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intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Tue Feb 14, 2017 9:00 pm

What's the easiest way to check how much space you have remaining on a particular partition in WB 1.3? Is it using the GVP Fast Prep in some fashion?

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Shot97
Detroit, MI, USA

Posted Tue Feb 14, 2017 9:19 pm

I have gigs, and have used 140 mega on my Workbench drive an 90 something in my games drive. I never worry about it, haha.

But you can use Amiga Explorer for that I know... Umm... Its been awhile but try clicking on the drive once and then right clicking and going to menu item "info". I think that should say something. Also been awhile but there's a very popular program everyone seems to use for system info. I have it, but I forgot what its called. I know I've seen TerribleFire use it in his videos too. It's free from Aminet. I think that might tell you. There is of course the ever present fuel meter on left of every open Workbench window. Not exact but it will give you a clue.

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intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Tue Feb 14, 2017 9:51 pm

Also been awhile but there's a very popular program everyone seems to use for system info. I have it, but I forgot what its called.
Um, do you mean SysInfo?

:)

I've seen the fuel meters but was wondering if they had a more explicit view. Pretty cool idea, fwiw, and not something they kept in later versions. (They should have!)

The Amiga Explorer idea is an interesting one. I'll give that a try. Thanks

User avatar
Shot97
Detroit, MI, USA

Posted Tue Feb 14, 2017 9:55 pm

Yeah, Sysinfo, that's the one. One of those things you use once and then never touch again; unless you're constantly adding crap to the computer that is.

With Amiga Explorer; Just right click on the partition and go to properties. It'll tell you exactly how much you've used, and how much is there, how much is left.

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intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Tue Feb 14, 2017 10:26 pm

Got it.

And for backups, do you drag your HDF files over to your PC using AExplorer, or do you use a native program typically in some other form or fashion?

By the way, I've got various versions of Quarterback, if you're interested. I was going to check it out in the next couple of weeks.

It claims that it:
quarterback-tools.png
Amiga tools software package 'Quarterback'.


User avatar
Shot97
Detroit, MI, USA

Posted Tue Feb 14, 2017 11:20 pm

YES! I'll take some of that! I believe I have some sort of derangement freeware on there; but ah... I think I put that on there before I started writing down program info in my word processors in order to keep track of what these shell programs did. Also; it was hard to find such programs; as many seem to believe such a thing is not needed on the Amiga. That the Amiga file system is so good that there is no need to defrag... As much as I love the Amiga, I think people are exaggerating things a little on that end.

One thing I know I'd love is a program that alphabetized files/folders on the Amiga. The Amiga does not do such a thing by itself. Some programs will do it automatically, for example Disk Master. But you'll find file requesters for many programs putting folders and files you just created at the very bottom of a long list when it starts with a D. I have such a program on Windows that I use for this purpose when it comes to my flash cards for my NES/SNES/Genesis. I can't stand when that thing puts games out of order... But that's not practical to use for the Amiga, I need something on the Amiga's end.

As for HDF files; no. First, I use several programs in order to maximize the memory/cpu power on the Amiga end. The more crap going on; the less that serial cable behaves itself. When it comes to transferring an entire hard drive; you do not want the transfer to fail halfway through.

I use a combination of the serial.device replacement baudbandit.device. This can't be used with Amiga Explorer naturally; so I use a shell program from Aminet called Quickfix to patch it. Then I run Amiga Explorer. Then I run another shell program called Add36k, which adds 36k of memory by making Workbench unusable. Black and white with maybe 1 inch of the top of the screen visible.

Then I go to Amiga Explorer and I'll do one drive at a time; copy and paste all folders in a drive to a folder on the PC. I do not enjoy working with HDF files. This way all of your files are accessible, you can mess with them, you can indeed put them in emulation just as easily as an HDF file, too. This way in the future, it's so much easier just to copy and paste new parts of the drive, rather than the whole thing. I just can't imagine having to use the windows version of directory opus in order to access files from an HDF file. Screw that. Just copy and paste it all over to the PC!

The other crap I mentioned; quickfix and add36k, that's just to guarantee that the Amiga will keep chugging along after a day and a half of transferring, plus it makes things a hell of a lot faster...Like... An entire day faster. Finally, in the event of a failure, it's much easier to start off where it stopped if you copy and paste everything, not drag the entire HDF file over. If that fails in transfer, you must start from the beginning.

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Tue Feb 14, 2017 11:50 pm

Wow - just, wow. That's impressive. I need to do the Matrix thing where I pull a chip out of your head and stick it in my head. I'll just borrow it.

;)

Also, apparently you can used Quarterback for backing up HD's, too.
Another low-tech solution to the problem would be to use a utility such as Quarterback to back up your Amiga's HD to floppies, create ADF's from the backup floppies, and then restore the backups to the HDF, running Quarterback again under emulation. That's how I went about creating a mirror of my Amiga's HD some time back.
There is no freaking way I'm backing up to floppies, but interesting nonetheless.

User avatar
Shot97
Detroit, MI, USA

Posted Wed Feb 15, 2017 1:27 am

uhhuh.... Yeah, let's see now... Over 200 megabytes and 880k per floppy...

Let's be conservative and say 200 divided by .88, that will come out to ONLY 228 floppies!!!!!

Yeah, just copy and paste everything over to the PC. I mean I'm sure there's a way to backup everything on the Amiga drive itself (so long as there's enough space) and then compress it to save time... But I mean... It's not the biggest deal in the world to copy/paste and leave the thing running for a day or two. Those utilities I mentioned will help, but are not required. You should be able to get it all over with little problems.

User avatar
Shot97
Detroit, MI, USA

Posted Wed Feb 15, 2017 2:18 am

Although the whole floppy comment took me back to the start of my retro computing via the real hardware period. Around 2005ish. This is when I had both gotten a newer computer and an old rig my friend gave me; the same rig I had worked on for years as his main computer. Prior to this I had never completely gone away from the actual hardware. I was using emulators for the Amiga/NES/Genesis, but my main computer system was in a multi-boot configuration of DOS 6.22, Win3, Win98, and WinXP. So I never completely dived into emulation ever, and even my consoles tended to be hooked up somewhere, if not played so often.

But with a PC and an old PC with me; that's when I decided to dedicate one computer to retro use. I originally had some issues getting bigger files between the two machines. So I recall using WinRAR and WinZip to split zip files into many parts, copying to floppy, and then reassembling them on the retro PC.

That did not last too long though... I got tired of that right quick; Threw an old zip drive into both machines. Zip disks took care of almost everything... I still have the zip drive in the retro computer, although I'd need a USB Zip drive for a modern computer at this point. Anyway, at some point I figured out how to network the old computer with the newer ones and I have not really bothered too much with zip disks or floppy disks on the PC end in a long time. Although I do have a usb floppy drive that I use on occasion for various special tasks. But yeah... Back-up via floppy...hahhahah! I can still remember being pissed off enough to dig through boxes for those zip drives; and that was just for a zip file that took up like 10 floppies... Imagine 200+!

Now a tape drive!!! A reel to reel tape drive!!! Those suckers can hold massive amounts of data on a reel! A part of me has always wanted to hook up a reel to reel to a computer and backup a hard drive! hahahah

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Wed Feb 15, 2017 10:42 am

So, I think I going to attempt both approaches. I had dragged my System HDF over before I had even asked the question just in case you weren't around to answer. By the time I went to bed, my System HDF had moved over. Using AExplorer, I was able to easily verify that the HDF I'd copied to PC was the exact same file size as the HDF on the Amiga.

So, I exhaled a bit. My System folder is only 9MB. The transfer, at the end of the day, took about an hour or so. Not too shabby, really. So then tonight I'll probably drag the "Fun" partition over, which is 41MB. That will take, presumably, 5-6 hours.

After that is done, I think I'll do it your way - moving folders over in batches, so I can easily manipulate the internals. At least this way I'll have a snapshot of my current system and configuration. So if anything horrible ever went wrong, I'd have a "Time Machine" I can go back to in a pinch. Space is cheap for me on the PC side.

Once I've moved all of these files over this week, I'll breath a little sigh of relief. I may even move those files over to DropBox, as yet another fail safe (I have a pro account, which is a massive 1TB). We also use Google Drive at work (and I think we're upgrading the size on that soon, too), but I try hard not to mix personal with work. In other words, I've got too many storage options.

After this is all sorted this week, my next task I want to wrap my head around is how to restore one of these HDFs (or folders within) to a new drive for the 2000. I know how to install WB 1.3 to HD (I think) and how to partition drives using Fast Prep, but I'm not sure how to start from scratch. It's something I need to educate myself about. First things first, though. Backups!





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