Dual Boot AmigaOS 4.1 FE and MorphOS 3.8 on Sam 460CR

I finally got it working - Dual Boot AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition and MorphOS 3.8 now running on my Sam 460CR!

Above is the AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition running on the Sam 460CR, showing the MorphOS partition and Data partitions used by MorphOS. (Click to expand any pictures)

Below is the MorphOS 3.8 running on the Sam 460CR off the partitions shown above (MorphOS can't see the AmigaOS 4.1 SFS2 partitions):

The secret to getting this working was a tip off on the Amiga forums by Kyle (here) on how to boot from SDCard on the Sam460CR, in combination with the latest Sam 460CR/EX 2015-A firmware from ACube (shown in this blog here), which removes the 2GB restriction on SD Cards...It means I can install MorphOS 3.8 onto a large SDCard!

To get this working I opened the Sam 460CR case and installed a 64GB SDXC Card (stock standard - brand new):

The SDCard slot on the Sam 460 is mounted on the back of the board itself - here is the SDCard installed and ready to start work on it:

I first booted into AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition and prepared an additional SFS0 partition called Data on the SATA hard disk (size 101GB) to be used by MorphOS. It can then also be read by AmigaOS4.1 and so sharing data is easier (MorphOS can't read the SFS2 partitions created by AmigaOS 4.1)

I then format the partition:

I then booted the Sam 460CR from the MorphOS 3.8 DVD and ran the HDConfig tool in the Tools folder.

We use this HDConfig tool to delete the existing SD Card partition, install the Amiga RDB (instead of default MBR), and then prep the SDCard as a DOS/07 (FFS LNFS) partition, using the full size of the SDCard, called DH0.

Note: I tried using SFS0 for the partition rather than FFS LNFS - it doesn't boot. So I stick with FFS LNFS.

The reason to do this ahead of the MorphOS installation, is to avoid drive partitions and names being created (like System: and Work: that MorphOS uses on automatic install) that conflict with the AmigaOS 4.1 partitions already in place on the hard disk (In AmigaOS 4.1 it already has two partitions called System: and Work:).

Here is the prepped SDCard in HDConfig, ready to save:

I then formatted the drive using the MorphOS format tool, and then installed MorphOS on the SDCard using Manual partition size, and selecting the partition I created earlier.

Installation completed:

After the install to the SD Card is complete, I show the completed install on the SD Card partition MorphOS, ready with all the required files:

I can then remove the MorphOS CD and reboot the Sam. 

At this point I press Enter when prompted by U-Boot, then select in U-Boot to boot the USB HD (which is the SDCard slot in the Sam 460).

It then boots MorphOS 3.8 on the Sam460CR from the SDCard! Success!

To boot AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition I just let the system boot as normal - it will then boot the hard disk.

As a test I then removed the hard disk, so that only the sd card remained. It won't boot at all without the hard disk, as the hard disk has the SLB_v2 needed for the Sam to run. 

I guess you could install the SLB onto the SDCard if you didn't want to use a hard disk at all - haven't tried it yet though, and not really a priority for me.

Anyway - goal achieved! I can now dual boot MorphOS 3.8 and AmigaOS 4.1 final Edition on the Sam 460CR. No more opening the case to swap cables around! Fantastic!

I guess the next target is to triple boot Linux on the system using the former MorphOS SATA hard disk - another task for another day!