A: The Amiga Explorer software, which is available in a stand-alone version and as part of Amiga Forever, provides a very easy way to copy software and data from one system to the other, as long as the Amiga and the PC are connected with a serial cable (optionally via a USB serial interface or a Bluetooth adapter), or with TCP/IP (Ethernet, etc.) Other methods are explained in the pages referenced below.

The default hard disk installation of Amiga Forever creates a "Work" directory on the PC hard disk which is seen as a hard disk named "Work" from within the Workbench 3.X emulation environment. This directory is stored in the "Shared/dir" subdirectory of the emulation-specific directory of the Amiga Forever distribution or installation. On a current Windows installation, "Shared/dir" is in "Amiga Files". To open the Amiga Files folder from within Amiga Forever select Open Folder/Amiga Files from the File menu.

By copying files from the Amiga hard disk to the shared "Work" directory on the PC, they automatically become available in the "Work" partition of the emulated Amiga. Please note that this transfer is usually best performed from the Windows desktop (or whatever operating system and file manager is running on the computer), not from inside the emulation, which usually has more limited access (if any at all) to the "real" Amiga.

Amiga Explorer also gives access to a "virtual hardfile" for each Amiga hard disk. This is in HDF format, which can be copied directly to the emulation, retaining the original file system and attributes. To mount such an HDF file, view its Properties with Amiga Explorer, and after copying the file to the PC, set the drive geometry values indicated by Amiga Explorer in the Amiga Forever title configuration (right-click the title, select Edit, then edit the disk in the Media tab). This geometry information is very important, and it is best saved for future reference in a text file stored in the same directory as the hardfile.

Related Links

• Reading Amiga Floppy Disks on PC
• Reading Amiga Non-Floppy Media on PC
• Amiga SCSI and IDE Devices: Disk Image Files and Direct Access
• Host File System vs. Hardfiles
• System Configuration Import Checklist
• Comparison of Some Amiga/PC Data Sharing Solutions
• Use of "Amiga Files" in Amiga Forever for Windows
• Using Amiga Floppy Disk Image Files
• Booting a PC into Workbench
• Archival of Amiga Floppy Disks
• The Migration Tips tutorial