Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Software Issues and Discussion => Topic started by: bon on July 08, 2003, 09:37:03 PM
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What is the max Hard Disk size one can use under Amiga OS (3.9) ?
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what ever u choose as long as u have a interface that can handle it...
i have 200gb....
on idefix 99 ...now i have fastata .. before all this i had scsi...no prob...
on the basic (slow) ide controller i dont know, but i think it doesnt matter really...havnt heard anyone complain anyway...
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afaik 4g, otherwise you´ll need an nsd driver or sth. like sfs
look here (http://www.xs4all.nl/~hjohn/SFS/index.htm)
i use it and can say it works pretty good :-)
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And here (http://www.amigau.com/c-amiga/filesystems.htm)
Sorry I am too lazy to say more than this
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Absolutely anything at all. Just make sure you have OS3.9's SetPatch running or you might get the wrong sizes.
I was using 3.5 to create partitions on my HD then installed OS3.9 and found out I was using half my HD and I'm pretty sure it was SetPatch - I cold booted OS3.9's floppy and got the full 20gig, but cold booting OS3.5's floppy gave me only 8gig.
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1 important thing is:
if u use a BIG disk... rember that boot partision must be in START of the disk (when u edit it in hdtoolbox) or else it wont boot the disk.
also your boot disk shouldnt be more than a gig or so (mine is 500megs) for many reasons...1 is..if u use FFS still....long validating times...
cheers
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The boot partition has to be under the 4 gig barrier, if you don't use FFS or don't mind the long validations you could have a boot partition of 4 gig. Mine's sitting at 2.2gig just now :-D
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I have the following 2 problems. FYI I am using a hard disk with the A 1200's internal hard disk controller, and an external Hard Drive getting power from a PC PSU.
1. I installed at first a 15 GB drive which the Amiga found it was a 7.8 GB. I tried playing with the settings but no luck. So I partitioned it using only the space provided (DH0: 500 MB, and divided the rest to 2-3 partitions). Everything was ok, until I upgraded from OS 3.5 to OS 3.9. Then, whenever I booted I got read errors from all my partitions (except DH0). I supposed it was due to the hard disk's size...
2. I said "OK, I can live with smaller hard Drives as long as I do not have problems! So, I then Installed a smaller, 3.5 GB Hard Drive which worked fine until I installed OS 3.9! With OS 3.9, whenever I boot, I get messages of the type "Work has a read error" and I could do NOTHING about it! I cannot format it, as the format utility just freezes! When I swithch back to OS 3.5 (or 3.1) everything works smoothly! I also replaced the hard drive with another one, but the same OS 3.9 related error occured!
Any ideas????
Thanx in advance... :-P
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bon wrote:
1. I installed at first a 15 GB drive which the Amiga found it was a 7.8 GB. I tried playing with the settings but no luck. So I partitioned it using only the space provided (DH0: 500 MB, and divided the rest to 2-3 partitions). Everything was ok, until I upgraded from OS 3.5 to OS 3.9. Then, whenever I booted I got read errors from all my partitions (except DH0). I supposed it was due to the hard disk's size...
I think that's because OS3.9 sees the HD as 15gig, but it's fooled into thinking it's only 7.5gig. This 7.5gig is due to SetPatch (I think). The read errors are possibly due to the A1200 onboard HD controller. I have an IDEfix97 4-way buffer and haven't encountered that problem when my 20gig was formatted for 8gig - so I could be wrong with that.
I have no idea why the 3.5gig HD didn't work. Perhaps you could try formatting/partitioning in 3.5 getting it totally setup then switch to 3.9. Or how about trying the "HD Reselection" if that's still avaliable in 3.5 and 3.9 (I know it's in 3.1)
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SFS is free and PFS cost money but both work great.No invalidated disk drives and is way faster than FFS. 3 tetrabytes limit I think and hard drive partitions have a 110 gig limit.
a Fool and his data are soon separated with FFS.
NO good reason other than you like losing data and invalidated harddrives to be using FFS.
Kurt
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I installed an 80Gig HD. I thought it was going to work just fine... Then I did a full format. Not the Quick, wich I have since read in a couple of places is the way to do it. Now the drive doesn't work.
Any ideas as to a fix?
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Never use full format, it is a 32 bit command it doesn't understand track disk 64.
Use quick format also modern drives do not use full formats.
I am using a 120Gig, 40 Gig, and a couple of smaller drives scsi and ide.
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It is 2 to 4 Terabites. More then we will need right now.
OS 3.1 and below had a 4 Gig limit with 2 Gig partitions.
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The limit is 2 terabytes, if the block size is 512 bytes.
Both pfs and sfs use ULONG (32bit unsigned integer) for block numbers.
So this sceme can address maximum 2^32 blocks, 512 bytes each, total 2 terabytes.
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So you suggest I just use SFS? But how you explain the read errors I got ONLY from OS 3.9 and not 3.5 or previous??? Is it because of the A1200's IDE Interface?
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I get that too !
well I did, as I have now moved the 20Gig disk into the AmigaOne.
but I would still be interested in the fix. there were some notes in the boingbag2 or the os3.9 install amigaguide, but they didnt make a lot of sense at the time.
/edit
forgot to say that I was using the IdeFix'97 board and software from Jens Schönfeld (via power computing !), and OS3.9 BB2.
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> Never use full format, it is a 32 bit command it
> doesn't understand track disk 64.
> Use quick format also modern drives do not use
> full formats.
right... I know that now. The problem is... I did use the full format... before I knew not to use it. Does anybody know how to fix the drive after that?
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if it is IDE try sticking it into a pc, partition and format it that way. I have done that in the past to fix dead Amiga drives. For SCSI I have connect it to a Phase 5 card with the power plug out. Power up the machine, load SCSI prefs, plug in HD and rescan the SCSI bus so the system sees the wrecked drive.
now you reinstall drive. that should recover the drive.
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It is an IDE drive, and I did stick it in a PC to format it. Once formated, I stuck it back in the Amiga.... No luck :(
HD toolbox sees the drive, and I am using the SFS as a file system. I have tried masks of 0x00FFFFFF, FE, FC. These don't seem to have an effect either way.
What is soooo frustrating is that I know this drive will work. I have seen the icon on the screen. I just screwed something up by doing a full format. If there was only an Undo! :)
A couple of people have mentioned "reinstalling" the drive. Is this the "install" button on the HDToolbox. I have done that a number of times. It doesn't seem to help.
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There may be a better way, but if it were me...
I'd stick the drive in a PC, FDISK it to a single partition, fomat it FAT32, install a nice quick Windows OS (e.g. 95 - quick to INSTALL not use!) and check it is all working fine... then FDISK it again and try it in the Amiga WITHOUT attempting to format it again on the PC..
Hopefully you would then see the drive electronically and could format it (quick) on the Amiga. You would also know that it is fully working (assuming it did) and merely needs to be properly configured for the Amiga or vice versa.
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I was able to do that. And the PC was able to see it and use it. When I then stick it back into the Amiga... The same thing happens. HDtoolbox sees it, will install it, will partition the drive using the SFS. But when I reboot so that I can get it mounted, the drive light comes on and stays on for ever (most of a day before I final reset it).
As stated earlier, I tried a variety of masks that are sugested in the SFS guide. That didn't seem to change things.
When I first started all of this (before the full format), I never messed with masks or transfer speeds or anything. It worked great... right up to the point of the full format! ;)
I don't know... people have had some realy good ideas as to fix this, but I sure am having poor luck with this.
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by steidley on 2003/7/9 4:25:14
I installed an 80Gig HD. I thought it was going to work just fine... Then I did a full format. Not the Quick, wich I have since read in a couple of places is the way to do it. Now the drive doesn't work.
Any ideas as to a fix?
Try to replace the flat cable and/or use another shorter one.
Some modern and large disks, requires hi quality flat cable (on Pegasos also).
Ciao