Hard disks

The Hard disks page contains settings related to the emulated machine’s fixed disks.

Hard disk list

All hard disks attached to the emulated machine are listed, with the following information:

• Bus: storage bus the disk is attached to, as well as the disk’s bus channel or ID. These can be changed through the Bus and Channel/ID boxes below the list.

• File: path to the disk image file.

• Geometry: disk size in cylinders, heads, sectors and MiB, respectively.

• Model: emulated model profile for the disk.

Model / Audio

The Model box below the hard disk list determines the disk model to emulate. Click 🅧 to search for models by name or bus. Model profiles adjust the disk’s identification data, as well as its performance according to rotation speed, physical layout and cache size. Generic profiles adjust performance to match an average period-correct disk, while the RAM Disk profile runs the disk as fast as the host can manage.

Additionally, the Audio box allows for emulating the mechanical sounds of a real hard disk drive. A list of drive models to choose from is provided, according to the selected model’s spindle speed; the None option disables these sounds.

Note

The Audio option is only available if the asset pack is installed.

Adding a new disk

The New… button opens a new window allowing you to create an existing hard disk image file.

• File name: where to save the disk image file. See Hard disk images for a list of supported image formats.

• Cylinders/Heads/Sectors: CHS parameters for the disk image. These boxes control the Size (MB) box below.

• Size (MB): the disk image’s size in MB. This box controls the Cylinders, Heads and Sectors boxes above. There are limits to how big a hard disk image can be; see Hard disk size limits for more information.

• Bus: storage bus to attach the disk to.

• Channel/ID: where to attach the disk on the selected storage bus. Channels/IDs that are already in use cannot be selected.

  • On IDE disks, the first number corresponds to the IDE channel, and the second number corresponds to the Master/Slave position:

    Value	Channel	Device
    0:0	Primary	Master
    0:1	Primary	Slave
    1:0	Secondary	Master
    1:1	Secondary	Slave
    2:0	Tertiary	Master
    2:1	Tertiary	Slave
    3:0	Quaternary	Master
    3:1	Quaternary	Slave

  • On SCSI disks, the first number corresponds to the controller’s index, starting from 0 and following the order of: on-board SCSI controllers if present, then sound cards with SCSI if present, then configured SCSI controllers; the second number is the SCSI ID within that controller:

    Value	Controller	SCSI ID
    0:00	Controller 1	0
    ⋮		⋮
    0:15		15
    1:00	Controller 2	0
    ⋮		⋮
    1:15		15
    2:00	Controller 3	0
    ⋮		⋮
    2:15		15
    3:00	Controller 4	0
    ⋮		⋮
    3:15		15

  • On MFM/RLL, XTA and ESDI disks, the second number is 0 for the first drive on the controller, and 1 for the second drive.

Note

If the disk is attached to a channel or controller that doesn’t exist, such as the tertiary IDE channel with no tertiary IDE controller present, it will be effectively disabled.

• Model: model profile to use for the disk. A list of drive models to choose from is provided; click 🅧 to search for models by name or bus.

• Image Format: file format to use for the disk image.

• Block Size: size of each dynamic data block in a dynamic or differencing VHD image. The default 2 MB is ideal in most cases.

Press the OK button to create the disk image file, or Cancel to close the window without adding the disk.

Adding an existing disk

The Existing… button opens a similar window to the New… button, except that it lets you select an existing disk image file. The CHS parameters are guessed from the image’s file size, or the file header if the image is of a format which contains a header.

After selecting the image file and checking if the parameters are correct, select the Bus and Channel/ID for the hard disk and press OK to add it. Press Cancel to close the window without adding the disk.

Using physical disks

Real disks connected to the host system can be attached to the emulated machine, as long as they meet the 131071 MB size limit and any other limits set by the emulated hardware. Use the Existing… button and set File name to:

• Windows: \\.\PhysicalDriveX where X is the disk number displayed in the Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc) tool.

• Linux: full path to the disk’s block device, /dev/sdb for example.

The Cylinders, Heads, Sectors and Size (MB) parameters are set automatically when OK is pressed.

Note

• You must have the correct permissions to access the raw physical disk. This entails running 86Box as administrator on Windows and adjusting block device permissions on Linux.

• Any partitions on the disk must be unmounted to prevent data corruption. On Windows, use Disk Management to unmount the disk by right-clicking it and selecting Offline (not available on removable drives) or by removing the drive letters from all of its partitions.

Removing a disk

Select a disk on the list and press Remove to remove it.