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Software - Chapter 3

Introduction

The Amiga Install disk contains utility programs that allow you to set up your hard disk, modify your hard disk partitions, perform hard disk maintenance, reinstall your original system files, and back up your hard disk. Each of the utilities on the Install disk has its own icon.

Files on the Install disk without icons are used by the installation program to set up systems with certain hardware configurations. There is no need for most users to work with these files directly.

Install Disk

The Install disk contains the drawers Install, HDSetup, and HDTools. (The Install 2.1 disk also contains Install Printers and Install Languages drawers.) The Install drawer contains the AmigaOS hard disk installation program. The HDSetup drawer contains a similar program for configuring a hard disk. The HDTools drawer contains hard disk backup and maintenance utilities.

The Installer Program

Both the Install and HDSetup utilities use the Amiga Installer, a standardized software installation and setup program. Amiga as well as some third-party software developers use Installer for hard disk installation of their applications.

On Amiga software disks, for a given Installer utility there are icons for each language available, grouped in a drawer. For example, the HDSetup drawer on the Install disk contains the icons English, Deutsch, Français, and so on, for each language in which you can run the HDSetup utility.

Install Drawer

The Install drawer contains the Install utility for system software installation. (On the 2.1 disk, this drawer is called Install 2.1.) The Install utility allows you to install all or part of the system software onto a hard disk. You may need to do this if:

Chapter 1 of Using the Amiga Workbench gives directions for using the Install utility for system software installation.

HDSetup Drawer

The HDSetup utility allows you to perform several basic hard disk configuration tasks very easily. You must, however, have one of several Amiga systems or Commodore SCSI (Small Computer Systems Interface) hard drive controllers. With HDSetup, owners of this equipment can:

To perform one of these tasks, open the HDSetup drawer and double-click on the icon for your preferred language.

The first HDSetup window lists the Amiga systems and hard drive controllers with which you can use HDSetup. (The 3.0 HDSetup does not have this window.) Select Proceed if your system matches one of these or is 100% compatible; select Abort otherwise.

The next window asks you to choose the operation to perform. Select the Help gadget for a brief description of each choice and the operation of the window buttons. Select the Help gadget in subsequent windows for additional details about the operation.

Partition Hard Drive

This option lets you partition a hard drive to the standard configuration. The standard configuration is a system partition for AmigaOS files and second partition for your applications and data which fills the remaining space on the drive. Use the HDToolBox utility, described in Chapter 4, instead of this HDSetup option if you require a custom hard drive configuration.

HDSetup will prompt you to give the unit number of your hard drive, you can use HDToolBox to determine it. Amiga systems with SCSI hard drives normally use unit 6; Amiga systems with DIE hard drives normally use unit 0.

Caution:

Repartitioning involves formatting the entire drive. This permanently destroys all information stored on the drive. Back up any important files on the drive to some other medium before using this option.

Enter the unit number of the drive to partition and select Proceed. Another window requests your confirmation. Selecting Cancel or Abort will prevent the partitioning from taking place.

After being partitioned, the drive must be formatted, and then the AmigaOS software must be installed on the system partition using the Install utility. The 3.0 HDSetup automatically does the formatting.

Turning Reselection On and Off

Reselection is a feature that SCSI devices such as hard drives, tape drives, and CD-ROM drives may use to improve performance when more than one device at a time is active. For example, if you have a SCSI hard drive and a SCSI CD-ROM drive, copying data from the CD-ROM to the hard drive will be faster with reselection enabled for both drives.

You should enable reselection if you use more than one SCSI device at a time. Reselection is automatically disabled if you have only a single SCSI device.

Note:

Some earlier SCSI controller ROM revisions did not work properly with reselection enabled. If you experience problems when moving data between two devices, try turning reselection off. If you continue to have problems, see your Amiga dealer/service center about obtaining a ROM update.

Selecting Turn Reselection On or Turn Reselection Off affects all attached SCSI units. Changing reselection settings does not affect the data on the drive in any way.

Update A3000/A3000T SuperKickstart

Amiga 3000 and 3000T computers can boot using an image of the Amiga's ROM read into memory from disk. This provides higher performance, and allows the use of the latest Kickstart software. The ROM image is distributed on a special SuperKickstart floppy disk. The Update A3000/A3000T SuperKickstart option reads the ROM image from a SuperKickstart disk onto the hard disk so the Amiga can boot using the new Kickstart.

If you select this option, insert the SuperKickstart disk into drive DF0: when prompted. (In the 2.1 HDSetup, a new window opens requesting insertion of the disk. If there is a problem with the SuperKickstart disk at this point, press Ctrl+C and then Return to exit the window.) After the new Kickstart information has been read from the disk, the Amiga must be rebooted.

HDTools Drawer

The HDTools drawer contains the programs HDToolBox and HDBackup. These programs are explained in the following two chapters.

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