!HForm for RiscOS 3.0 on A4000

[witchdoctor75]

Hi all

I got in my hands an a4000 with RiscOS 3.0 ROMs. I definitely want to upgrade to 3.11 but not sure if there is a software path for that and if not where I can find the 3.11 ROMs...

But for now I replaced the old hard drive with a CF to IDE converter and a 512MB CF. The OS can "see" the drive but after that I cannot format the hard drive (CF). The version of !HForm I have is for RO 3.1 and above. Hopefully you have an easy answer? Maybe I should upgrade to RiscOS 3.11 first?

Thank you!

[helpful]

The A4000 was only ever supplied with RO3.1, so I'm not sure how you've got that combination. In fact, I'm surprised it works at all!

RO3.0 was only supplied for a short time in the first batch of A5000s and was a bit buggy. Replace it as soon as you can.

[IanJeffray]

I got in my hands an a4000 with RiscOS 3.0 ROMs

Are you sure about that? 3.0 was very short-lived and broken and only distributed in 8bit ROMs for the first release of A5000 in 1991, not 16bit ROMs as used in A4000 which was launched a year later.

Perhaps you mean you have RISC OS 3.10 ? In which case there's no point at all 'upgrading' to 3.11 - the changes are tiny and if you did care can be softloaded anyway.

[sirbod]

The OS can "see" the drive but after that I cannot format the hard drive (CF). The version of !HForm I have is for RO 3.1 and above. Hopefully you have an easy answer?

I'd be interested to know if the lite version of Partition Manager works.

Bare in mind that unless you have the right CF, you might see write or verify errors without patching ADFS.

[witchdoctor75]

<sarcasm>You won't believe it!</sarcasm>.... It was not RiscOS 3.0, despite the fact that the ROMs had written "RISC OS 3" (I guess the 1992 should be a hint) and when the computer boots the splash screen says flat out "3"... But I am paying the price of the rookie that is learning... So yeah... In the Task Manager->Info version is reported as "3.11"... So great, I cried wolf thinking I saw one, and it all makes sense now... Other than one thing... Why does my HForm refuse to run? (see pic)... I guess by "3.6" it is implied to be identical to "3.60" which is higher than 3.11?

Either way I have a few pointers now to move forward... I will patch my ADFS and will download the Partition Manager and download HForm 248 from http://www.riscos.com/ftp_space/generic/hform/index.htm

I will report back here when I do so...

Thank you all, great support so far!

[witchdoctor75]

Ok... The HFORM428 did not work, probably it was the same HFORM that I had... It requires RiscOS 3.6 or higher so my 3.11 is not supported (same error exactly as before). The Partition Manager didn't work either:

What worked however was the HFORM from the RiscOS3 App Disk 2... Well... Sort of, kind of, in a way... It detected the size and everything of the CF but because the cylinder number was to high it reported it as negative (pretty sure that is an overflow...) and formatting led to an error. What did work however is the pre-defined hard drives, and now I have my CF formatted as 62MB Hard Disk drive accessed by the a40000... Of course I want more... So @sirbod, I would be happy to be your tester if you don't mind... Or please point me to the author if that is not you...

[rps102]

and download HForm 248

HForm 2.76 should work fine with RISC OS 3.10 (or 4 or 5 or 6), and if it doesn't someone's introduced a bug in the last six changes, because HForm 2.70 is where I put back some lost support and tested it on an actual A5000,
Sprow.

[sirbod]

Partition Manager didn't work either:

20240219_233438.jpg

@sirbod, I would be happy to be your tester if you don't mind... Or please point me to the author if that is not you...

I suspect you've use an extractor that didn't retain the case of the files going by the app name. The function names are all derived from the filenames, so case needs to be correct.

[witchdoctor75]

I suspect you've use an extractor that didn't retain the case of the files going by the app name. The function names are all derived from the filenames, so case needs to be correct.

I believe it was because the floppy I moved the file was FAT and it capitalized all the letters in all filenames... If that's the case I am learning... So I formatted a floppy to ADFS format and now it worked...

So now I could delete my old 62MB partition and now I could create a 512MB partition and format it using Partition Manager. However I was getting errors trying to open the hard drive 4... So I rebooted, used HForm276 and I could get up to 425MB using the default drives (that are now much more than the older HForm version gives as options). So I guess I need to patch my ADFS in order to be able to claim the rest of the 8GB of my CF but I am not sure how to do it... I can unzip the file, I can see it is a module (filetype FFA) I open the shell and typed "rmrun ADFS::HardDisc4.ADFS", the shell returned without an error, but running the Partition Manager I could not format the biggest (7.5GB) partition. Clearly I am missing a step or two... Any pointers please?

[sirbod]

I believe it was because the floppy I moved the file was FAT and it capitalized all the letters in all filenames...

I'll add a check and warning if the file case has been lost to the next build.

So now I could delete my old 62MB partition and now I could create a 512MB partition and format it using Partition Manager. However I was getting errors trying to open the hard drive 4...

That will no doubt be down to the CF not being compatible with the original ADFS. ADFS follows the ATA-1 spec; the timings changed in ATA-2 so many modern devices are likely to exhibit read and write failures. The patch I linked you too alters the DRQ timing in ADFS to correct this, although its not viable in all instances to live-patch ADFS in the !Boot sequence as some CF won't even get that far.

So I rebooted, used HForm276 and I could get up to 425MB using the default drives (that are now much more than the older HForm version gives as options).

Partition Manager uses the HForm code for FileCore formatting, although I've just fixed a lot of long standing bugs and implemented verified writes and other additions for modern machines, so you haven't magically fixed things by using HForm. By formatting to 425MB with HForm, you've reduced the LFAU size, resulting in smaller reads from the drive, this will be masking the underlying issue. If you were to try verifying large writes, you'll probably encounter drive errors.

My advice would be to use Partition Manager and accept the default size, which is 502MB off the top of my head. That will maximize the drive size with a small LFAU.

I'd then test the drive by copying large files and confirming they read back.

So I guess I need to patch my ADFS in order to be able to claim the rest of the 8GB of my CF

ADFS supports a maximum of 512MB. That can't be changed, unless you replace ADFS with a different filesystem. There's many threads on here covering the various alternatives and the methods you have to go through to use them.

[witchdoctor75]

My advice would be to use Partition Manager and accept the default size, which is 502MB off the top of my head. That will maximize the drive size with a small LFAU.

I'd then test the drive by copying large files and confirming they read back.

Ok, thanks. Then let me try again Partition Manager although I am pretty sure I did use the defaults before...

Also to clarify: I do need the ADFS soft patch for stability, right? And if so is there a thread here or elsewhere I can use? I cannot find something obvious...

[sirbod]

Also to clarify: I do need the ADFS soft patch for stability, right?

It sounds like you might need to patch ADFS based on what you've described. The only way to tell is to try large writes and then read them back, the resulting error codes will confirm if its patchable. If you don't see any errors, you won't need to patch ADFS.

And if so is there a thread here or elsewhere I can use? I cannot find something obvious...

I linked to it in my first post above.

[IanJeffray]

It sounds like you might need to patch ADFS based on what you've described.

Or forget all this ADFS mess, stick Wizzo in as an extension ROM, then you can also have four 512MB (499MB, optimal) partitions on your CF card!

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