use WINDRV.SYS to copy disk images out of Windows folders to the X68000 disk image, and then finally use WinImage to flash the emulator's hard drive image to the SD card.  There's detailed instructions in the Wiki here:

https://gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=x68000:editing_and_adding_files_to_hard_disk_images
https://gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=x68000:creating_and_restoring_hard_disk_images_to_and_from_physical_media

It's true that the X68000 partition size is limited to 1GB, but you can use an SD card larger than that.  The extra space will just go to waste is all.  I've used 4GB and 32GB cards with mine with no problems.

[spud]

Thanks for all the help!!!

Is there a KO-Windows or SX-Windows based image with some pre-installed (productivity) applications to try and just to see how this compares to the other 68k OSs from that era?