MYIDE CONFIG DOCUMENTATION

by Shawn Jefferson (sjefferson@shaw.ca)

Last Update: March 11, 2007

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Overview........................................................................................................................................................................ 1

2. How do I use it?............................................................................................................................................................ 2

2.1 Prerequisites........................................................................................................................................................... 2

2.2 Starting the program.............................................................................................................................................. 2

2.3 The Interface........................................................................................................................................................... 2

2.3.1 Setting up your hard drive................................................................................................................................. 3

2.3.2 Creating a partition............................................................................................................................................. 4

2.3.3 Deleting a partition............................................................................................................................................. 4

2.3.4 Swapping drive numbers................................................................................................................................... 4

2.3.5 Naming partitions................................................................................................................................................ 4

2.3.6 Saving your configuration................................................................................................................................. 5

2.3.7 The Utility Screen............................................................................................................................................... 5

2.3.7.1 Setting the Image Space Cylinder......................................................................................................... 6

2.3.7.2 Setting the Max Image Size.................................................................................................................... 7

3. Disclaimer...................................................................................................................................................................... 7

1. Overview

The MyIDE hard drive interface, by Mr. Atari (Sijmen Schouten) is an excellent and inexpensive way to connect a hard drive to your Atari 8-bit computer. The software drivers allow you to setup multiple partitions on your hard drive and assign them drive numbers from D1 to D8.

The MyIDE Config program lets you do the initial setup of your hard drive, create, delete and name your partitions as well as swap them among D1-D8. MyIDE Config does a similar job to the FDISK.BAS/FDISK.EXE program with a few added features.

2. How do I use it?

2.1 Prerequisites

Atari XL/XE.

MyIDE Hardware by Mr. Atari

MyIDE OS (software patch or EPROM-OS) version 3.5F/4.x

2.2 Starting the program

You also must have the MyIDE OS installed (either the software OS patch, or a replacement MyIDE EPROM OS). Run the program from a DOS of your choice that works with the MyIDE drivers (MyDOS works very well). You will be informed if the MyIDE drivers/OS is not loaded, and the program will exit. If you have not done the initial setup of the hard drive, MyIDE Config will start automatically detecting your hard drive geometry (the number of cylinders, heads and sectors). See section 2.3.1 for more details about the initial setup of your hard drive. Once the autodetect has completed, or if your hard drive has already been setup previously using FDISK or MyIDE Config, you will see the main screen.

2.3 The Interface

The MyIDE Config screen is laid out with the title and version number at the very top. Directly below that is a status line showing the drive numbers (1 through 8) that are present and the number of partitions that have been created on your hard drive. Then follows a listing of partitions (in grey) below that.

The partition list shows the following information: drive number (D1: through D8:), whether an ide partition exists and the number of that partition (ie. ide 1, or the word floppy which means that no hard drive partition exists at that drive number. For each ide partition you are either shown the partition information (number of sectors and hard drive cylinders that the partition occupies) or the name (see below for how to toggle between the two.)

In the middle of the screen is a red band where messages and prompts will be displayed.

The menu is directly below and shows possible actions and option settings. The key used for each action is highlighted in inverse video. At the bottom of the screen you should see a status line that shows the type of interface, internal or external, the type of MyIDE OS, SoftOS or RomOS and finally the hard drive geometry is displayed on the right hand side of the status line.

The main menu actions (on the right side of the menu/settings area):

[A]bout: displays some vanity text and thanks.

[C]reate: create a new partition

[D]elete: delete an existing partition

[N]ame: give an existing partition a name or edit an existing name

U[t]ility: drive information and misc commands

[Q]uit: quits the program.

MyIDE OS Settings (on the left side of the menu/settings area):

[B]oot drive: the drive number that will be booted from on power up

[W]rite protect HD: toggles whether or not the hard drive is write protected

[I]mage routine boot: toggles whether or not the image routine is entered upon boot

[H]D sio patch: toggles whether the hard drive is enabled or disabled upon boot

[S]creen activity: toggles whether hard drive activity is shown on screen

Other useful keys (not shown in the menu):

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8: swap drive numbers

Tab: change the display mode between partition info and partition name

Aside from the keys listed above, options are always shown with the key command highlighted in inverse video.

2.3.1 Setting up your hard drive

When MyIDE Config is run it will check if your hard drive has been setup or not. If it hasn’t, the autodetect hard drive parameters routine will start. This may take several minutes depending on your hard drive. If it locks up or provides incorrect values your hard drive may be bad or incompatible.

Check the values for cylinders, heads and sectors and then press any key. Note that the configuration will not be saved until you quit the program, when you will be given a prompt to save the configuration.

2.3.2 Creating a partition

To create a new partition, press [C]. In the red message area, you will be prompted for the number of sectors you wish this partition to have. The maximum number of sectors you can specify here is 65535. Next you will be prompted for density, [S]ingle or [D]ouble. Then you specify the drive number you’d like this new partition to have. Note that you can only specify an unoccupied (by hard drive partitions) drive number from 1 to 8. Unoccupied drive numbers are shown in the prompt.

The Create partition routine will first try to fill any holes left by the user deleting partitions. If it does not find one, it will use the next available cylinder, avoiding the image space (more on that later.)

Note that at the time of this writing, the MyIDE RAM based OS, version 3.5F allows 8 partitions, whereas the ROM based OS, version 4.1 only allows a maximum of 3 partitions. You can create more partitions than this (ide 4 through ide 8), but they will not be seen by the ROM-based OS. This is a limitation of the MyIDE OS and not the MyIDE Config program.

2.3.3 Deleting a partition

To delete a partition, press [D]. You will then be prompted for which drive number to delete (1 through 8). The prompt only shows drive numbers that are currently occupied by hard drive partitions. Press Y to answer yes to the confirmation prompt to delete the partition.

Note that deleting partitions could leave “holes” in the data areas of the hard drive. These can later be filled by creating new partitions if there is enough space in those holes for the new partition to fit.

2.3.4 Swapping drive numbers

You can swap partitions from one drive number to another by pressing a number from 1 to 8. You will then be prompted for the drive letter to swap with. In this way you can move which drive numbers your hard drive partitions assigned to.

2.3.5 Naming partitions

Pressing [N] allows you to name your partitions. You will be prompted (in the red band) for which drive number you want to name. Only drive numbers that are occupied by hard drive partitions will be shown. Pressing a number allows you to type in a new name (the cursor will be shown in the partition list area) or edit an existing name. Simple editing is allowed (ctrl-arrows and backspace). Press RETURN to save the name, and ESC to cancel and revert back to the old name. Note that names can only be 28 characters long. All characters are allowed, including graphics characters.

Technical info: names are saved to cylinder 0, head 0, sector 2 of the hard drive. All of cylinder 0, head 0 is reserved for MyIDE configuration (as per Mr. Atari’s specifications for the MyIDE hardware.)

2.3.6 Saving your configuration

Important!: Your configuration changes will not be saved until you [Q]uit the program. You will be asked to Save Configuration? Press [Y] to save your changes, and [N] to discard them. This includes all configuration changes including partition names!

2.3.7 The Utility Screen

Pressing [T] from the image manager will bring you to the utility screen. Here you will see information on the geometry of the hard drive (cylinders, heads and sectors), as well as the image space settings. Below this is a menu of some functions you can perform from this screen.

You can [A]utodetect HD geometry, which will run the autodetect routine again to discover your hard drive parameters (number of cylinders, heads and sectors.) Pressing [M] allows you to manually enter these values (cursor is shown at the top of the screen.). Use caution when manually entering the hard drive parameters, as incorrect settings can cause your hard drive to fail to work and possibly corrupt any data you may have on it.

You can [S]et the image space cylinder, which will tell the MyIDE system where to expect images to reside on your hard drive (more on this in the next section.) You can also Set ma[X] image size from this menu. This determines whether you can support 1040 sector images, or just 720 sector images. Supporting just 720 sector images usually means that less space is wasted on your hard drive (depending on your hard drive geometry; number of cylinders, heads and sectors.) Changing this setting will destroy existing images, since the Image size(cyl) (number of cylinders per image slot) will likely change. See the next section for more information on the image space settings.

From this screen you can also [W]ipe the configuration sector which will clear any configuration and partitions you have created. Generally speaking you don’t want to do this, but if you are ever in the position where you need to “start from scratch” the option is there. Important! This takes effect right away. There is no need to Quit the program.

The last option is to Wipe [I]mage Manager config which will clear the configuration used by the MyIDE Image Manager program. Again, you generally do not want to do this as you will lose the image table you have created in that program, however you may have some reason to “start from scratch” in that program as well, so the option is provided here.

ESCape brings you back to the main screen.

2.3.7.1 Setting the Image Space Cylinder

The MyIDE Image Space gives the user the ability to copy disk images to the hard drive and boot them via the built-in image routine (pressing START at boot or reset) or the MyIDE Image Manager program. Depending on the size of your hard drive, you can have hundreds to thousands of disk images installed. These disk images are separate and distinct from partitions.

The only thing you need to enable image space is to tell the system at which cylinder image space is to start. This image space is treated as one giant partition by the partitioning tools (including MyIDE Config). The image space start cylinder is set in multiples of 256 cylinders. So entering a value of 1, would mean that image space starts at cylinder 256. A value of 2 would mean image space starts at cylinder 512, and so on. A value of 0 (zero) disables the image space. Image space runs from the start cylinder to the last cylinder of the hard drive.

So how do you decide where to start image space? If you know how many partitions you are likely to use, you can calculate exactly how many cylinders they will take up with the following formula:

cylinders per partition = (sectors in partition ¸ (number of heads ´ number of sectors))

Add all your values up for each partition you plan on having. Round this value up to the next whole mutliple of 256. Divide this by 256. This is the value you should use for your image space cylinder.

Alternately, you could work out the maximum amount that partitions could possibly consume using the formula below:

cylinders used = (8 ´ 65535) ¸ (number of heads ´ number of sectors)

With a hard drive having 16 heads and 63 sectors, this value would be 528 cylinders. Round the value up to 768, and divide by 256 giving you 3.

Typically, on most setups, the image space cylinder will be set to either 1, 2 or 3, but you can work out your own ideal setting using the above information.

2.3.7.2 Setting the Max Image Size

You can set the maximum image size to be either 720 sectors or 1040 sectors. The reason you might want to do this is that on most hard drives, there are 16 heads and 63 sectors. 16 x 63 = 1008 sectors. You can see that in one cylinder, there are not enough sectors to provide space for a 1040 sector disk image. The MyIDE OS will use 2 cylinders in this configuration to support a 1040 sector disk image, with 976 sectors that are wasted. If you only wanted to support 720 sector disk images, then you would cut the wasted sectors down to 288, and you would be able to fit more disk images on your hard drive.

Really, the setting is up to you, and may vary based upon your hard drive geometry (most hard drives are 16 heads and 63 sectors though.) One thing to bear in mind is that this setting must be made when you initially setup your image space, as changing it will confuse the MyIDE OS as to where each image starts and ends.

3. Disclaimer

This program is provided as-is and any damage to your data, your computer or your mental health is completely your own responsibility, and in no way will the author of the software be held liable.