When transferring data between the Amiga and another type of computer, then perhaps the mostly widespread and populair way of doing it. Are the way of using a CF-PCMCIA adaptor with the card formatted as FAT32. You can also transfer files if you put it in a card reader on a Mac, Windows computer or Linux computer and launch Win-UAE or FS-UAE. Setting this up can be a strange experience, if you are not used to the way Amiga's work or never used an Amiga before. The is a learning curve.....
Yet, there are another way of doing things. A procedure that nearly nobody is talking about, and a procedure that Linux have been able to manage the last plus-20 years. To break it down, you will have to go through these three simple steps.
- 1: Mount the Amiga harddrive (CF, SD, PlatterDrive or something else)
- 2: Remount the drive in Read/Write mode.
- 3: Open the folder as Root in GUI or login as root and launch Midnight Commander.
Mounting the Drive....
First you need to grab your favorite card reader or IDE-USB adaptor, then insert the drive into an empty USB port. Then figure out what the drive is mounted as. For a Linux user then he or she will understand what SDB1 is.... Then open the terminal and yes, it will only work when the mounting is done manually. (Sorry GUI-Fanboys)
If the partition you want to mount is "sdb1", then type the following into the terminal:
sudo mount -t affs /dev/sdb1 /mnt/disk1
Note... You need to have a folder in the mnt directory of your Linux filesystem, called disk1, because the second Amiga-partition that you want to mount is good to mount in a folder called disk2, and so on. Yes... Quite simple and logic.
The Amiga-Partition is now mounted as a read-only folder....
Mounting as Read/Write mode.....
To be able to transfer the files, you need to enable the drive in Read/Write mode... Or re-mount if you like. And the command is quite simple.
sudo mount -o remount,rw /dev/sdb1 /mnt/disk1
This will remount the drive, and please do not ask why the two commands... I honestly do not know why, and you need to ask your Linux GURU instead of me. All I know, is that shit works.
Final procedure....
Exit the terminal, and open your file-browser. Navigate to the root of the file system, and open the mnt directory. Then right-click on the disk1 folder, and open it as administrator or root (depends on how your GUI or file browser is structured). Once opened as root/admin, you can copy whatever stuff you want to the Amiga drive.
What is this good for? Well... If you have no optical drive in your Amiga500/2000/3000, and use two harddrives, were one is a CF-Card in the rear-slot (PCI-Bracket/whatever it is called) of the machine. Configured as slave drive and about 4gig in size. Then this is a fast and reliable way of doing stuff.
Thanks for reading, and happy copy-time.....
