Data Exchange with Windows, macOS and Linux

With HDDRIVER you exchange data between your Atari and a PC or Mac without any additional software or cable connections. With HDDRUTIL you can create several TOS/Windows compatible FAT16 or FAT32 partitions per medium. Memory cards are ideal media for this purpose, but regular drives can also be used. Data transfers between your Atari and other platforms have never been this easy!

Data Exchange with Windows
Data exchange with Windows

The screenshot shows files included in the HDDRIVER distribution on a Windows PC. The medium is a memory card with 4 TOS/Windows compatible partitions created with HDDRUTIL on the Atari. Windows versions older than Windows 10 on removable media only support one partition and ignore the others.

Data exchange with Windows and FAT32 partitions

With a non-removable medium (hard disk) any version of Windows supports several partitions per drive, like in this case two TOS/Windows compatible FAT32 partitions E: and F: of about 70 GiB each. In order to use FAT32 partitions with the Atari MagiC or MiNT are required.

Data Exchange with macOS
Data exchange with macOS

A TOS/Windows compatible memory card with 4 partitions on a Mac. Like with TOS and Windows all partitions are accessible.

Data Exchange with Linux
Data exchange with Linux

In contrast to old versions current Linux versions only offer very limited supported for TOS/Windows compatible partitions. Using more than one TOS/Windows compatible partition is not possible anymore.
With kernels supporting the Atari partitioning scheme the first TOS partition can be mounted:

>mount /dev/sdc3 /mnt

When using kernels without support for Atari compatible partitions the mtools are an alternative. In this case the first DOS partition can be used, provided that mtools.conf is configured accordingly, e.g. with

drive c: file="/dev/sdc" partition=1

All in all the best solution for Linux users is to use a kernel with support for Atari partition tables. In this case data can simply be exchanged with regular TOS compatible partitions.

GUID Partition Tables (GPT)

HDDRIVER can also handle the modern UEFI GUID partition tables (GPT), provided that their sector numbers are within the 32 bit range.
GUID types map to MBR types like this:

GUID Type Windows/Linux or TOS Type
EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7 $0E (FAT16 LBA), $0C (FAT32 LBA)
0FC63DAF-8483-4772-8E79-3D69D8477DE4 $83
734E5AFE-F61A-11E6-BC64-92361F002671 "BGM", "F32"

Optionally HDDRIVER maps all other GUID types to the XHDI RAW type.