Hard Drive for Atari ST - Quick start with the ACSI2STM card with ICD Driver. See description.
In this short video, I am showing how easy it is to setup the ACSI2STM card in ACSI mode with ICD Driver.
ACSI mode is working on TOS 1.02m 1.04 (ST, STF and Mega ST), 1.60, 1.62 and 2.06 (STE and Mega STE)
ICD Driver is free
You can find a way to create a blank image or use an existing one which is easier. The disk image should be 1Gb max.
You can use the same image file you may use on HATARI emulator on PC. If you do not have an image, see the links at the end.
The Raspberry Pi Image is used to write the image into the microSD card. You can use any imager.
00:00 Setup.
01:25 Apply image into the microSD card using Raspberry Pi imager.
02:41 Boot the Atari and setup see your new hard drive.
Bonus:
03:36 Create a floppy disk with ICD driver on it.
05:29 Use ICD driver to change the partitions setup.
08:45 You can now use your new hard disk with your own partitions setup.
Steps:
1 - Download (see last link at the bottom) or make an blank microSD card image. 1Gb max.
2 - On a Windows PC, launch Raspberry Pi Imager. Insert the microSD card.
3 - In the "Operating System" section, select "User custom". Select the img file.
4 - In the "Storage" section, select your microSD card.
5 - Click "Next" then follow the instructions.
6 - Back to the Atari, you insert the microSD card in slot 0.
7 - Connect the ACSI2STM card to the ACSI port of the Atari
8 - connect the USB-C cable to the side of the ACSI2STM card
9 - Start the Atari and get to the desktop. You are done. You can stop there unless you want to change the partitions setup.
BONUS:
10 - Insert a blank floppy disk. format it and copy the ICD Driver present on disk C to this floppy disk.
11 - Launch ICDBOOT.PRG. You may not need that, since you already booted on an ICD disk.
12 - Launch ICDFMT.PRG. Select ACSI unit (default 0) and continue.
13 - On the main menu, click on "Verification" and change 1 to 0.
If you do not do that, ICD will parse the drive for bad sector.
This will take too much time on a 1Gb drive and not required since we are not using a mechanical drive.
14 - Click on "Partition" and set the partitions you which.
TOS 1.02 has a limit of 256Mb and the other a limit of 512Mb. Max partitions per drive is 14.
There is no need to "Format" the drive. This is only for mechanical drive, not in our case.
15 - Quit ICD Driver and reboot.
16 - Launch ICDBOOT.PRG.
17 - Launch HDUTIL.PRG then click on "Boot"
18 - Select the C drive has boot. This will install ICD driver the C drive.
19 - Remove the floppy disk and reboot.
20 - Your Atari is now booting with ICD driver and a C drive is shown
21 - Add the other drives and save the desktop.
ACSI mode is a pure ACSI disk emulation similar to UltraSatan, SD4ST or HATARI (emulator on PC). It uses the same hard disk images with the driver of your choice.
ACSI mode works on all TOS (Not tested on Falcon030).
More about ACSI mode on the official GitHub.
Where to buy:
Ebay: https://www.ebay.fr/usr/claross-0
Direct: https://www.16-32bit.eu/shop
Official ACSI2STM GitHub: https://github.com/retro16/acsi2stm
Raspberry Pi Imager: https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/
ACSI image with ICD Driver: https://www.16-32bit.eu/acsi2stm