GUI HDD

HDD Panel (Hard Drives)

This panel manages hard drives, directories, CD-ROM drives, and tape drives mounted in the emulated Amiga. It supports virtual filesystems (host directories), hardfile images, physical drives, CD images, and tape images.

Mounted Drives

A table listing all currently mounted storage devices with the following columns:

• Device — The Amiga device name (e.g., DH0, CD0) or controller identifier for IDE/SCSI devices
• Volume — The volume label shown in Workbench, or the device type (HDF, CD, TAPE) for hardware devices
• Path — The file or directory path on the host system
• R/W — Read/Write (RW) or Read-Only (RO) access mode
• Size — Storage size (KB, MB, or GB)
• Boot — Boot priority value (higher numbers boot first; n/a for hardware devices)

Click a row to select it. The selected entry can then be edited or removed using the action buttons.

Action Buttons

Add Directory...

• Mounts a host directory as an Amiga virtual filesystem volume.
• Opens the Volume Settings dialog.

Add Hardfile...

• Mounts a hard disk image file (.hdf, .hdz, .lha, .zip, .vhd, .chd, .7z).
• Opens the Hardfile Settings dialog.

Add Hard Drive...

• Mounts a physical hard drive from the host system.
• Opens the Add Hard Drive dialog showing detected physical drives.
• On macOS, unmount the disk first using diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskN, then Amiberry will use authopen to automatically prompt for authorization to access eligible unmounted raw disks.

Add CD Drive...

• Adds a CD-ROM drive entry (physical device or image file).
• Opens the CD Drive Settings dialog.

Add Tape Drive...

• Adds a tape drive entry (directory or image file).
• Opens the Tape Drive Settings dialog.

Properties

• Opens the settings dialog for the currently selected mounted drive.
• Only available when a drive is selected.

Remove

• Removes the currently selected drive from the mounted drives list.
• Only available when a drive is selected.

Create Hardfile...

• Creates a new blank hardfile image.
• Opens the Create Hardfile dialog.

CD Drive / Image

CDFS automount CD/DVD drives

• Automatically mounts CD/DVD drives detected on the host system into the emulated Amiga.

Turbo CD speed

• Reads CD data faster than real hardware speed.

CD drive/image (checkbox)

• Enables or disables the primary CD drive slot.

CD path dropdown

• Selects the CD image or physical device to use.
• The dropdown lists detected physical CD drives and recently used CD images.
• Click Eject to remove the current CD.
• Click ... to browse for a CD image file (.cue, .iso, .ccd, .mds, .chd, .nrg).

Volume Settings Dialog

Opened when adding or editing a directory (virtual filesystem) mount.

Device Name

• The Amiga device name (e.g., DH0, Work).

Volume Label

• The name shown in Workbench for this volume.

Path

• The host directory or archive file to mount.
• Click ... Dir to browse for a directory.
• Click ... Arch to browse for an archive file (.zip, .7z, .rar, .lha, .lzh, .lzx).

Read/Write

• Allows writing to this volume. Uncheck to make the volume read-only.

Bootable

• Enables booting from this volume.

Boot priority

• Numeric boot priority (-128 to 127). Higher values boot first. Set to -128 to disable autoboot.

Hardfile Settings Dialog

Opened when adding or editing a hardfile image mount.

Path

• Path to the hardfile image. Click ... to browse.

Geometry

Manual Geometry

• Enables manual specification of drive geometry parameters instead of auto-detection.

Surfaces

• Number of disk surfaces (heads).

Sectors

• Number of sectors per track.

Reserved

• Number of reserved blocks at the start of the disk.

Blocksize

• Sector size in bytes (typically 512).

Controller

Interface

• Selects the controller type (UAE filesystem, IDE, SCSI, etc.).

Unit

• The unit number on the selected controller.

Device Name

• The Amiga device name for this hard drive.

Read/Write

• Allows writing to this hardfile. Uncheck to make it read-only.

Bootable

• Enables booting from this hardfile.

Boot priority

• Numeric boot priority (-128 to 127).

Create Hardfile Dialog

Size (MB)

• Size of the new hardfile in megabytes.

Dynamic HDF (Sparse)

• Creates a sparse file that only uses host disk space as data is written.

RDB Mode

• Creates the hardfile with a Rigid Disk Block, making it partitionable.

Path

• Location and filename for the new hardfile. Click ... to browse.

Add Hard Drive Dialog

Physical drive list

• Lists physical drives detected on the host system. Select one to mount it.
• A warning is shown if the selected drive is currently mounted by the host OS.
• On macOS, Amiberry now warns if the selected raw device cannot be opened due to host permissions.

Read/Write

• Allows writing to the physical drive.

Bootable

• Enables booting from this physical drive.

Controller

• Selects the controller interface type.

Unit

• The unit number on the selected controller.

macOS notes for physical drives

Physical Amiga-formatted disks are exposed on macOS as /dev/diskN and /dev/rdiskN. Amiberry uses the raw device path when available, but macOS normally keeps those device files owned by root:operator, and mounted volumes should be unmounted before direct access.

Recommended workflow:

1. Find the disk number with diskutil list
2. Unmount the whole disk with diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskN
3. Open the Add Hard Drive dialog in Amiberry and select the unmounted disk
4. If macOS denies raw access, Amiberry will use authopen to automatically prompt for authorization for eligible unmounted raw disks

Notes:

• Finder-launched Amiberry can prompt for authorization automatically when the disk is properly unmounted first.
• Mounted disks are blocked from raw access and must be unmounted before selection.
• The safest option is still to image the disk to an HDF/IMG file and mount that image instead of a live physical device.