ACE HD + SCSI2SD + Multiple Partitions = Unable to boot (Help?)

[cauterize]

I recently started a thread about getting more games onto the hard drive images out there. I decided I should at least have a go myself at something.

If needed, I'm running an ACE HD with a SCSI2SD v5.1 and 6mb of RAM in total.

With this in mind I began reading up on a few things:

How to make a hard drive image and transfer to it
How to use a SD card bigger than 1gb and create multiple partitions

With this in mind, my plan was to make one HDS file with both the HDD v4 image and MiniV2 image on a single SD card, a partition for each, maybe even selectable on boot.

The way I decided to do this was this:

• Create an empty HDD image in DOS 2gb in size: "fsutil file createnew image.hds 2000000000"
• Mount the HDS file in XM6 (SxSI drives) and boot into MasterDiskv3.xdf
• Format the drive into two partitions (one at 1000mb, the other at the remaining size of 907mb)*
• Power down the system in XM6 and mount the HDD v4 and MiniV2 as A: and B: SxSi Drives, with the two partition drive being C: and D: for the time being
• Use the following two commands to copy everything over to the new partitions from the two HDD images full of games:
  copyall a:*.* c:
  copyall b:*.* d:
• Wait a long time
• Once finished, open SCSIFORMAT and set the first partition to be bootable
• Check everything is working fine in XM6 and test a few games
• Use WinImage in Adminstrator mode to write the HDS (renamed to .ima) to an SD Card
• Put the SD Card into the SCSI2SD and power on

And this is where we are now... for whatever reason when using this SD Card in my x68000, the first message I see on screen is:

It was not possible to start the system. Reboot

My first thought is that setting the first partition to be 1000mb might be the problem, as both of the two images I am copying from are 900mb in size (assuming the 1gb cap being an issue). I'm going to give this another go now using these settings instead, so I'll report back later.

My other concern is, can multiple partitions be used with a SCSI2SD?

Any thoughts as to what might be going wrong here?

[cauterize]

Just as a quick update, I have made two 900mb partitions and used a different SD card. The partitions are now visible on my ACE HD. I'll start copying over the files now and see if it works before reporting back and updating the original post as a guide.

EDIT: Still no luck - although some files seem to copy over correctly, both my virtual image and SD card seem to have corrupted files/don't work.

Argh - what do I need to do to make both HDD images work from one card with two partitions!?

[SuperDeadite]

You can only have 2 active partitions per device. 

You need to use a secondary device with different ID. 

If you are using XM6, forget about SxSI and just use real SCSI to set it all up.  SxSI is only needed on your real Ace.

On my personal XVI, I have 2 CF card drives.  Id0 serves as A and B.  And I use SUSIE to mount ID1 as drive E after booting Human68k. 

[cauterize]

Thanks for the reply - I only have two partitions in the HDS file currently, both 900mb each. Using SCSI only on XM6 says no devices are connected too. I can only read them using SxSI right now.

Anyway, it would appear that the problem all along was XM6 - my data was being corrupted in there somehow, it's beyond me. In the end I was able to open each partition in DiskExplorer and drap and drop the files in from each image in another window.

For anyone wanting to combine these two images, all you need to do is the following:

• Create an empty HDD image in DOS 2gb in size: "fsutil file createnew image.hds 2000000000"
• Mount the HDS file in XM6 as a SxSI drive
• Run SCSIFORMAT and create two partitions of 900mb each
• Close XM6
• Mount the HDS file in DiskExplorer as a X68k SCSI HDD
• Select the first partition
• Open DiskExplorer again so you have two windows open
• Mount HDD v4 or MiniV2 in this new window
• Drag the files from this image into the empty partition
• Once complete, close both windows and repeat the last few steps to copy the contents of the other image onto the other partition
• Write the HDS file to SD card

This seems to have worked 99% - just about everything is working, except one folder (Games4 on B:) which brings up an Abort/Retry/Ignore warning. I'm going to have another go from scratch and see if this fixes it.

[cauterize]

Okay, I feel like I'm getting close - but something is still not right using the method above.

It turns out that it isn't just the Games4 folder (copied from MiniV2) onto the B: drive that won't open, but a fair few other folders with games in. Everything on the first partition works fine though, which is really odd.

I can only assume there is an error in regards to the way I have created a second partition or something? Perhaps clusters/cylinders, I have no idea - it's all over my head. Is there a set order folders/files need to be copied over perhaps?

[SuperDeadite]

DiskExplorer is highly buggy.  Doing a mass drag and drop in DE will give you a lot of corrupted files.  Check files sizes, any files with more bytes then the originals are corrupt. 

The Mini image was not designed to be run off drive B.  A lot of games will need to have thier start.bat files edited.  Some games will only run off the boot partition.  Generally keep true hdd installs to A and use 2hdboot for B.

XM6 does SCSI, you are probably missing a bios file.

[cauterize]

No worries - thanks for the update. I'm still very much a newbie with this stuff, so I'm trying/experimenting with what I can.

Shame about DiskExplorer. I was getting similar issues when trying to do mass copying between drives in XM6 too. Either way, if what you say about the MiniV2 needing to be on the A: drive is true, I might need to park this project for now anyway.

Annoyingly too the SD Card Extender I ordered just arrived, and the SCSI2SD doesn't seem to work with that either. All I wanted was an easier way to experience both images without needing to open up the case each time. Ah well!

Thanks for the help/assistance.