!Boot error message after upgrading to 5.29 latest beta

I’ve taken the plunge and installed a recent (23-2-24) ROM and upgraded HD4 at the same time (Dave Higton please note :-): https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/11/topics/19136?page=1
) using !SyncDiscs. On startup I now get the following error message:
‘Directory ’Boot:RO520Hook.Res’ not found’
which repeats for RO510Hook.Res, RO400Hook.Res, RO370Hook.Res and so on down to RO310Hook.Res. I have copied across these individual directories from the HD4 latest beta to my SSD !Boot drive, which is the operative one, and also, as a precaution, updated the SD !Boot drive in the same way. Counting files in the operative !Boot directories gives an identical tally to the HD4 beta !Boot directory. The error message persists. What am I missing?

All the way down to 310Hook? That doesn’t sound right.

!Boot.Choices.Boot.Desktop on my machine says:

[...]

|Start RISCOS !Boot 0.72 Auto tasks
|
Repeat Filer_Boot Boot:RO520Hook.Res  -Applications -Tasks
Repeat Filer_Boot Boot:RO510Hook.Res  -Applications -Tasks
Repeat Filer_Boot Boot:RO500Hook.Res  -Applications -Tasks
Repeat Filer_Boot <BootResources$Dir> -Applications -Tasks
Filer_Boot        <Boot$Dir>
Repeat Filer_Run  Choices:Boot.Tasks  -Tasks

[...]

(it may also include 5.30 if you’re running 5.30…)

It shouldn’t be trying to preboot anything prior to 500 as that might end up including the older 26 bit stuff.

What are the boot variables after this error occurs? Here are mine, and since it’s an older !Boot with some fiddling, it may not exactly match up (but I don’t think I’ve fiddled with this), at any rate it ought to be “similar”.

*Show Boot*
Boot$ChoicesRW : SDFS::RISCOSPi.$.!BOOT.Choices
Boot$Dir : SDFS::RISCOSPi.$.!BOOT
Boot$OSVersion : 520
Boot$Path : SDFS::RISCOSPi.$.!BOOT.
Boot$ReadOnly(Number) : 0
Boot$State : commands
Boot$ToBeLoaded : Boot:Choices.Boot.PreDesk
Boot$ToBeTasks : Boot:Choices.Boot.Tasks
Boot$Unique : Local
BootFX$Path : Resources:$.Resources.BootFX.
BootNet$File : Freeway
BootResources$Dir : SDFS::RISCOSPi.$.!BOOT.Resources
BootResources$Path : Boot:RO520Hook.Res.,Boot:RO510Hook.Res.,Boot:RO500Hook.Res.,SDFS::RISCOSPi.$.!BOOT.Resources.
*

Again, you’ll see it has only done the 5xx hooks.

upgraded HD4 at the same time using !SyncDiscs

I am not sure that SyncDiscs is the best way to do this. Remember that files in the secondary that are not present in the primary will be deleted. Directories such as !Boot itself will have many files that will not be present in the clean HD4 image. Thus great care should be taken that essential objects are not deleted during the sync process.

Keeping a backup of the original !Boot is an obvious precaution. You can then restore everything in !Boot (apart from the Loader image which is rather special) and try again using a better method. For example InSituBootUpdate.

I am not David, so cannot recall contents of the source files just like that, but it should be possible to add the option to leave objects in the secondary if they are not present in the primary. In any case, I do have an updated version of SyncDiscs which I should have released before Christmas. I will attend to that before thinking of any more additions.

It is worth remembering that you can always do a ‘compare’ and the output from that will show exactly what will happen when you run an actual sync process.

it should be possible to add the option to leave objects in the secondary if they are not present in the primary.

Indeed: I was sort of on autopilot and set the ‘overwrite newer files in Secondary’ option. SyncDiscs is a brilliant piece of software and I use (and appreciate) it regularly, but the end result was a thoroughly disabled machine. Overwriting the SSD !Boot with an SD backup card !Boot got me back up and running. One question about InSituBoot: must one start from a 5.28 card image (the ReadMe says so)?

One question about InSituBoot: must one start from a 5.28 card image (the ReadMe says so)?

InSituBootUpdate (normally only supplied with stable and RC builds) is designed to upgrade !Boot from the previous stable release to the supplied release. However the update should still work if you are starting from an intervening beta release (e.g. 5.29 instead of 5.28).

the update should still work if you are starting from an intervening beta release (e.g. 5.29 instead of 5.28).

Indeed; having sensibly decided to run with my recovered hybrid system (Feb 2024 beta ROM, 2021-vintage 5.29 !Boot) for a while to see how it fared, I then thought ‘Oh sod it’ and ran InSituBoot anyway, which supposedly copies the adjacent !Boot elements of RC4 (Aug 2023) across. It didn’t take long, just a few seconds, but as Boot:RO530Hook.Res has now appeared in !Boot.Choices.Boot.Desktop which definitely wasn’t there before I assume it’s done its stuff. All well so far.