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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: mousehouse on October 20, 2011, 07:46:49 PM

Title: GVP 4060DT and PFS3 / SFS large drive problem
Post by: mousehouse on October 20, 2011, 07:46:49 PM
Hi all,

I'm trying to make use of the extra disk space I have on my SCSI drive, connected to my GVP 4060DT.

I start with a regular FFS partition, < 4GB in size on which I have my complete OS 3.9, etc. This BTW only used ~ 200MB... Now I want to use the additional 100GB of the drive in one or two PFS3 or SFS partitions.

I know from the few threads I was able to find that the GVP 4060DT SCSI controller does nothing with drivers included in the RDB... but it does not just seem to ignore it, it messes up the complete drive. Adding PFS3 or SFS to the RDB complete kills the disk, after the reboot no partitions are left. I tried to do this using my empty drive (w00t) and "HDInstTools" (hdinst.lha) but am still unsuccessful. Doesn't matter if I'm on 3.9 or 3.1 or whatever.

Now I'm puzzled as I am not changing anything regarding the first partition (DH0, bootable, FFS), I only want to add an additional partition and use a custom filesystem on it.

Has anybody with a GVP 4060DT attempted something similar?

Also, maybe more SFS or PFS3 related, can I use a filesystem on another partition without adding it to the RDB? Eg. just use a filesystem identifier and then have my already booted OS (from FFS) load the filesystem from "L"?

Any tips appreciated and other than this SCSI / disk issue, this card flies using the MMULibs 68060.library!
Title: Re: GVP 4060DT and PFS3 / SFS large drive problem
Post by: freqmax on October 20, 2011, 11:53:29 PM
The braindamaged MBR implementation on PC is regularly circumvented by creating a system partition that fits below cylinder 1024 and in many cases less than 1 GB. This allows the basic OS components to boot and then take over from the BIOS. After this partitions that are 8 ZB big is possbile (UFS2 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFS2) 2^73).

I suspect GVP implemented something "clever" that obviously isn't compatible..
Title: Re: GVP 4060DT and PFS3 / SFS large drive problem
Post by: matthey on October 21, 2011, 12:14:44 AM
It should be possible to create Devs:DOSDrivers "mountlists" for each partition that would use L:PFS3. The partitions would be added at boot if ACTIVATE=1 is set in the tooltypes or when used with ACTIVATE=0. The PFS3 manual has a section called "Creating a mountlist" that describes how to create a Devs:DOSDrivers mountlist and an example mountlist (start with the 2nd mountlist). Use a direct scsi (ds) version of PFS3. You would change your scsi device name and number to appropriate values and use your HD install program to find the LowCyl and HighCyl. Then maybe you can see how good PFS3 is and feel some pride that it was created in your own country ;).

There is also some information on the GVP 060 board here...

http://www.gregdonner.org/gvp4060/gvp4060.html
Title: Re: GVP 4060DT and PFS3 / SFS large drive problem
Post by: mechy on October 21, 2011, 02:21:33 AM
Quote from: mousehouse;664257
Hi all,

I'm trying to make use of the extra disk space I have on my SCSI drive, connected to my GVP 4060DT.

I start with a regular FFS partition, < 4GB in size on which I have my complete OS 3.9, etc. This BTW only used ~ 200MB... Now I want to use the additional 100GB of the drive in one or two PFS3 or SFS partitions.

I know from the few threads I was able to find that the GVP 4060DT SCSI controller does nothing with drivers included in the RDB... but it does not just seem to ignore it, it messes up the complete drive. Adding PFS3 or SFS to the RDB complete kills the disk, after the reboot no partitions are left. I tried to do this using my empty drive (w00t) and "HDInstTools" (hdinst.lha) but am still unsuccessful. Doesn't matter if I'm on 3.9 or 3.1 or whatever.

Now I'm puzzled as I am not changing anything regarding the first partition (DH0, bootable, FFS), I only want to add an additional partition and use a custom filesystem on it.

Has anybody with a GVP 4060DT attempted something similar?

Also, maybe more SFS or PFS3 related, can I use a filesystem on another partition without adding it to the RDB? Eg. just use a filesystem identifier and then have my already booted OS (from FFS) load the filesystem from "L"?

Any tips appreciated and other than this SCSI / disk issue, this card flies using the MMULibs 68060.library!

I spent a week trying to get another other filesystem(sfs/pfs3) on the 4060dt. its hopeless, as per most gvp junk, they have done something that keeps it from working with any other filesystem. i have no idea what causes it but something is non-standard with the cards as far as filesystems go.

best you can hope for is try and crank up the blockside maybe and be happy with FFS?

it would be nice if someone could come up with a fix.

IMHO hdinsttools causes more trouble that is help in my experiences.

mech
Title: Re: GVP 4060DT and PFS3 / SFS large drive problem
Post by: mousehouse on October 21, 2011, 08:56:30 AM
Quote from: matthey;664283
It should be possible to create DevsOSDrivers "mountlists" for each partition that would use L:PFS3. The partitions would be added at boot if ACTIVATE=1 is set in the tooltypes or when used with ACTIVATE=0. The PFS3 manual has a section called "Creating a mountlist" that describes how to create a DevsOSDrivers mountlist and an example mountlist (start with the 2nd mountlist). Use a direct scsi (ds) version of PFS3. You would change your scsi device name and number to appropriate values and use your HD install program to find the LowCyl and HighCyl. Then maybe you can see how good PFS3 is and feel some pride that it was created in your own country .
Thanks for the great idea. I skipped over de pfs3ds part thinking it was not relevant for me (only for the A4000 IDE) but I will definitely give it a go!
Title: Re: GVP 4060DT and PFS3 / SFS large drive problem
Post by: doctorq on October 21, 2011, 03:55:29 PM
I have used a different filesystem (SFS) with a TekMagic 2060, which has some of the same problems I believe. My boot partition was ffs, and then mountlists for the rest of my partitions which used SFS. I used HDToolBox from OS3.9, deselected automounting from all other partitions than the boot drive, and created the needed mountlist for the non-automounting partitions with GiggleDisk (can be found on Aminet). Placed all mountlists i Devs : DOSDrivers and I was all set.