Task: Install WHDLoad on Your Compact Flash Hard Drive for Booting Games on an Amiga 600 or 1200 Computer
Needed: Amiga with IDE Support, Compact Flash Card, IDE-CF Adapter, WinUAE and Windows PC, Kickstart ROM, Workbench Install Disks (ADFs), WHDLoad, Installer
Time: 15-30 Minutes
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Introduction
I recently posted about setting up a compact flash (CF) card to work as a solid state hard drive on your Amiga 600 or 1200 computer using WinUAE and an IDE adapter. I also recently posted about installing Workbench on the CF card for booting the OS from the new hard drive. Of course, most of us want to be able to easily launch games on our Amiga computers from the CF card. WHDLoad is software that allows games to be launched from a hard drive instead of the slower and more cumbersome floppy drive. I explain here how to set up WHDLoad on the Workbench boot partition of your CF card hard drive.
Instructions
Before you begin, it is important to know that most Amiga software you will install on your hard drive comes in a file with a .lha extension. This indicates the file has been compressed or zipped. I use 7-zip on Windows to unzip these files before moving them over the Amiga. There is a way to install the lha software on the Amiga and do it there. However, I prefer to do it in Windows and will use that method here.
STEP 1 – Install the Installer
- The first thing you need to do is download the installer software that the WHDLoad package will use to do its installation. You can download the installer here. If this link is dead, Google the file Installer-43_3.lha. Unzip the file and place it in the directory that is mounted to your Amiga instance in WinUAE. Do this by clicking the ADD DIRECTORY OR ARCHIVE button on the CD and Hard Drives screen. You can give the Device Name as PC or similar and Volume Label of PC0 or similar to designate this is from your PC. Set the Path to the folder where you will keep Amiga files for transfer. Deselect the BOOTABLE option as we do not want to boot from this drive. Hit OK.
- Navigate to your Workbench folder and choose SHOW ALL FILES from Window in the menu at top. You will see some hidden folders appear including on labeled “C”. Find the Installer folder on your mounted PC drive partition, open it, and move the Installer file into the C folder. You can see it in my C folder below.
STEP 2 – Install WHDLoad
- Download the WHDLoad software from their website. The ‘small’ package has English and a few other common languages such as French and German. The larger size package has more languages.
- Unzip the WHDLoad lha file in Windows and move to your mounted Amiga files directory for access on the virtual Amiga booted from WinUAE.
- Open the WHDLoad folder in your mounted PC directory from within your virtual Amiga booted from WinUAE. Click the Installer icon to start the installation process. The instructions are easy to follow. This will copy the WHDLoad files to your C folder automatically, so they are available for running WHDLoad games and files.
STEP 3 – Install a WHDLoad Game
- Download a WHDLoad game to try out the new software. WHDownload is a great source of individual downloads. For example, here is the link to Turrican II’s lha file.
- Unzip the WHDLoad game lha file in Windows and move to your mounted Amiga files directory for access on the virtual Amiga booted from WinUAE.
- Once in the virtual Amiga booted from WinUAE, copy the game folder into your Games partition on the CF card.
STEP 4 – Test on a Real Amiga
The last step is to insert your CF card into the IDE adapter in your real Amiga 600 or 1200 and give it a boot!
