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If you enjoy working with an Atari emulator (HATARI or STEEM), you probably know the problem: your Atari software is scattered across your hard drive. While it can be neatly mounted in the emulator as a GEMDOS drive, wouldn’t it be better to have it on a “real” hard drive? This would also have the advantage that you could share this file with friends and other interested people. However, creating such an IMG file requires quite a bit of preparation.

Creating an HDD Image

An HDD image for an Atari emulator is essentially a complete copy of a real Atari hard drive in the form of a single file. It contains the entire structure with partitions, boot sectors and all programs, exactly as on the original hardware. Emulators like Hatari or Steem read this image as if a physical hard drive were connected, which makes it ideal for using historical software in its original state.

Example: If you create a 4 GB HDD image with GEM programs, games and demos, you can start it in the emulator and experience the same file system as on a real MegaFile or a modern SD4ST. Even very old installation paths and startup scripts remain functional without the need to connect an actual hard drive to the Atari. An HDD image is not limited to emulator use. You can also copy it directly to an SD card using a program like “Win32DiskImager.” Insert this card into a device like SD4ST or UltraSatan and the card will behave exactly like a real hard drive on the Atari. All programs, games and data from the image are immediately available without requiring separate installation.

For an HDD image to work on the Atari it must match the TOS version in use. Each version has fixed limits for the size of individual partitions, which should be known before creating the image or writing it to an SD card.

Hadley’s ImageFactory

Since I was tired of always creating the images “by hand,” I sat down and refreshed my MS-DOS skills a bit. The result is Hadley’s ImageFactory, which lets you easily create your images for ATARI emulators as well as for SD cards. The program is Freeware, and you can download it here 

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TOS Versions and HDD Images – What Works Together

Depending on the TOS version, the Atari can only read hard drive partitions of certain sizes. The same applies to HDD images.

TOS Version	Max. size per partition	Max. number of partitions	Note
TOS 1.00 to 1.04	256 MB	14	Each partition must be under 256 MB
TOS 1.06 and 1.62	512 MB	14	Each partition must be under 512 MB
TOS 2.05 and 2.06	512 MB	14	With ICD Pro or HDDRIVER larger hard drives and more partitions can be used
TOS 3.x and 4.x (TT and Falcon)	1 GB	14	Driver software can increase the usable capacity

The limit always applies to each partition, not to the entire hard drive or the whole image. For example, a four gigabyte image can contain eight partitions of 512 MB each if it is set up for TOS 2.06.

Formatting the hard drive

I use ICDPR  to format my images. If you are willing to spend some money, you can also use HDDRIVER by Uwe Seimet, which is still being developed and can handle very large hard drives. However, the driver costs 52 euros. Since we are running the emulator with TOS 2.06, we can create partitions of 512 MB in the generated IMG. That leaves plenty of room for Atari software. To remain backward compatible, however, we only format with 256 MB. Download the ICDPRO software here as an ST disk.

Start HATARI and press F12. Then select

Harddisk ==> ASCI ==> Browse ==> atari_4GB.IMG ==> Back to Main Menu
Floppy Disk ==> Drive A ==> Browse ==> ICDPRO.ST ==> Back to Main Menu
Reset machine ==> OK!

HATARI will now automatically boot from drive A, which is what the Atari always does when no hard drive is connected. Since the ICDPRO disk is in drive A, the boot loader will start and the mounted virtual hard drive will be detected.

 

Now double-click on drive A. Then double-click on ICDFMT.PRG.

Since only this one IMG is installed, we select it as well. ==> NEXT

Then we are in the main menu. It is not as complicated as it looks here. Click on the 1 after Test Runs:

Change the 1 to a 0! ==> OK! Then click on FORMAT. Skip the following warning.

It looks more complicated than it is. Since we only have 4 GB in the virtual drive, we could use the SPLIT function, but no more than 16 partitions are possible. So we do it manually instead. First click on DELETE. Now the table is empty.

The first partition should, as I have read, not be larger than 16 MB. I cannot say why this is the case. The remaining partitions are set to 255 MB (just enter 255), check the box under ON, and then click on RECALCULATE:

This will create 15 partitions. Now click on PARTITION HARD DRIVE. The process will now run, and it may take some time. If you see this, everything went well:

You are not quite finished yet. Now exit ICDPRO and start HDUTIL.PRG. There, click on BOOT:

The program will now show you the formatted hard drive. Select C (it is usually preselected) and then click OK. Confirm the next dialog as well. After that, you can close the program.

Finally, press F12 again and remove the disk from Floppy Disk by clicking Eject. Do not forget to save. Then perform a restart. You will now see this, with all partitions displayed:

Once the startup process is complete, select Extras ==> Install Devices:

You can now easily fill these virtual hard drives with content by going to Harddisk ==> GEMDOS and mounting your Windows directory with your Atari software. After that, do not forget to save.

Mounting your PC hard disk

Once you have successfully created and mounted an virtual hard disk image for HATARI, you can fill your virtual hard disk with software. HATARI makes this easy, but not entirely. Press F12 and then Hard Disk:

Under GEMDOS driver, you can select a directory that will then be integrated by HATARI. Normally, this will always be drive C:\ because HATARI is a bit finicky here. This means that your drive C:\ will disappear from your virtual hard disk! The Add Gemdos HD after ASCI... function should help here, but it is not reliable. For me, the GEMDOS drive appears on G:\ even if I deliberately omit a partition on the HDD image. Does that sound complicated? Yes, and it's annoying.

The best solution: It's not possible without losing data on the image. Simply make the first partition just big enough to fit the driver. 10 GB is perfectly sufficient. Unfortunately, you will then lose 500 MB on the image! But this way, you can integrate the remaining 13 partitions with 512 MB. And let's be honest: That's enough to fit a whole lot of software!

 

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