How to replace the ADFS Boot Hard drive

I believe that the original Hard Drive in my Acorn RiscPC might be about to give trouble as when I boot up there is a terrible noise and I think it is coming from the stepper motor.
I have another Hard Drive in the machine which is connected via a Blitz interface and is IDEFS. I have backed up the original drive onto it. I would now like to format a drive I have taken from a Windows PC and use it to replace the original. How can I format it, I have tried to put it in place of the IDE disc but then I am unable to boot the machine, can any one help. The cable from the Blitz has to connectors the one in the middle of the cable is not in use. I want to end up booting from the ADFS drive not the IDE drive. The drive from the PC is 160 GB far more than needed, will this be ok with Risc OS 4.02.
The noise from the drive is as if someone has inserted a flexible item into a spoked wheel.

You might want to check the fan in the power supply first. When mine has been clipping a lead it’s sounded like that.

I do not think it is, but will check again. Having said that the noise does not occur at every boot up.

Not all drives will be compatible with the RPC IDE controller(s), but do check the jumper settings on the drive, to make sure it is master (or slave, as appropriate). Don’t rely on anything like “cable select” working. It may be worth putting some tools like !Hform onto a floppy and then just booting with only that drive connected. Use the floppy to trigger the format of the drive.

For RO4.02 you probably only want to format approx 80GB max with a large LFAU (32768?). If I recall, the largest common drives when we developed 4.02 were 20GB drives, although there may have been some 30s and 40s.

Another trick is to use a USB caddy and format up the drive on a.n.other RISC OS 5 system. The format should work, provided you keep the LFAU high and the size low as described above.

For RO4.02 you probably only want to format approx 80GB max

Unless my memory is failing¹ there is a surplus “0” in that. 8GB max, with various third party interfaces offering ways around that like partitioning into multiple 8GB drives.

¹ Current virus ridden status I’m amazed I awake enough to read. Flashes. I’ll be dead to the world again shortly I’m sure.

I migrated over to a 20GB IDE drive on my RISC PC very shortly after installing the RISC OS 4.02 ROMs. (On 08/10/1999 from my email archive) Straightforward single partition new format ADFS, and as Andrew suggests, I remember !HForm on a floppy being involved. And amazingly it is still working (that’s cursed it now, though, hasn’t it…)

Unless my memory is failing1 there is a surplus “0” in that. 8GB max, with various third party interfaces offering ways around that like partitioning into multiple 8GB drives.

No, you are wrong. RISC OS 3.7 was very inefficient after 8GB, but RO4.02 will happily cope with drives of 80GB but anything bigger starts to run into diminishing returns with larger LFAUs required.

Another trick is to use a USB caddy and format up the drive on a.n.other RISC OS 5 system. The format should work, provided you keep the LFAU high and the size low as described above.

One problem I encountered with this is that it doesn’t set the drive as bootable, I haven’t checked lately, hopefully this /can/ be done now so it is possible to make a true back up drive that can be put in place and work identically.

!HForm on RiscOS 5 has an option to format a USB drive to be bootable.

Is there a zip file I can down load and copy to a floppy and use it to boot up the RiscPC after I have replaced the original ADFS disc and then format the new one and copy back the !boot I have saved to the IDEFS drive which is on the Blitz ingter face. I have !HForm on both disc drive and a floppy.

You don’t need to boot the machine at all, this is ROM based RISC OS after all! Stick HForm on a floppy, put the new hard disc in, format (actually initialise I think it is called in HForm) it, then copy everything back from the Blitz.

!HForm on RiscOS 5 has an option to format a USB drive to be bootable.

Is that more than issuing an *opt 4 2 on the drive after formatting? I don’t think there is any way to make a filecore format non-bootable. It just needs !Boot and the “Run” opt. And the correct filesystem and drive CMOS config of course.

I don’t think there is any way to make a filecore format non-bootable.

SCSIForm later integrated to Hform could only leave the usb formatted drive unbootable, but from what John says, current versions now have the option to set the flag required.
All good.
Edit: If one was using ssd drives, copying files from the boot drive to a backup ssd and swapping drives would do what the missing TRIM would do but maybe better.

I am now more confused than when I started!!!!!!

I am now more confused than when I started!!!!!!

And understandably so.

I think we need to start first with a more precise description of your problem.

You said “I have tried to put it in place of the IDE disc but then I am unable to boot the machine”. What does that exactly mean? Does the machine hang forever at boot? What does it say before it hangs? Does it enter the desktop or the cli, but does not boot from the harddrive? Is the harddrive available as an icon in the desktop?

To avoid confusion and possible damage, I’d start by disconnecting the Blitz podule and its hard drive.

Make sure that your ‘new’ 160GB drive has the Master jumper set, and attach it to the RISC PC’s interface.

You should then boot to the desktop with an error about ‘Machine startup not completed successfully …blah … !Boot’ as expected. Click Cancel. You should then have a blank Desktop, from which you can go to the floppy icon and run !HForm.

Reconnect your Blitz podule, copy across !Boot to the new drive, then *Configure Filesystem ADFS and reboot.

Thank you for your post Stuart, I will give that a go. It seems to be the easiest option, having said that the noise which prompted my original post has not re occurred. Now that I have backed up the !Boot onto my IDEFS drive I do not see the urgency in changing the drive yet, hope I am right.