Amiga Computing 67/ac067b.adf/rdhelp1

Text File | 1984-08-04 | 26KB | 557 lines

WHAT IS RDPREP FOR ?

RDPrep is used to create the settings and values which describe your
hard disks to AmigaDOS and to write those values to a standard place on
your hard disk called the Rigid Disk Block (RDB).  Autobooting disk
interfaces use the information in the RDB to mount and access the drive.
RDPrep was originally created to support MicroBotics' HardFrame SCSI
interface, the first interface to use Rigid Disk Blocks (and indeed,
MicroBotics helped formulate and create the RDB standard).

RDPrep can, however, be used to partition ANY hard disk on any interface,
the driver for which conforms to the RDB  standard in all respects. To
use RDPrep on a non-MicroBotics interface, simply change the tooltype in
the icon to indicate the name of the device driver you are using. For
example, the Commodore device driver name is "scsi.device".

Note: RDPrep is NOT a "formatting" utility. By deliberate design,
MicroBotics has separated both low and high-level formatting from the
creation of RDB's. It is our feeling that the chance for making a
catastrophic mistake is unacceptably increased by blending these
different functions into one program.


GETTING AROUND IN RDPREP:

At the head of each of the screens in RDPrep are large rectangular
"buttons" which permit you to hop from screen to screen by single-
clicking on them.  The currently active screen has its button illuminated
in orange.  The screen buttons are also used to exit this help screen
(just click on the button of the screen that you want to return to).


THE TWO LEVELS OF COMPLEXITY IN RDPREP:

RDprep starts up in its least complex mode, called "Standard" mode. Most
installations can be made from this mode which requires less data entry
on your part. If you have a peculiar drive or setup requirement, you can
go to COMPLEX mode by clicking on the Complex button in the upper right
hand corner of Screen 1. We recommend you stay in Standard mode.


HELP-IN-CONTEXT:

Note that when you click on a button or a label in the RDPrep screens, a
one-line, context sensitive help message appears at the head of the
screen, right under the screen navigation buttons.  If you hold down the
left mouse button when you click, you can drag the pointer off the button
without activating or changing it (in effect cancelling the click).

Right below we'll describe the functions on Screen #1 of RDPrep. At the
end of this help screen is a glossary of terms and other, general
information you might want to review before setting up your harddisk.


GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR SCREEN #1:

Screen 1 starts up in its "Standard" mode.  Screen 1 shows you the drives
connected to your disk interface.  If you have more than one drive
connected, RDPrep will start by showing you the default settings for the
first drive in the list.  To show the defaults of any other drives you
might have connected, just click on that drive's line in the list.

If you have more than one drive connected yet only one drive is shown in
the list, click on the RESTART button and see if that finds the drive (if
not, check cabling, drive terminators, unit jumper settings, and power
connections on the drive).

We suggest that you use the defaults (the manufacturer's standard
settings for your drive as determined by RDPrep from reading the ROM
built into the disk drive).


EDITING THE SETTINGS:

If you decide to go to COMPLEX mode, you will see a selection of
parameter boxes on the right hand side of the screen. At start they will
contain the default settings.  Just bring the mouse pointer to the text
box you want to edit (any one of the black boxes on the right) and click
on it.  The cursor will appear in the box.


ERROR CONDITIONS:

In COMPLEX mode, if one or more of the edited boxes has unacceptable
parameters in it, its name will highlighted in orange against a dark grey
bar.  Note that until the erroneous setting is changed to an acceptable
one, you will not be able to move on to Screen 2.


PHYSICAL VS. LOGICAL SETTINGS:

The settings on COMPLEX Screen 1 are, mostly, PHYSICAL settings (i.e.,
settings which reflect the actual hardware of the disk unit without
regard to the requirements of AmigaDOS).  These settings may vary
slightly from the values found in the same categories in COMPLEX Screen 2
because on Screen 2 we mostly use LOGICAL values (i.e., those values as
best set for the operating system and driver).  For the most part, don't
concern yourself with the difference: use the default values presented on
each screen.


SAVING AND LOADING A MOUNTFILE:

Once you've set up the values on screens 1 and 2 and you've created
whatever partitions you want on screen 2, you can return to screen 1 and
save the disk information as a MOUNTFILE; this is a standard text file
which describes the settings you've created in RDPrep for a given disk
unit.  The purpose of a mountfile is to "backup" your disk settings so
that in case of error you can easily restore the exact setup as
originally created.  A mountfile can be saved (as a named file) on floppy
disk then later recalled and written to the RigidDiskBlocks of the disk.
It is important that you take the time to create a mountfile.


READING AND WRITING AN RDB:

Once you've created the settings and partitions for a disk in RDPrep, you
must then WRITE the RDB to the drive as the final step.  Once an RDB has
been written to a drive, it can be recalled (via the READ RDB button) and
have some of its settings edited (but be aware that this may result in a
loss of any data currently on the hard disk when you re-write this new
setup back to the hard disk).


DRIVE-INIT SETTINGS IN COMPLEX MODE:

A "DriveInit" is a piece of program code that is embedded in the Rigid
Disk Block and which loads and runs automatically each time a drive is
booted. For example, a DriveInit could be a patch to the driver code on
your interface. A DriveInit is made available for selection by clicking
the "Set DriveInit" button and selecting the file name from the requestor
box. The file name thus chosen will be added to the list available via
the choice button labelled "DriveInit". When the RDB is subsequently
written to the drive, this choice gadget is examined and if a selection
has been indicated, that file is found and written into the RDB.


IMPORTANT NOTE: Be sure that you establish at least one partition on your
drive (and write its information to the Rigid Disk Block by selecting the
WRITE RDB button on Screen 1 of RDPrep).  Every drive must have AT LEAST
one partition in order to be recognized by the system.  If you fail to do
this, you will get an error message "Drive Not Found" or words to that
effect when you reboot to do a soft format.


SOFT FORMATTING YOUR HARD DISK

After creating a valid RDB you must reboot your Amiga using an already
bootable hard disk partition (not the one you just worked on) or a bootable
diskette. You must do this to MOUNT the partitions you just created with
RDPrep) in order to do a high level ("soft") AmigaDOS format of the disk.
Click on the Shell icon and issue a format command to the drive of the
form:

    FORMAT DRIVE <DeviceName> NAME <VolumeName> FFS

Replace <DeviceName> with the Device Name (for example: DH0:) of the
partition that you defined in RDPrep.  Replace <VolumeName> with the name
you wish to be shown under the disk icon on the Workbench screen.  If you
wish to put spaces in this name, you must enclose the volume name in
quotation marks. The above command will soft format a partition for the
Fast File System. If you did not use the Fast File System on this
partition, leave off the FFS keyword (note that there are other keyword
options available under AmigaDOS; see your AmigaDOS manual).  So a
typical format command would look like:

    FORMAT DRIVE DH0: NAME MyHardDisk FFS

Although, unlike floppy disks, with a hard disk you CAN use the QUICK
keyword the first time you format it, there is an advantage to NOT using
Quick mode the first time: normal mode will alert you to any bad sectors
you may have on your disk or a too-high maximum cylinder setting in
RDPrep. If you've created more than one partition, you'll have to soft
format each one.

At this point you should take a complete, standard Workbench diskette and
copy it to the System Partition on your hard disk.  Use the following
syntax:

    COPY DF0: TO DH0: ALL

Don't forget to use the "ALL" keyword to get all the subdirectories
copied. If you are using AmigaDOS 2 or 3, use the installer script to
install your workbench and set up your system rather than just copying a
Workbench diskette.

========================================================================
End of Screen 1 Help Text; Glossary Follows:
========================================================================

A GLOSSARY OF HARD DISK TERMS AND ABBREVIATIONS


AutoBoot:
To start the system (boot) without a floppy.  Your System Partition
should have software equivalent to the Workbench floppy.  Which Partition
(if you have several) will autoboot is determined by Boot Priority.  (see
Boot Priority, System Partition)


AutoMount:
To make a Partition accessable to the system without an entry in the
MountList file.  Any floppy drives in your system are automounted just as
any Partition you describe to RDPrep will be.  The disk interface driver
code in your interface's ROM chip will automount your Partitions if it is
set up to do so; if not, then your Partitions will be automounted when
the driver is read out of your Expansion drawer by the BindDrivers
command in your Startup-Sequence.


Block:
The basic unit of disk storage space.  In order to simplify the
arrangement of information on a disk, data is grouped into Blocks of
equal numbers of bytes.  Currently, all AmigaDOS File Systems use 512
bytes per block.  On the Amiga, the terms 'Block' and 'Sector' are
usually equivalent and are used interchangeably.  (see Sector)


Boot Priority:
A number from -128 to 4 which describes the precedence of a given device
to be taken as the system boot device.  The higher the number, the
greater the precedence.  If you have multiple devices or Partitions
attached to your disk interface, you must give the highest priority to
your System Partition: the Partition containing your Startup-Sequence and
your c: directory.  We suggest a "4" for your System Partition and "0"
for all the others.  Use a Boot Priority higher than zero for the System
Partition even if you make only one Partition -- if you use the
rebootable RAM disk "RAD:", it can confuse the system on warm reboots
since RAD: also defaults to a "0" Boot Priority.


Buffer Memory Type:
A code indicating the type of memory (chip or fast) in which to allocate
I/O buffers: 1 = Public RAM; 3 = Chip RAM; 5 = Fast RAM.  Public RAM
means for the device to use Fast memory for its buffers if Fast RAM is
available or Chip memory if it is not.  You should always use Public RAM,
which is the default for disk interfaces. On older Amigas, there are two
types of "Fast" RAM: Motherboard RAM and Expansion RAM.  Motherboard RAM
is the 512 kilobytes of Fast RAM on the Amiga's motherboard.  (If you
have a 1 meg Chip RAM machine, you have no Motherboard Fast RAM.)
Expansion RAM is any memory on an expansion card in one of the Amiga
slots.  The distinction is important because Expansion RAM runs faster
than Motherboard RAM and your disk performance will improve if your
buffers can be moved out of the Motherboard RAM. Unfortunately, if you
have both Expansion RAM and Motherboard RAM, there is no way to avoid
having some of your buffers set up in the Motherboard RAM. The
FastMemFirst command rearranges the memory list so that Expansion RAM
will be used before Motherboard RAM, but any buffers you define in the
RigidDiskBlock will be allocated before FastMemFirst can be run.

There are three ways to handle this situation:

a. Get a 1-meg Chip RAM Agnus update.

b. Minimize the number of those buffers in Motherboard RAM.  Indicate a
small number of buffers in RDPrep (ie: 5), then in your Startup-Sequence
use the AddBuffers command AFTER FastMemFirst, like so:

    C:SetPatch >NIL:
    SYS:System/FastMemFirst
    AddBuffers DH0: 25    (or however many you wish to add)

c. Ignore it.  The difference in transfer rate is not great.


Controller:
An interface through which a storage device attaches to a SCSI bus.  Each
SCSI drive usually has a controller built-in.  An exception to this would
be boards similar to the Adaptec controllers.  Separate controllers are
usually used only to translate one communications standard to another.
Note that your disk interface itself is not a controller but rather a SCSI
Host Adaptor (even though many people loosely refer to such as
"controllers"). As defined by SCSI, a controller could run as many as 8
devices each, each device being specified by a Logical Unit Number between
0 and 7.  (see Host Adaptor, LUN, SCSI ID)


Cylinder:
A set of tracks on the hard disk which are all accessible without moving
the read/write heads, i.e., are all of equal distance from the drive
spindle on the different surfaces.  The number of tracks in a cylinder
depends upon the number of heads (surfaces) on a given drive.  Example:
if a drive has four heads, each cylinder will have four tracks in it.
The Number of Cylinders is sometimes listed in drive documentation as
"Tracks per Surface".


Device Name:
One of the names of a disk Partition.  For example, "DF0:" is the device
name of your system's first floppy disk.  "DH0:" is the conventional
device name for the first hard disk Partition.  The Device Name of a
Partition is established using RDPrep by filling in the "Partition Drive
Name" column. By convention this should be two capital letters followed
by a single digit, but it can be longer or shorter if you desire.  RDPrep
will not capitalize it for you; type it as you wish it to appear.
Partitions also have a separate Volume Name which is the name that
appears on the Workbench screen.  (see Partition, Volume Name)


DOS Interleave:
How many blocks to SKIP (between physically adjacent blocks) before
writing the next block of a file.  MicroBotics' interfaces use a DOS
interleave of 0 (i.e., blocks of all files are adjacent; none are
skipped).  DOS Interleave is set when a Partition is mounted and can be
different for each Partition and at every mount without risk of losing
data. (The Fast File System ignores this and writes all its files
sequentially.)  DOS interleave has no relation to and should not be
confused with the hard format interleave of the actual media.


DOS I/O Buffers:
512 byte sections of memory dedicated to buffering disk input/output.
Usually the higher the number of buffers, the better the performance (up
to a point).  The usual default is around 30 buffers for hard disks.  At
no time should you specify less than 5 buffers.


Fast File System (FFS):
The new filesystem in the DOS 1.3 file "L:FastFileSystem" or in DOS 2.x
Kickstart.  In the first release of DOS 1.3, it was inadvertently limited
to 308 megabytes per partition, but AmigaDOS 1.3.1 fixed this.  The new
limit is 2.5 gigabytes per partition.  When you run RDPrep, it creates
Fast File System partitions by default, so the L:FastFileSystem file is
automatically copied into the Rigid Disk Blocks.  (see Old File System).
Note that if your Kickstart ROM is AmigaDOS version 2.0 or higher, the
Fast File System is loaded from ROM, not the L: directory.


File System:
A program that controls the way files are created and accessed on disk
Partitions.  When AmigaDOS needs to access a file on a disk, it passes
control to a File System program to do the actual I/O.  Currently there
are two main File Systems in use on Amiga disks: the standard "Old" File
System (OFS) and the new Fast File System (FFS). Additionally there
available a number of subtypes of these two systems plus (via CrossDOS)
the MSDOS file system. Below is a table of these file systems:

NAME   HEX VALUE   AVAILABLE IN... COMMONLY KNOWN AS

DOS0   0x444F5300   AmigaDOS 1.0    Old File System (OFS)
DOS1   0x444F5301   AmigaDOS 1.3    Fast File System (FFS)
DOS2   0x444F5302   AmigaDOS 3.0    Old File System (OFS)-International
DOS3   0x444F5303   AmigaDOS 3.0    Fast File System (FFS)-International
DOS4   0x444F5304   AmigaDOS 3.0    Old File System (OFS)-Dir Caching
DOS5   0x444F5305   AmigaDOS 3.0    Fast File System (FFS)-Dir Caching
DOS6   0x444F5306   AmigaDOS 2.1    CrossDOS/MSDOS File System
RESV   0x52455356   RDPrep only     Reserved (inaccessible)

Note that the RESV type of partition/file system is an RDPrep convenience
feature used to block the use of a given area of the hard disk. The
resultant space will be unused and invisible (from AmigaDOS). It can be
recovered by accessing the space from RDPrep again and declaring to be a
regular AmigaDOS partition type.

Hard Interleave:
A number that expresses the distance in sectors from one logical sector
to the next logically sequential sector.  The smaller the number, the
faster the disk read or write.  The Interleave is set when the low-level
format is done by the drive manufacturer or by utility software which may
have been included with your disk interface.  An interleave of "1" is the
best interleave possible (if the SCSI host adaptor can keep up with it)
since it means sequential blocks are physically adjacent to each other on
the track. Most modern disk interfaces (with the FastFileSystem) always
uses an interleave of 1 (i.e., they are fast enough to keep up with the
fastest drives).  (see DOS Interleave)


Head:
The part of a hard disk that actually reads and writes data to/from the
hard disk.  Each disk surface has its own Head which is moved toward or
away from the drive spindle as needed to access the different Tracks.
Some drives have a head reserved for servo information (cylinder
positioning data).  Make sure you do not include any servo head in the
number for Surfaces if you are overriding the defaults presented by
RDPrep.


Host Adaptor:
The interface through which a Host (computer) accesses a SCSI bus.  For
example,  HardFrame/2000 is a Host Adaptor.  (see Controller)


IDE:
Integrated Drive Electronics --the other most common type of drive and
interface found on the Amiga (i.e., other than SCSI). The Amiga 1200 for
example has a built in IDE interface. Whether or not you can use RDPrep
to setup your IDE drive depends upon whether or not the manufacturer of
your interface's software has designed it to be cross-compatible with
SCSI-oriented utilities and whether or not they properly support the
Rigid Disk Block standard. Commodore's own "scsi.device" does indeed do
this, so it is possible to partition an A1200 IDE drive using RDPrep
simply by changing the device driver name to scsi.device. Note that some
IDE drives do not support a maxtransfer value greater than 64k.


Initiator:
The SCSI term for the device that initiates activity on the SCSI bus, ie:
sends SCSI commands.  Usually this is a computer equipped with a Host
Adaptor. (see Target)


Logical Unit Number (LUN):
A number from 0 to 7 that selects one drive out of many attached to a
disk controller card.  LUN is used only on controller cards that can run
more than one drive.  On all other controllers only LUN 0 will be used.
For example, in the case of an Adaptec interface which may have two or
more drives connected to it, each drive would be identified by a separate
LUN. (see Unit Number, SCSI ID)


Max Transfer:
The maximum number of bytes that the driver will attempt to transfer to
or from the drive in one pass.  Thus far, MicroBotics has found that the
default setting (130560) is appropriate for all the drives tested.
Increasing it beyond the default can in some cases create spurious read
errors.  It must always be some multiple of 512 bytes. Note that some IDE
drives need a Max Transfer setting of less than 64kbytes.


Old File System (OFS):
The filesystem in the AmigaDOS v1.x Kickstart.  Limited to about fifty
megabytes per partition.  (see Fast File System)


Park:
"To Park a drive's heads" means to move them into a shipping zone where
they cannot contact the drive media should the drive be jostled.  This is
very important to do before shipping a drive to prevent damage to the
data surface.  Most drives will "autopark", meaning that you need do
nothing -- every time power is removed, the drive will automatically park
its heads.


Partition:
A named section of a hard disk seen as an independent device by AmigaDOS.
There must always be at least one Partition defined on a disk.  The size
of a Partition is defined by how many cylinders of the disk surface it
uses. Multiple Partitions can be defined on one physical hard disk by
allocating separate ranges of cylinders, ie: DH0:, DH1:, and DH2: could
all be Partitions of the same physical hard disk.  Each Partition has two
separate names, the Device Name (ie: DH0:, DH1:, etc.) and the Volume
Name ("HardDisk", "MyDrive", "Fred").  (see Cylinder, Device Name, System
Partition and Volume Name)


Preallocated Blocks:
Blocks at the end of a FastFileSystem Partition that are not used for
file storage.  AmigaDOS does not use them for anything, and currently, we
know of no programs that use them, so you should just leave this set to
zero when defining Partitions.


Reselection:
A SCSI option of use only when more than one computer is tied into the
same SCSI bus.  When your computer sends a command to a drive (eg: Read a
block), the drive normally ties up the SCSI bus until that command is
completed.  When Reselection is enabled, the drive may tell the Host
Adaptor to wait and then get off the SCSI bus; freeing it up so a second
Host Adaptor could talk to another device.  When the drive is ready, it
re-selects the original Host Adaptor and finishes the command.  We
recommend you leave Reselection OFF as the extra operations needed to get
off the bus and then back on again will slow down your system access
time.


Reserved Blocks:
A minimum of two blocks at the beginning of each Partition where the DOS
file system type is designated (standard or fast file system).


Rigid Disk Block (RDB):
A fixed area on the disk (which is not part of any Partition) into which
RDPrep writes the parameters of your drive configuration in order to
automount your Partitions.  This is usually the first cylinder on each
drive (cylinder 0).  The RDB replaces the standard MountList entry method
for defining Partitions.


SCSI ID Number:
A number from 0 to 7 identifying a device (either a Host Adaptor or a
Controller board) attached to a SCSI bus.  Each device on the bus must
have a unique number assigned to it.  Usually the disk interface itself
has a SCSI ID of 7, and the storage devices would then be numbered 0
through 6. Each disk drive will have DIP switches or jumpers with which
you can set its SCSI ID. Whenever you add a drive you must check these to
make sure each device has a unique number.  See the documentation for
your interface if you need to change the disk interface's ID number.


Sector:
The logical subdivision of a track.  The HardFormat program tries to set
a drive's sectors to be 512 bytes long, though some removable disk
cartridges use 256 bytes per sector.  In this case, the disk interface
driver will transfer two 256-byte Sectors to/from the disk for every one
Block (512 bytes) requested by the File System.  In most cases, however,
a Sector is equivalent to a Block and the two words are often used
interchangeably. (see Block)


Small Computer Systems Interface (SCSI):
A standard set of signals and commands by which computers and storage
devices can interact.  Having a standard interface allows devices to be
used on many different systems with no change in hardware.


System Partition:
A Partition on your hard disk that contains the AmigaDOS Workbench system
files.  This is the Partition that takes the place of a Workbench floppy
when you boot.  To distinguish this Partition from any others in your
system (and thus specify to AmigaDOS that it is to boot from this
Partition and not one of the others) you must set its Boot Priority
higher than the others.  We recommend a Boot Priority of 4 for your
System Partition.  (see AutoBoot, Boot Priority and Partition)


Surfaces:
A number that expresses how many disk platter sides are physically
present for reading and writing data.  Each surface has one Head to
access it.


Target:
A SCSI term referring to a device that accepts SCSI commands and acts
upon them.  Hard disks are examples of Target devices.  (see Initiator)


TID:
Target ID.  Same as SCSI ID number.


Track:
The group of Sectors on a single disk Surface that can be accessed
without moving the Heads.  Tracks can be visualized as forming concentric
circles around the drive spindle.


Unit Number:
A number that can be thought of as the 'address' of any drive in the
system.  Each disk running through a particular driver program will have
a unique unit number.  For the disk interface, each unit number has three
parts to it: (1) the board number (which will be 0 unless you have more
than one disk interface installed in your system), (2) the SCSI ID for
each drive controller, and (3) the Logical Unit Number for each drive
attached to a particular drive controller.  HardFormat and RDPrep request
the unit number of the drive on which they are to work with the Board
number in the hundreds digit, the LUN in the tens digit, and the SCSI ID
in the ones digit.  (see Logical Unit Number, SCSI ID)


Volume Name:
The name or label of a given Partition which is mostly used as a
mnemonic. This is the name given during the AmigaDOS Format command and
which will appear under the disk icon on the Workbench screen.  The
Volume name can be changed freely using the AmigaDOS RELABEL command.
(see Device Name)