I got my new 120gb hard drive for y A1200 few days ago and now I am looking forward to install AmigaSYS 4 onto it. Installation instructions are not that accurate on AmigaSYS website. I don't need to be explained everything by detail but what I do have to have installed on my A1200 before installing AmigaSYS on it?

All what AmigaSYS website says is that I need one bootable partition BUT do I have to have OS3.9 preinstalled on hard drive as I am going to use it anyway with AmigaSYS? I guess I must have lha on my HD aswell?

Or to put it in simple: what is the easiest way to install AmigaSYS on real empty A1200 system without messing with WinUAE and PC?

Many many thanks for your help!

@Karpow

The intaller should just walk you through the process, it will ask you if you need to create a boot partition or just install on a empty partition. I've only installed on an A1 & x1000, but a classic install should be the same.

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@sundown

i also read that as AmigaOS 4 but he is talking about AmigaSYS 4 ...

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@Karpow

Having recently installed AmigaSys4 on my A1200 without WinUAE, I have some tips that may help you, over and above the Amigasys install instructions which need to be followed - I won't repeat here...it is a cumbersome process unfortunately but it can work. I run AmigaSys4 on A1200 and A4000, installed without WinUAE.

1. My suggestion - Make sure you use 2x2Gb FFS partitions initially on your HD. Do not format the rest of the disk at this time as OS3.0/3.1 can only address the first 4gb, with maximum 2gb partition sizes. I made sure my partitions were slightly under 2 gb (1.99Gb) to avoid any possibility of problems.

This setup can be done on the A1200 via HDToolbox using OS3.0 HDToolbox on the bootable OS3.0 Install disk. The HDToolbox will read the hard disk size incorrectly when installing the disk RDB. You can ignore this and just proceed anyway. For me, I set both partitions DH0 and DH1 as bootable, with DH0 having priority of booting. This allows you to copy the entire DH0 contents to DH1 as a bootable backup disk before doing any OS updates or upgrades on the primary partition. You can always boot the backup partition using the Amiga early startup menu if you need to...has saved my life so many times when an upgrade fails to restore the system...

2. I use a four way IDE adapter on my A1200, which allowed me to connect an external CDROM drive for the extraction of the AmigaSYS4 HD lha downloaded from their website to the Dh0 partition and for OS3.9 later on. This requires lha (Aminet) and IDE CDROM file system (AmiCDFS for example) and associated CD0 mountlist on your OS3.0 install disk. If you don't have this CD option then try using PCMCIA CF card option from AmigaKit to transfer the AmigaSys4 LHA and lha command from your PC to Amiga for the extraction. (lha x filename.lha). I *strongly* recommend backing up the DH0 to DH1 before rebooting to start the install from HD in case something goes wrong and you need to start again.

3. Make sure you use OS3.0 workbench disks for the initial installation of AmigaSys4. OS3.9 is not installed on the initial install, but can be put on later as an upgrade once AmigaSys is installed. I recommend that you do not use OS3.1 workbench disks.

The reason for not using OS3.1 is because if you plan to upgrade AmigaSys4 to OS3.9, it is not possible to run the OS3.9 BoingBag2 upgrade successfully with OS3.1 initially installed (I found this out the hard way in many previous Amiga installs)

4. Boot off Dh0 and run through the installer, inserting Wb3.0 disks as prompted. When the install is completed and rebooted successfully into AmigaSys4 OS3.0 based workbench, congratulations.

5a. If your install is working then quick format DH1 (quicker than deleting the backup of the AmiSys4 setup files), and backup DH0 to DH1 before doing anything else. (Copy dh0:#? dh1: all)

5b. If your install didn't work, boot off the OS3.0 install disk, Quick Format Dh0 and recopy the files from DH1 to Dh0 and reboot to try again.

6. Insert OS3.9 CD - the system should pick up the CD and prompt you if you want to upgrade AmigaSys4. If you don't have a CDROM drive, then you can also use diskimage program from Aminet to mount an Amiga OS3.9 iso image (if you have one) to do this step. I hope you have done the backup to DH1 first! If so, Go ahead with the upgrade.

7. If the install worked well then congratulations, you should have AmigaSys4 running OS3.9. If not, then go to Step 5b...

8. I then backup Dh0 to Dh1 again so it now has OS3.9 backed up, and then install OS3.9 Boing Bags 1, 2, 3...Boing Bag 2 in my experience is where most problems arise, so make sure you have a backup (DH0 -> Dh1) before applying BB2.

9. Install SFS on the working AmigaSys4 DH0. Using HDToolbox on your Dh0, make sure you add the SFS file system driver (in L:) to your hard disk and then partition remaining space using SFS without size restriction issues. Then format the partitions on your drive using SFSFormat. You must use SFSFormat to format the large partitions. Backup from DH0 to Dh1 to capture the SFS setup once completed.

The rest I guess is up to you personal taste - there are plenty of what I consider mandatory utilities installs to improve A1200 performance, and these are detailed in other threads on the web (Which I used!) so I won't repeat that information here.

I hope some of this information is useful - good luck!

Catcha,
Epsilon

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@Epsilon

Many, many, MANY thanks for these tips! I never thought about backing up my system partition. Should and will save me from many troubles I bet!

I give AmigaSYS a try in next couple of days. :)

@Karpow

No problem - hope it helps you out.

One last thing to note from my experience - after AmigaSys4 is initially installed (but before doing anything else) I modified s:startup-sequence and s:user-startup to change all dh0:, System: or Workbench: references to SYS: That way, when you copy it to DH1 it can be booted from the drive without having to modify the startup-sequence after the disaster has happened....

You can also add a WORK: assign to SYS: in startup-sequence as some older installers assume they will install in work: by default and it avoids an error message.

Also, I then ensure all software installed to Dh0 after that is installed to SYS:foldername/ in the installer itself. It is necessary to type in or manually select SYS: when browsing from the installer program to ensure the destination is SYS:, and not DH0.

This way, the installer will also put the correct SYS lines into the startup-sequence or user-startup automatically if it makes changes, and you won't have to doublecheck the setup files everytime before backing up to DH1 to ensure they are all pointing to SYS:

This works great for me and now I have two identical booting partitions containing the same files that can both boot. Dh1 boots with no errors on bootup if DH0 is corrupted, formatted or not working as everything points to SYS.

Good Luck

Catcha,
Epsilon

I have been running Amigasys4 on 3.1wb for a while.
Yesterday I tried to upgrade to 3.9 from ISO. The "cd" is detected fine and it asks me if I want to update. It works for a while, and ends with sucess. Reboot and boos stops in amigados. My first thought was that there was something wrong with the iso, so I tried to install 3.9 on a blank partition, and it worked.

It seems like there is some kind of error message in the upgrade script, but it flashes so fast that is's unable to view. Does the amigasys4 do any logging or so?

Any suggestions?

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