Amiga Workbench 3.1 Adf

Jul 01, 2018 If you are using a GOTEK, then just copy your Boot3X.ADF, the Colanto Workbench 3.1 floppy images, and the BetterWB images on a USB device and inserted into your Amiga. Once the rest of your hardware is installed and ready, I recommend booting to the Early Startup Menu by holding down both mouse buttons while turning on your Amiga. Dedicated to the preservation and restoration of the Amiga Workbench's history Workbench Release 3.1.4.1, version 45.194 (Kickstart version 46.143) Floppy boot: Kickstart 46.151 Release date: September 30, 2018 (3.1.4.1 update released on July 8, 2019). Crt AmiGa WORkBEncH. Please also visit the Amiga board on GameFaqs at the following address: The following files are still linked here until they get added to the new site: - This zip file contains the config to setup an A500 in winUAE - This zip file contains the config to setup an A600 in winUAE - This zip contains the Amiga Workbench 1.3 disk in adf format. The biggest help was that it also came with the Workbench 3.1 discs in ADF format. WinUAE could read this new card straight away and I copied the Workbench ADFs to a PC folder that WinUAE was using as a drive. This was great as I now had a bootable Workbench Install disc with HDToolbox.

About a year ago, I bought an Amiga 600. It did not have a hard drive, but all Amiga 600 have an IDE port, and you can use a Compact Flash card with a CF-IDE adapter as a hard drive. That worked fine, and I could install Workbench on the CF card, and use it. But eventually I though I should try to use WHDLoad, so that I could run more games directly from the hard drive. I found a video by Nostalgia Nerd on Youtube, where he goes through the process of installing Classic Workbench and WHDLoad on a Compact Flash card, unfortunately this video is (currently) four years old, and also very… quick? With the help of the comments^[1] and some trial and error, I managed to get it working, though.

Now, recently I was generously given an Amiga 1200. This one actually had a hard drive, but who knows how long that will keep on working, so I though I’d replace it with a Compact Flash card as well. This time, however, for the benefits of my readers^[2] I thought I’d write down the process in a blog post. I thought it might be useful because a) I prefer written instructions, and b) it would give me a chance to update and correct the instructions so that they actually work.

The original video can be found here, along with instructions and download links.

I won’t go into the hardware side of this, because there’s really nothing to it. But you will need a Compact Flash card with a capacity of at least 4GB, some kind of CF-IDE adapter (not neccessarily that one) and of course a Compact Flash reader for your computer. This tutorial also assumes that you are running Windows, although it should be possible to use pretty much the same procedure with FS-UAE on Linux or Mac.

Step 1 - Download stuff

First of all, you will need to download a bunch of software.

WinUAE - Amiga emulator

This tutorial uses the WinUAE amiga emulator, which can be found on winuae.net. I was using version 4.0.1, although I now see that version 4.3.0 is available. From what I can tell, the difference seems to be very minor, so it shouldn’t matter.

Kickstart / Workbench

You will need a copy of the Kickstart ROM and Workbench disk images, version 3.0 or 3.1. This is still under copyright, and at least the Workbench images can be bought from amigaforever.com. They can also be found on several places on the Internet, as usual DuckDuckGo is your friend.

PFS3 File System support

You probably want to use the PFS3 file system, and you will need to download the handler for that from http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/pfs3aio. This is not strictly necessary, but it’s faster than the standard AFFS and supports larger partitions.

Classic WB

Hard disk images for Classic WB can be found at (classicwb.abime.net)[http://classicwb.abime.net/]. I used the LITE version for the Amiga 1200, but for an Amiga 600 you probably want the 68K version.

You will also need kickstart files for WHDLoad. These can be found for example at (paradise.untergrund.net)[https://paradise.untergrund.net/tmp/PREMIUM/amiga_tools/], it’s the kickstarts.lha file you’re looking for.

Game and Demo packs

Workbench V1.0 (1985) (Commodore) [m ...

The original tutorial suggested that game packs could be downloaded from http://kg.whdownload.com/kgwhd/, but that doesn’t seem to work anymore. I downloaded both games and demo packs from ftp://grandis.nu/Commodore_Amiga/Retroplay/, but they are available from many more places, just search for whdload games pack.

Put everything in a folder somewhere on your PC.

Step 2 - Clean the CF card

In order to use the Compact Flash card in an Amiga, you need to remove all previous file system information from it. In order to do this, run diskpart in an Administrative command prompt.

First, list your disk by entering list disk. This should give you a result something like this:

Next, select your compact flash card, in my case it’s disk 6: select disk 6. Be very, very sure that you select the correct disk. You will destroy everything on it.

If you want to be completely sure that you have selected the correct disk, you can run detail disk just to verify. When you are 100% sure, run clean. This completely wipes the file system information from the disk, making it ready to use in the Amiga. exit diskpart.

Step 3 - Configure virtual Amiga in WinUAE

Start WinUAE as Administrator. Now we need to configure the system, and make it a little faster than a real Amiga. Otherwise this process will take literally^[3] forever.

CPU and FPU

CPU: 68040 (or maybe 68060) / JIT
FPU: CPU Internal / More Compatible
CPU Emulation speed: Fastest possible

Chipset

Uncheck cycle exact, otherwise leave the default values.

RAM

Add some Z3 Fast RAM, I used 64 MB, just as in the original video.

ROM

Use the appropriate Kickstart ROM (probably the same as in your amiga). It needs to be version 3.0 or 3.1.

Floppy drives

Add the Workbench installer disk image to DF0:. It should not be write protected (use a copy if you don’t want to risk modifying your original image).

Hard drive (Compact Flash, really)

Now you need to add your compact flash card as a file system, as well as the pfs3 handler. Enter the CD & Hard drives section.

Add the pfs3aio archive as device f

If you want to use the PFS3 file system (which is recommended), you need to mount the archive with the handler as a file system as well:

Click “Add Directory or Archive”
Select “Archive or plain file”
Select pfs3aio.lha
Device name: f

Add the Compact Flash card

The next step is to add your Compact Flash card, and this is why you need to run WinUAE as administrator, otherwise it won’t work.

Click “Add Hard Drive”
Select the Compact Flash card as hard drive (it might be called something completely different on your machine)
Change from UEA to IDE (Auto)
Make sure Read/Write is checked
Click “Add hard drive”

Start the virtual machine!

Amiga 1200 Workbench 3.1 Adf

Step 3 - Partition Compact Flash card

Now we need to partition and format the Compact Flash card for use in an amiga.

Open the Install disk and the HDTools drawer.
Start HDToolbox, you should see Interface SCSI, Address 0, LUN 0, Status Unknown

Click “Change drive type” -> “Define new” -> “Read configuration” -> “Continue” to configure the CF drive (ignore the values read, the Amiga does not really understand 4 GB Drive)
Click OK and go back to the list of hard drives in the system.
Click “Partition Drive”
Set up a small(ish) system partition, like 250 MB. Change the name to DH0.
Set up the rest of the CF Card as a partition, name it DH1.

Optional: Use the pfs3 file system

Check Advanced options and then click “Add/Update”
Click Add New File System
Enter filename f:pfs3aio (NOT pfs3_aio-handler as is claimed in the video, that is no longer correct) and click OK
Change DosType to 0x50465303 and remember to press Enter in the field
Click OK and OK to get back to your partitions
Select DH0, and click “Change” to change to the new file system
Select Custom File System or PFS/03 (depending on your Workbench version, I think)
Make sure Identifier says 0x50465303 (otherwise change it)
Change MaxTransfer to 0x1fe00 (and press enter)
Click OK
Repeat for DH1 (you don’t have to add the PFS3 file system again)

Now we’re done with the partitioning. Click OK, and then “Save changes to drive” (if you get an error here, you may want to try another Card Reader). Exit HDToolbox and reset the virtual Amiga.

Step 3 - Install Classic WB

Alright, if you’re still with me, it’s finally time to install Classic Workbench!

First, format the partitions by right clicking on them and select Icons -> Format disk from the menu. Name DH0 System and DH1 whatever you want (I just named mine Stuff). Make sure to use Quick Format. Confirm all warnings.

Then, press F12 to enter the WinUAE settings and go to CD & Hard Drives. Now you need to add the System.hdf file that you extracted from the Classic WB archive you downloaded in Step 1. Click Add Hardfile and select the System.hdf file. Make sure that the HD Controller is UAE, and name the device DH2. You should set boot prio to 1 (not 0).

You can remove the pfs3aio device, and then go to Floppy drives and eject all floppy drives. Restart the virtual machine.

It should now boot into the Classic WB installer. Follow the instructions (there are many, many options, and I have no good advice to give about them), and when prompted to insert a Workbench disk, press F12 to enter settings and do that. This is your change to choose between Workbench 3.0 and 3.1.

After the installation is done, and you have restarted, you probably will not see you compact flash partitions. This is because the Amiga gets confused by the two System partions. Rename the Classic WB partition to System2 (or something other than just System) and restart the virtual machine. You should now see all partitions.

Now you need to copy all the System/Workbench files from the System.hbf image to the System partition on the Compact Flash card. Start DOPUS by clicking RUN and selecting DOPUS. Select DH2: on the left (if DH2 does not appear in the list, you may have to type it in), and DH0: on the right. Select DH2 and click “All” to select all files, and then “Copy” to copy everything to the CF card. This will take a while.

After the copying is done, press F12 again to go into settings, and remove the System.hbf image from the hard disks. You should now only have your Compact Flash card left. Reset the virtual machine, and you should hopefully boot back into Classic Workbench.

Congratulations, you now have a working Compact Flash card for use in your Amiga. At this point, you could install it in the Amiga, start it, and everything should work. However, the point of Amiga is playing games, so we have one step left!

Step 4 - Copy Games and Demos for WHDLoad

Workbench V1.0 (1985) (Commodore) [a].

First, we need to mount the folder where you put your games, demos and kickstarts as a file system in the virtual amiga.

Go into WinUAE settings -> CD & Hard Drives and click “Add Directory or Archive”.
Click “Select Directory” and point to where your Games and Demos are.
Put PC as both Device name and Volume label. Uncheck bootable. Click OK, and reset the machine.
You should now see a drive called PC on your workbench.

Second, we need to copy all the kickstart files. WHDLoad uses these to emulate^[4] the correct environment for the games and applications.

If you haven’t done so already, unpack the kickstarts.lha archive into a folder.
Open DOPUS again, and select PC for the left side, and navigate into where you unpacked your kickstarts.
Copy all the kickstarts file to DH0:Devs/Kickstarts. Overwrite any files already there.

The Games and Demos need to be unpack into individual folders grouped by initial. For example Games/A/AnotherWorld_v2.4_0425. For games beginning with a number, the folder should be called 0_9. This can be done on the PC, or you can unpack them using DOPUS (as long as you have grouped them by initial).

Depending on the size of your CF card, all games might not fit, or if you just don’t want that many, you can just select the ones you like. I think it’s fine to group them into fewer folders then, e.g. A_E, F_K et cetera. At least the demos I downloaded were grouped like that, and it seems to work fine.

Now, use DOPUS again to copy the files from PC to DH1. If you did not unpack the archives earlier you can use Arc Ext to extract all the archives, buy you will have to do it folder by folder. I copied them to DH1:Gamesand DH1:Demos, but you can organise your files however you want.

Go back into settings, and remove all file systems except for the Compact Flash card. Reset the system, and it should boot back into Classic WB on your Compact Flash card.

Time to configure the system so that WHDLoad can find your games and demos!

Right click the top bar and select Workbench -> Startup from the drop down menu. Click Assign.
Change the locations for Games (and Demos) to where you put them. In my case, change the line that reads Assign >NIL: A-Games: SYS:Games to Assign >NIL: A-Games: DH1:Games (and likewise for demos).
Click the close icon in the top left corner and then click Save. Reset the machine again.

Finally, we need to add the games (and demos) to WHDLoad. Double click on the Files drawer in the bottom, and select AddGames. This may take some time. Do the same for AddDemos.

Now you can verify that the games are available. Right click on the desktop (of the Amiga!) and select RUN -> Games. This should bring up the GamesMenu where you now should see a long list of games.

Step 5 - Hardware install

There is not really much to this, and the video explains it pretty good. Use a CF-IDE adapter of some kind, and connect it to the IDE port of the Amiga. That’s it.

UPDATE: When I tried to put the CF card in my Amiga 1200, it didn’t recognize it, even though it had worked in my Amiga 600. I thought I had the same CF-IDE adapter, but on closer inspection it turned out they were not exactly the same. They both say CF-IDE44/2.0 ADAPTER, but the one that works has version V.H2, while the other one has version V.B1. And it seems that other people have had the same issue with the V.B1. So if you use this kind of CF-IDE adapter, make sure it says V.H2 and NOT V.B1!

Start the Amiga (the real one), and it should boot to your Compact Flash card. Bring up the RUN -> Games menu, and double click a game to start it!

1.Youtube comments are more useful than their reputation would have you believe! ↩
2.That is, me, a few months from now. ↩
3.figuratively ↩
4.It might not technically be emulation, but I have a very rudimentary idea of how WHDLoad works... ↩

This is a follow up to my efforts on installing a Compact Flash drive in an Amiga A500+.

My initial aim was to replace the Alfapower hard drive enclosure which would reduce the overall footprint of the system and do away with the constant whine of the hard drive. At this point I was able to get the Amiga to boot from the Flash drive while attached to the IDE port on the Viper Accelerator.

My attention then turned to the CD Drive connected to the Alfapower via an IDE cable with a power cable connected to the serial port on the back of the A500+. After some experimenting I found that the IDE CD drive was not recognised when connected to the accelerator board. I also found that it was not recognised when I removed the hard drive from the Alfapower and reconfigured the CD drive as the IDE master. The driver install software just couldn’t see it. I did have success though when I moved the Compact Flash drive from the accelerator board to the Alfapower IDE connector.

In the image above I have removed the old hard drive and installed the CF adaptor. You can see that the hard drive enclosure also contains 4mb of Zip ram chips.

The move raised another issue. At this point the only CF card I had was a 4gb card and all that space was being used by the 3 partitions. Only the boot partition was recognised as usable, the other two classed as NDOS. This isn’t the case when it’s plugged into the IDE port on the accelerator. A quick look online suggested that the IDE interface may not read past a set limit and any partition that crosses or is beyond that limit cannot be read.

I decided to purchase another CF card to experiment with. This would mean that the bootable CF card was preserved. I attempted to get WinUAE to read the new card so that I could create smaller partitions. This didn’t work and after some online searching I concluded that I needed an ADF image of the Workbench Install disk. I purchased yet another CF card, this one came with Workbench preinstalled. The biggest help was that it also came with the Workbench 3.1 discs in ADF format. Stroke of luck.

WinUAE could read this new card straight away and I copied the Workbench ADFs to a PC folder that WinUAE was using as a drive. This was great as I now had a bootable Workbench Install disc with HDToolbox.

At this point I found a possible reason why HDToolbox couldn’t find my previously assumed incompatible CF card. WinUAE uses a SCSI device name of uaehf.device instead of scsi.device and so this needs to be changed in the HDToolbox configuration.

Back to WinUAE which I configured to boot from the Workbench Install ADF image.The CF drive was mounted as a Hard Drive. Once booted, I copied the HDToolbox program to the Ram Disk to and edited the icon configuration. This did the trick and the drive could be seen. I was able to create partitions but another obstacle was encountered when I went to save the changes. Seems WinUAE couldn’t write to the drive while it was still mounted on the PC. I tried a couple of things but in the end I had to use Diskpart to clean the CF card, this appears to remove the filesystem from the drive. I rebooted WinUAE and relaunched HDToolbox and this time the partitions were created.

The following is my guide which should turn any CF card into a usable, bootable drive that can be used on real Amiga hardware.

What you need:

CF Card & some form of reader for your PC.
WinUAE
Workbench Install disk ADF image

How to Clean your Compact Flash card:

You should only need to do this is your CF card has been formatted by something other than Workbench.

Connect the CF card to the PC.
Click on the Windows icon (bottom left of the desktop) and then on All Programs. Click on the Accessories folder and then right click on Command Prompt. Select Run as Administrator.
In the Command Prompt window that opens up type “diskpart” and press return. You will see that the usual C: prompt has now changed to DISKPART>.
Now type “list disk”. You will be presented with a list of all the drives on your system. Locate the CF drive in the list. You should know the size of the CF card which will help you. You are looking for the disk number that is listed against your CF drive. If you are unsure stop here as you could wipe the wrong drive.
Now type “select disk #” and replace the # with the drive number for your CF drive. Again make sure it is the correct one.
Now type “clean”. All formatting info will be wiped from that drive.
You can close the Command Prompt window at this point.

How to boot WinUAE and format your CF drive:

Go to your install of WinUAE and right click the icon and select Run as Administrator.
If you have a configuration already set up you can load that into WinUAE and remove all of its floppy drives and hard drives. Or you can set up a new one from scratch by selecting your Amiga type and ROM to match the version of Workbench you will be using.
Go to the Floppy drives section and add your Workbench Install ADF image to DF0.
Go to the CD & Hard Drives section and click on Add Hard Drive.
Make sure the CF card is connected to your reader and select the Hard Drive drop down menu and select your CF card.
Ensure that Read/write is ticked. You will notice that the device type is UAE (uaehf.device).
Now click on Add hard drive.
You might want to save this WinUAE configuration so you don’t have to set it up again later.
Now click on Start and wait for the Workbench Install disk to boot up.
Double click the Ram Disk icon.
Double click on the Install disk icon and then double click on HDTools. This will open another window and one of the icons there will be HDToolBox. If we run HDToolBox from here it will not be able to find your CF drive, we need to change its configuration.
Copy HDToolBox to the Ram Disk by dragging it.
Click on the copy of HDToolBox on the Ram Disk and head to the Icons menu at the top of the screen and then select Information. This should open up a window with the configuration.
Click on SCSI_DEVICE_NAME=scsi.device and and change it to SCSI_DEVICE_NAME=uaehf.device and then click Save.

Now double click the HDToolBox icon in Ram to run the program.
Once loaded you should see your CF drive listed with a SCSI Interface and its Status is most likely listed as Unknown. Its worth mentioning that you should never use the Low Level Format option presented on this menu.
Click on Change Drive Type to be taken to the Set Drive Type window.
Click on Define New….
You should now see a window showing info on Cylinders and Heads etc. We don’t need to set anything here. We can let it do the work by clicking on Read Configuration and then on Continue on the small pop up that appears.
You will see that the drive info has changed. Just click OK to return to the Select a Drive Type window. Click OK again.
You should now be back at main menu and the drive info has been updated. From here select Partition Drive.
This is where you can create and size your partitions. Use the slider to create your first partition, as you move the slider and release it you will see the size in megabytes. Once the size is set you need to give the drive a Device Name. Usual names are DH0 or HD0. Type your name and press Enter (this is important). You also need to make sure that Bootable is ticked for this partition as Workbench will live here. If you want to create a 2^nd partition click on New Partition and again move the slider to size it. Give it a Device Name such as DH1 or HD1 and press Enter to set the partition. This disk should not be bootable. You can go on to create further partitions if you wish. Be aware that some IDE interfaces may not access over a set size so you may wish to ensure that your all partitions do not exceed 1 or 2gb in size when added together. This may not be the case with A600 and A1200 internal interfaces but my A500’s Alfapower interface doesn’t seem to like more than 1Gb.

Click on OK.
Back at the main menu select Save Changes to Drive. This should take a second or so and once complete the Save Changes to Drive button should be ghosted out to prevent you clicking it again.
Click Exit.
Now press F12 to bring up the WinUAE properties window and click on CD & Hard Drives to see your CF drive listed. Ensure the CF drive is highlighted and click the Remove button.
Now go to the Windows USB Eject icon and eject the CF drive from Windows as you would do for any USB drive.
Remove the CF card from the reader and then plug it back in. Windows will not know what to do with the drive and prompt you to format the card. Do not, just close the window.
Now go back into the WinUAE properties window and click on Add Hard Drive and add your CF drive back to the Amiga system. Once that is done click on Reset to reboot your emulated Amiga. The ADF image will boot again and you should see your new CF partitions listed as NDOS disks.
Single click on the drive you made bootable and select Format from the Icons menu.
Give this a New Volume Name of Workbench. Untick Trashcan and click Quick Format.
Repeat this for the other NDOS discs, giving each disk its own name.

Your CF drive is now ready to be used in your real Amiga. You’ll need to install Workbench on it which you could do using disks on your Amiga or using ADF images on WinUAE if you have them.

I didn’t manage to reduce the footprint of the system as I still need to have the Alfapower enclosure attached. I could move the CF card back to the internal IDE port on the accelerator card but that would mean losing the CD drive. It has been a bit of a struggle to get to this point. I now have my old, 4 partition, 320mb system hard drive copied over to a CF card with 4 partitions that add up to just under 1Gb.

On my 2^nd attempt at creating 4 partitions that all fit within the IDE interface space limit I noticed something odd. After having previously loaded the CF drive with files and then having to re-partition I found that the Quick Format left a few files and folders behind from the previous set up. A full format from the Workbench disk fixed that.

I decided to use the short IDE cable on the CF adaptor and have the CF drive poke out of the rear of the hard drive enclosure. It’s not very neat but it will allow me to easily swap CF cards…..maybe I will set up a dedicated gaming card.