IOMD softload on top of 3.71!

Now we’re really scraping the bottom of the priority list – is it possible to softload 5 over 3.71? What about long filename support?

(I ask because I have a second RiscPC with 3.71 ROMs but I’m having problems loading 5 over 4.02 on my main RiscPC so I’ll get that sorted before I look at 3.71, if it is indeed possible!)

Well you won’t get long filename support in 3.71, so if your ROM has 3.71 in, you’ll have to boot (and therefore softload) off a disc without long filenames. Shouldn’t stop you from accessing a disc with long filenames once you’ve rebooted into RISC OS 5.

This is all possible to achieve: I think it’s how RISC OS 4 was tested initially, after all.

Softloading over 3.71 should work fine – it’s how I’ve been testing stuff on my RiscPC. Softloading over 3.60 should work as well (but not 3.50 – 3.60 is the oldest OS version supported by the softload tool). Just remember that as Matthew says, reformatting your boot drive to support long filenames would be a bad idea.

reformatting your boot drive to support long filenames would be a bad idea.

If you have an ethernet NIC or podule that has an EPROM on it (eg. ANT’s EtherB) you can reprogram that to include a long filenames capable FileCore module and thus softload from a long filenames harddisc. The boot sequence would need to contain an updated ethernet driver anyway so the EPROM is otherwise redundant!

Thanks guys – I had assumed that RISC OS 5 would want long filenames.

If you have an ethernet NIC or podule that has an EPROM on it (eg. ANT’s EtherB) you can reprogram that to include a long filenames capable FileCore module

That’s some evil genius stuff right there! What I might do is put a second drive into the RiscPC (or second CF card) and have long filenames on that one for RO5 and keep the original drive short names for RO3.71 – should work fine.