Atari MEGA STe Technical Information

Jean Louis-Guérin (DrCoolZic) Version 1.2b September 2014 ATARI HARD DISK FILE SYSTEMS REFERENCE GUIDE

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 10 / 69 Chapter 2. Types of Partition used on Atari Before we detail the partitioning procedures

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 11 / 69 As we have seen due to the constraints imposed by the TOS file systems and the DOS file

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 12 / 69 The following table shows the minimum logical sector size required for specific partitio

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 13 / 69 Chapter 3. TOS/GEMDOS Limitations We have seen that the file system used to partition a

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 14 / 69 Relevant information:  Entry 1 at 0x2A000 is a file entry (FA = 0x20 – Archive bit at

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 15 / 69 files that belong somewhere else. Or you get “0 files in 0 items” box, making you think

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 16 / 69 Technically, the limits are as follows: there are 80 blocks in the system&apos

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 17 / 69 3.7.2 MEGA TOS 1.02 - 520ST, 1040ST, Mega 2/4 This version of TOS fixes some minor prob

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 18 / 69 Chapter 4. Atari Hard Disk Drivers Packages This chapter provides a quick guide of sever

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 19 / 69 4.4 HDDRIVER 9.02 Driver Package This section presents a quick procedure to follow to u

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 2 / 69 Table of Content How to Read this Document ...

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 20 / 69 4.4.1.4 Actual Partitioning Once you have defined the compatibility options for

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 21 / 69 4.4.3 Configuring the HDDRIVER Hard Disk Driver Run the HDDRUTIL.APP. The hddriver.sys

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 22 / 69 4.5 PPDRIVER 1.0 Driver Package This section presents a quick procedure to use

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 23 / 69 4.5.2 Installing the Auto boot Driver To install the auto boot driver you need to execu

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 24 / 69 4.6 ICD AdSCSI Pro 6.5.5 Driver Package This section presents the ICD AdSCSI Pro

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 25 / 69 Now you should click PARTITION. You are now presented the partition Main form. If the dr

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 26 / 69 If you are using removable media (for example a SD card on an UltraSatan) the program al

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 27 / 69 4.6.3 Configuring the AdSCSI Hard Disk Driver Run the ICD utility program HDUTIL.PRG. T

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 28 / 69 4.7 CBHD 5.0.2 Driver Package This section presents procedures for partitioning and usi

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 29 / 69 4.7.3 Configuring the CBHD Hard Disk Driver Run the SCSIDRV.PRG then Run CBHDCONF.APP.

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 3 / 69 4.5.4 Accessing DOS Partitions ...

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 30 / 69 4.9 Which Hard Disk Driver Should I use Here we will only consider PPD1x, HDD9xx, ICD

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 31 / 69 Chapter 5. PC Utilities This chapter describes few programs that can be useful in relati

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 32 / 69 5.2 Creating DOS Partitions on a PC As we have seen most of the Atari Hard disk drivers

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 33 / 69 5.3 Working with Disk Images A disk image is a file that contains an exact binary copy

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 34 / 69 5.4 Partition Table Editor Ptedit is a Free Portable Partition Table Editor created by

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 35 / 69 Chapter 6. Atari Utilities 6.1 BigDOS BigDOS freeware Copyright© 1995 by Rainer Seitel

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 36 / 69 6.2 FOLDRXXX Utility FOLDRXXX.PRG will add more entries into your OS Pool. In TOS 1.0

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 37 / 69 Chapter 7. File System Problems and Solutions In this section we do not cover hardware p

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 38 / 69 PART II – ATARI HARD DISK FILE SYSTEMS TECHNICAL INFORMATION

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 39 / 69 Chapter 8. Hard Disk Presentation The goal of the second part of this document is to pro

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 4 / 69 9.4.1 TOS Extended Root Sector ...

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 40 / 69 8.2 Hard Disk Preparation Steps Before a hard disk can be used to store data it must be

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 41 / 69 8.3 TOS Partition Size The following table indicates the minimum sector size based on T

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 42 / 69 Chapter 9. Information about TOS Partitions In this chapter we will describe the la

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 43 / 69 Each partition (standard or extended) is defined by an entry in the partition table: Off

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 44 / 69  TOS ≥ 1.04 and ≤ 4.x  Maximum size of a cluster in number of bytes = 2^14 = 16384

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 45 / 69 For the standard partition description, the definitions of the fields in the partition t

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 46 / 69 9.5 TOS Partition Structures This section details the content of a TOS primary partitio

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 47 / 69 9.5.2 TOS File Allocation Table The File Allocation Table structures (FAT) is an array

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 48 / 69 medium, not by a fixed number of entries. The TOS initially allocates only a

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 49 / 69 9.5.4 Size and Position of the TOS Partition Structures With the information given in t

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 5 / 69 How to Read this Document I have created this document as a reference manual that I use p

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 50 / 69 9.6 TOS Boot Sequence In this section we describe a typical sequence to load a hard d

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 51 / 69 Chapter 10. Information about DOS/FAT Partitions In this chapter I describe the layout

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 52 / 69 The table of partitions has four 16-byte structures to describe each partition: Offset L

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 53 / 69 10.4.1 Example of layout with DOS/FAT standard partitions In the following example

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 54 / 69 The first entry of an EMBR partition table points to the logical partition belonging to

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 55 / 69 10.5.2 Example of layout with DOS/FAT extended partitions In the following example we h

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 56 / 69 RES 0x0e 2 Reserved sector count. The number of sectors before the first FAT

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 57 / 69 0x1FE 2 Boot sector signature (0x55 0xAA) 10.6.2 FS Information Sector The FS Informa

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 58 / 69 FAT16, used for dirty volume management: high order bit 1: last shutdown was clean; next

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 59 / 69 Directory entries, both in the Root Directory region and in subdirectories, are of the f

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 6 / 69  The Information about DOS/FAT Partitions provides an in-depth presentation of the DOS/

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 60 / 69 10.6.5 Position of the Structures in a DOS Partition  The position of the Boot Secto

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 61 / 69 Here a Practical example of a disk with only 4 entries: Dump of the directory

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 62 / 69 10.7 DOS/Windows Boot Sequence The first program executed in the boot sequence

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 63 / 69 Chapter 11. Information about TOS&DOS Partitions There is no standard for TOS&

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 64 / 69 11.2 TOS&DOS MBR / EMBR The Master Boot Records created by HDDRIVER and PPDRIVER ha

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 65 / 69 11.2.2 HDDRIVER 9.02 MBR / EMBR For TOS&DOS partitions HDDRIVER hard disk driver us

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 66 / 69 The same MBR is interpreted differently by the HDDRIVER on the Atari platform:  The co

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 67 / 69 11.3 TOS&DOS Partition Structure 11.3.1 TOS&DOS Boot Sector DOS&TOS partit

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 68 / 69 The sector following the DOS/FAT boot sector is the TOS boot sector at location 0x08000.

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 69 / 69 References  Master boot record from Wikipedia  CHS conversion from Wikipedia  Part

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 7 / 69 PART I – ATARI HARD DISK FILE SYSTEM PARTITIONING GUIDE

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 8 / 69 Chapter 1. Partitioning Information This section provides basic information about Atari &

© Jean Louis-Guérin – V1.2a – September 2014 Page 9 / 69 There are two types of partitions:  The Primary partition contains several control str