I'v noticed that OpenMSX supports Harddisk emulation. Since the many GB's on my PC are not used.. I'd like to make a harddisk drive for openmsx on my PC...

But still I have a few questions before I wanna initialise the harddisk..Like:
- can openMSX fuck up the harddisk of the PC?
- will there be a problem when using an PC IDE-Raid controller?
- do I need to emulate a SCSI (Gouda's Novaxis or BERT (& Ernie)?
- are there any limitations for the size of the harddisk?
- does it slow down the emulator much?

T.i.a.

I'm not really sure, but I think HD emulation just uses a big image, so it will be pretty similar to regular disk emulation.

Replying to your questions:
- no, openMSX creates a file which is used for harddisk image, similar to disk images
- no, it uses normal file access, as I just said
- only IDE emulation is implemented
- no
- no

Feel free to try it out. It's safe, but can just cost you quite some harddisk space

I too am getting more interrested in use OpenMSX (currently using NLMSX) now that I notice HD support and REAL files instead of images (which always prevented me to code in emulation cuz of lack of diskspace/speed)
In my Real MSX env. I use only HD..

So, Downloaded the latest version and the catapult for windows (I'm lazy remember)
Now I need to have the firmware files installed, correct? and where do I get these? or is this another breach of mrc policies (asking for softs)?

ro: if you need any help join the #openMSX channel on irc.freenode.net, post e-mails to openmsx-user@lists.sourceforge.net and at least read the manual on http://openmsx.sf.net/manual/

Anyway, the real files function is still experimental. You can only use 712kB of files in one directory and subdirs and DOS2 are not supported yet.

Using emulated harddisk is quite comfortable though!

aha! this is HOT news! ill be waiting until its all perfect and with real files instead of images

Hot news? It's been there for ages! Last modification was in September 2003 or so
(So, it's not actively under development at the moment...)

The feature is actually called "Dir As Dsk", by the way

thanks manuel.. will give it a try...

dir as dsk.... hmmm, i suddenly remember reading ab out that in the manual.. i should read the manual again

so euh.. how about the machine layout files?

What's the problem, ro?

Well, I seem the miss the machine firmware files

I use the catapult for openmsx (win) and when trying to launch, it stated:
"using specified machine: panasonic_fs-a1st
Fatal error
Error reading ROM: roms/fs-a1st_firmware.r"

right.
I've rearanged some folders to get the roms kinda working..
it still puzzels me. When I extract OPENMSX should there are no roms in the share dir.
I've got a dir. with some roms'n stuff and copied the turbo r as1st to the right dir. and atleast it boots now. but it's kinda sloow and shocky. (takes up 90% of cpu time!!)
the msxdos roms etc I have to figure that out. Well too much husstle for today...
pff.

I'm downloading some misc roms (audio, dos 2 etc) see if it works. (had to rename a bunch of roms... sight)
still I have to RTFM to resolve the speed problems
oh, well. takes a few minutes but I'm getting there....

ok. I've got the turbo-r, audio, moonsound, DOS22 stuff installed and it's being recognized. But when I boot, the machine won't start my DOS (I've created a HD folder and copied the msxdos/sys/command files in the root)
now, what?!?!

What are you trying to do?

The Dir As Disk feature has nothing to do with the harddisk emulation feature.

Use the "IDE" extension to emulate harddisk.

Would all be so much easier if you join #openMSX on irc.freenode.net.... Real time help!