HDToolBox ©Commmodore Business Machines Documentation by Michael Warner 20/12/91 The Phoenix Board is currently supplied with Commodore's HDToolBox as its hard disk prep program. Although powerful, HDToolBox is a little idiosyncratic, hence these docs for those unfamiliar with it. Running HDToolBox ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ By default HDToolBox will attempt to access a driver named scsi.device, as used by all Commodore's controllers. Since the Phoenix Board's SCSI driver is named pbscsi.device, you should use the copy of HDToolBox included on this disk, since its icon contains the ToolType entry: SCSI_DEVICE_NAME=pbscsi.device Alternatively, you can enter this line in the ToolTypes of another copy of HDToolBox. HDToolBox can also be run from the CLI or Shell with pbscsi.device as a parameter. "Hard Drives in System" Screen ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ After scanning all SCSI addresses for hard drives, HDToolBox displays a screen giving basic information on each drive present. All major operations are performed on the selected drive with the gadgets below this display. To select a drive, click on its information line with the mouse. The following sections discuss each operation. Change Drive Type ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ HDToolBox stores information about drives connected to the controller in a file called "drive definitions", which it reads when starting up. If it finds a drive without a matching entry in this file, it will show the Drive Type as "Unknown". You must select "Change Drive Type" to determine and record the drive type. When Change Drive Type is selected, you will be presented with a list of drive types from which to choose. Unless the manufacturer and model of the drive matches an entry in this list you should select "Define New Drive Type", which will bring up the "Define/Edit Drive Type" screen. Click on "Read Configuration from Drive", and check that the overall drive size shown when this has been done is correct (it should be several megabytes less than the unformatted capacity quoted by the manufacturer.) Click on "OK" to return to the "Define/Edit Drive Type" screen. The details of the drive should now be in the drive type list. Highlight this line and select "OK" to return to the main screen, which will now also display the drive's details. Modify Bad Blocks List ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This function allows you to modify the list of bad blocks stored in the RDB data area. If you add a block to the list it will be mapped to a good block; you should only need to do so if "Verify Data on Drive" fails to find a block which fails when accessed by AmigaDOS, which is an extremely unlikely occurrence. Low-Level Format Drive ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This causes the drive to be low-level formatted, a process which may destroy the drive's bad block reassignments previously created with "Verify Data on Drive". To be certain, you should perform a Verify after a low-level format if you suspect your drive contains any errors. A low-level format will take either a couple of seconds, in the case of newer Quantum and other drives, or up to a couple of minutes for other drives. Do not be concerned unless HDToolBox reports that the low-level format has failed. A low-level format may erase ALL data on the drive. Partition Drive ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is the meat of HDToolBox; the "Partitioning" screen allows you to set up the partitions' size and location on the hard disk, as well as the other parameters associated with each partition. The bar graph and "Delete Partition" and "New Partition" gadgets are used to set up partitions; the operation of these items is a little peculiar, so experiment to understand how they work. Don't worry - no changes are made to the hard disk itself in this screen. By default only two parameters for each partition are shown for modification - the partition name and a Yes/No flag indication whether or not the partition is bootable. You should set the boot flag to Yes for the partition from which you intend booting, and No for all others. Ensure that the partitions have different names. By default, all partitions will use the FastFileSystem, have 30 DOS buffers and have a boot priority of zero (if bootable) unless you click on "Advanced Options", whereupon they are made available for modification. Also displayed for modification are the start and end cylinders of the partition - setting these manually may be useful in some circumstances. Clicking on "Change File System for Partition" allows you select the file system for the partition - the only useful choices are "Fast File System" and "Old File System", although there is no reason to use the Old File System in 1991! You may also turn off auto-mounting, which will cause that partition not to be mounted when booting; this is useful if you wish to reserve space on the hard disk but hide this from the user. You should not modify any other fields on this screen. Click "OK" to return to the "Partitioning" screen. You should not need to use the "Add/Update File Systems" screen. Note: take care not to set the starting cylinder of any partition below 2. This cannot be done with the bar graph, but is possible when manually entered. Verify Data on Drive ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This function checks each block on the hard disk for integrity without destroying any data. If it finds a bad block it brings up a requester asking what you wish to do - adding it to the bad block list is the normal action, and causes the block to be reassigned. If a bad block which has already been mapped out is encountered you will be informed, but no action will be taken. If errors are found on a drive you should repeat the verify until no more new bad blocks are found, Unless the drive has marginal blocks, the second pass should reveal only blocks already assigned. As another check on the verify's effectiveness, you may wish to perform a full DOS format of the partitions rather than using QuickFormat. Save Changes to Drive ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This gadget will be enabled (not ghosted) if the highlighted drive has been modified within HDToolBox in any way. Click on it to save the modified setup to the drive; note that the RDB data on the drive is not modified until this is done. Exit ~~~~ Quit HDToolBox. Several warnings can be generated when this is selected: - If you have not saved changes to any drives, you will be asked if you wish to do so; - If any existing partitions have been altered or deleted, you will be warned; - If the partition from which you booted has been changed, HDToolBox will insist on rebooting the Amiga rather than exiting. This reboot does not work reliably on all configurations.