Task: Install Workbench on Your Compact Flash Hard Drive for Use with 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)
Time: 15-30 Minutes
Disclosure: Note that as an eBay Partner Network Affiliate, I may earn from qualifying purchases
Introduction
I recently posted about setting up a compact flash (CF) card to use as a solid state hard drive on an Amiga 1200 via an IDE adapter. In this project, we install Workbench on a hard drive partition for booting the OS from the CF card at startup. I cover how to install WHDLoad for booting games from the hard drive in the next project.
Instructions
This process is pretty straightforward and can be completed in about 15 minutes or less if you have completed the previous CF card setup process and saved the WinUAE configuration files with all the Workbench install disks (ADFs) loaded into the floppy drive slots.
STEP 1 – Load Your Configuration file for WinUAE
- Open WinUAE and load your configuration file.
- Start the Amiga emulation. Your Workbench floppy disks should show up on your desktop along with your hard drive partitions. I have a ~0.5GB partition (way more than enough as only about 1.5MB is used for WB) formatted specifically for Workbench as described previously.
STEP 2 – Launch the Workbench Install application and choose your language as shown above.
- Choose your language
- Click PROCEED and then INSTALL RELEASE X.Y
- Choose INTERMEDIATE USER and click PROCEED
- Click INSTALL FOR REAL and NONE for logging actions
- You should now be on a screen that starts with the text “Release X.Y will now be installed on your hard drive…” followed by “Do you want Release X.Y installed in the “Workbench X.Y:” partition? Answer NO to this. Otherwise, it will try to install on the floppy disk. Click SHOW DRIVES button and find your hard drive partition label. Mine said Workbench. Click PROCEED.
- On the next screen you will choose your language and click PROCEED.
- The next screen will ask you to select your printer drivers. Click proceed.
- The next screen will ask about your keyboard mapping. Choose your keyboard type and click PROCEED.
- The install will start and then prompt you to insert floppy disks. When this happens, you can hit F12 to return to WinUAE and load the appropriate ADF file. When you return to the virtual Amiga it should automatically restart the install process with the new disk.
- When it finishes it will need to reboot. Your new desktop should look like below with a Workbench partition drawer containing the system files.
- You can now remove the floppies from their drives to clean up the desktop. We are done!
STEP 3 – Test in 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!
Comments
This is a very easy process once you have your CF card set up correctly. Below is a photo of this setup running on my Amiga 1200. Here, I am using a 32GB micro SD with a CF card adapter.
