Conference hydra::amiga_v1

    As to your point 3.  When I was on my 500 with a Cltd SCSI500 I had a
    harddisk partition for Cross Dos.  Cross Dos was very happy with the
    harddisk driver instead of the Trackdisk.device.  Of course Cltd did not
    use the RDB.  I can not get this to work with my 2000 and Advantage
    2000 disk controller which uses RDB.  Of course this my be a limitation
    of the Advantage controller/driver and not the RDB in itsself.  I have no 
    way to tell.
    
    As for the bridge board the MSDOS drives are simply treated as large
    files by Amiga Dos.  Amiga DOS cannot see inside the large file to get
    to the actual MSDOS files.  But you can delete the whole shebang with
    one simple Amiga Dos command. 
    
    I do not know what approach the AT-once board uses.  Does it use the file 
    approach as does the bridge baord or does it expect a MSDOS.device
    driver to do the translation?  
    
    
    Alan
    
    
                                 

    Re .1    
    
>   When I was on my 500 with a Cltd SCSI500 I had a harddisk partition for
>   Cross Dos.  Cross Dos was very happy with the harddisk driver instead
>   of the Trackdisk.device.
    
    Fantastic!  (Those folks at Consultron never cease to amaze me. 8^)
    
>   As for the bridge board the MSDOS drives are simply treated as large
>   files by Amiga Dos.  Amiga DOS cannot see inside the large file to get
>   to the actual MSDOS files.  But you can delete the whole shebang with
>   one simple Amiga Dos command. 
>   
>   I do not know what approach the AT-once board uses.  Does it use the file 
>   approach as does the bridge baord or does it expect a MSDOS.device
>   driver to do the translation?  
    
    Setting up a big AmigaDOS file and pointing ATonce at it is option #2. 
    According to the ATonce documentation, this approach is slower than
    simply handing over a disk partition.  It also requires me to do some
    careful computation of the cylinder numbers to be seen by MS-DOS.  I'd
    rather NOT have to do that (Murphy is my co-pilot).

    I'd might as well answer one of my own questions.  I revisited the     
    fantastic manual (RTFM), jumping back and forth between two separate
    discussions of how ATonce uses hard disk partitions.  Taken together,
    there was enough information to get things going, after all.  (It also
    helps to remember that the German authors represent large numbers with
    periods separating thousands from millions.  8^)
    
    It turned out to be fairly easy to go the file-within-FFS-partition
    route.  Each cylinder is something over 100KB, so defining cylinders
    0..179 gave me about an 18MB virtual disk.  The ATonce install program
    even checked to make sure there was enough space for the file and
    created it for me.  When first created, C: isn't bootable, so ATonce
    still needs to boot from a diskette (A:).
    
    Because the partition REALLY contains an AmigaDOS file system (and an
    18MB file that one shouldn't look into 8^), my sleazy blank icon and " "
    volume name still work so I don't have to look at it from the workbench.
    
    The newly-defined drive isn't visible at the MS-DOS command level,
    which had me a bit confused at first.  One must use the MS-DOS fdisk
    utility to set it up (and further partition it, if desired).  Then it
    needs to be FORMATted and filled with software.  After powering the
    A500 down and rebooting, ATonce's install can be run to change the boot
    device from A: (floppy) to C: (hard disk).
    
    ATonce boots very nicely from its hard disk partition.  This eliminates
    the biggest bugaboo, which is the need (when booting from a floppy) to
    wait until ALL diskette activity has ceased before responding to the
    prompt to insert the MS-DOS boot disk and press RETURN.

Re: .0

>How do I tell Workbench 1.3 NOT to display an icon for my MS-DOS
>partition?

If I remember right:

Get HDtoolbox into the setup partition screen.  Select "Advanced Options"
or whatever its called.  One of the additional buttons that appears
will get you to a new screen where you can specify if the partition
is bootable and if it should be automounted.  Select automount to off.

    Re .4:
    
�   >How do I tell Workbench 1.3 NOT to display an icon for my MS-DOS
�   >partition?
�   
�   If I remember right:
�   
�   Get HDtoolbox into the setup partition screen.  Select "Advanced Options"
�   or whatever its called.  One of the additional buttons that appears
�   will get you to a new screen where you can specify if the partition
�   is bootable and if it should be automounted.  Select automount to off.
    
    I can do that, but won't the Workbench still try to put up an icon when
    I mount the partition so ATonce can use it?  For the moment, my sleezy
    approach still seems most efficacious.

re             <<< Note 4608.5 by ULTRA::KINDEL "Bill Kindel @ LTN1" >>>


>    I mount the partition so ATonce can use it?  For the moment, my sleezy
>    approach still seems most efficacious.

	Errrr,  I think you mean   "Reg's brilliant idea"  ?


	Reg

PS  "Y're welcome"

Re: .5

>    I can do that, but won't the Workbench still try to put up an icon when
>    I mount the partition so ATonce can use it?  

You are right: if you must mount the partition so that ATonce can use it,
then Workbench will try and display an icon.

I misunderstood the situation: I thought it might be possible to
have the ATonce mount the partition for its own use without having
to go through AmigaDOS.

    Re .6:
    
� > I mount the partition so ATonce can use it?  For the moment, my sleezy
� > approach still seems most efficacious.
� 
� 	Errrr,  I think you mean   "Reg's brilliant idea"  ?
    
    Gosh, Reg, I was trying to protect your good name. 8^)
    Thanks for the suggestion (sleazy though it is) -- it works just fine.