Mounting hard disc images in Arculator

[jms2]

Apologies if this is a really stupid question, but it's something I've been puzzled by for a while and not managed to find any references on Stardot.

Basically, if I try to mount a .HDF image in Arculator, it causes the machine to hang during boot (this happens for any images I try, including the blank one). If I use pretty the same image in RPCEmu, it just works as you'd expect it to. I first had this problem with Arculator v2.1, but v2.2 is the same. The emulated setup that I'm using is an A5000 with the built in Acorn IDE interface and ADFS.

Because of my woes with hard discs on a real A5000 (in another thread), I thought I should experiment with Wizzo. So I loaded a rom image into Arculator and... it works!

So whilst this is a great solution, I'd like to understand what's going on (or what I'm doing wrong, more likely). What it looks like is that Arculator replicates the flaws in Acorn ADFS to such an extent that it can't access any emulated hard drives. But that seems a bit extreme... I know the system isn't great, but real A5000s can access some real hard drives.

[Sophira]

Hard drives can be interesting on Arculator, but I personally haven't had any issues with the blank hard drive image in Arculator; I've just confirmed that I can mount the blank 50MB disk image (which I assume is the image you mean when you say the blank one?) in a stock Arculator 2.2 download, on both Windows and Linux.

Just in case our methods are different somehow (though I'm not sure how they could), here's what I did:

1. Download Arculator 2.2 and extract it into a directory that can be written to. (for example, not inside the "Program Files" folder.)
2. Download the blank 50MB disk image and extract the HD4.HDF file somewhere that can also be written to.
3. Start Arculator and create a new A5000 configuration called "A5000 (HD testing)". Don't change any of the settings in the first tab.
4. On the second tab, on the "Drive :4" configuration, click the "..." button and navigate to the extracted HD4.HDF file. Confirm that the settings are correct (63 sectors, 16 heads, 100 cylinders, 49MB) and click OK, then click OK again to exit the configuration window.
5. Double-click the new configuration to start it. Wait for RISC OS 3.11 to boot (which it does).
6. Click the Apps icon on the icon bar, double-click !Configure, then click its icon on the icon bar to open the !Configure window.
7. Click "Discs", add one IDE hard disc, then click OK, then OK again on the warning.
8. Click the new IDEDisc4 icon on the icon bar and start using the hard disc.

Can you confirm that this process does not work for you even with the linked blank hard disc image?

[jms2]

Yes, that's how I did it, except for the "don't change anything on the first page" part - I probably did change things (can't recall what), but I assume this isnt really critical and you just said it to minimise external factors?

Anyway, I'll give it a go exactly as you've written later on and see if that works.

[Sophira]

Yeah, I said that to make it as specific as I could. The only thing I can think of that could make a difference would be the OS selection, but I've just tested with all four choices (3.00, 3.10, 3.11 and 3.19), doing a DEL-power on each time, and I haven't been able to reproduce the issue.

I suggested doing a fresh download and extract too just in case there were any issues with the ROMs somehow, but honestly I can't imagine there would be if there were no errors extracting in the first place. Still, again, minimising the risk of potential problems.

[IanJeffray]

I suggested doing a fresh download and extract too just in case there were any issues with the ROMs somehow

You'd have had the red screen if there was an issue - ROM checksumming in POST still happens with Arculator.

[Sophira]

So I've been trying to replicate this and somehow seem to have gotten myself in a situation where my experience is the exact opposite of jms2's!

As I stated above, my experience running the stock Arculator works fine. But when I attempt to use the RISC OS 3.11 ROMS with Wizzo built in as an extension ROM in Arculator, I get the black screen (not even a POST!) that jms2 mentions, and using a debug build I can see "Resizing window to 0, -19998" over and over again in the console/logs. This happens regardless of whether I have a hard disc image in the config or not.

(Disclaimer: I'm not actually entirely certain what Wizzo is as I've never had reason to use it, but given the availability of the ROM set I figured I might as well try it. If I'm using it incorrectly, my apologies!)

So, um. I... guess I'm kinda sorta reproducing the issue but not really, considering it's literally the exact opposite scenario...

[jms2]

The good news is that I think I can solve both your problem and mine!

Starting with your problem - I didn't load Wizzo that way. I loaded it as a 5th column rom in Arculator - it's on one of the configuration pages. The rom image I used was called Wizzo3v15.bin.

Returning to my problem - weirdly, it all seems to be working fine now. My PC hard disc is littered with disc images where I tried various ways of making this work in the past (they're all called things like "risc os hard disc test 2.hdf"), but whereas none of these files would mount previously, they now all do. I even tried creating and formatting a new blank disc image, and that worked too. I can only assume my previous install of Arculator was corrupted in some way. I knew it couldn't be a common problem because nobody else hard reported it, but I'm just pleased it's sorted now. Thanks for your help.

[philpem]

As I stated above, my experience running the stock Arculator works fine. But when I attempt to use the RISC OS 3.11 ROMS with Wizzo built in as an extension ROM in Arculator, I get the black screen (not even a POST!) that jms2 mentions, and using a debug build I can see "Resizing window to 0, -19998" over and over again in the console/logs. This happens regardless of whether I have a hard disc image in the config or not.

Chances are, that's because Arculator only supports 2MB ROMs...

I submitted a PR but Sarah mentioned it needed some memory mapping changes, but I'm not sure what those would be.