2.5" harddisk question

[Thomas]

I'm thinking of installing OS 3.9, can I install this without problems, or do I need the 3.1 disks for it?

You don't need 3.1 disks. But you need an Amiga with 68020 processor, at least 6 MB RAM and a CD-ROM drive. And you need an installed Workbench (any version) with CD-ROM drivers. If you don't have access to the CD-ROM drive, you cannot read the OS3.9 CD.

If all the prerequisites are fulfilled, just insert the CD, run the OS3.9 installer and create an emergency boot disk. After that you can through away all your previous boot disks because now you can boot into OS3.9 from the emergency disk.

Furthermore: what is the best filesystem to use if I want to install 3.9? I know that there are better ones than the 3.0/3.1 standard FFS, but which ones are there?

You cannot use 3.0/3.1 FFS for a HDD bigger than 4GB. You have to use 3.5/3.9 FFS. Or SFS. There is also PFS3 but it does not work with OS3.9 if IDEfix is not installed, too.

Bye,
Thomas

[Thomas]

Yes, PFS3ds should work with OS3.9's scsi.device.

Bye,
Thomas

[Thomas]

If I format only DH0: that will be readable, but if I format DH1: after that DH0: becomes corrupt.

This is the typical indication that the HDD driver is not able to handle more than 4GB.

It is like Motorollin wrote: you have to use an updated scsi.device *and* an updated file system. If one of the two parts is at a lower level, access to the HDD will not work correctly.

That it lets you format the partition above 4GB shows that you are using a bad version of FFS.

To check everything before you format partitions, please get Check4GB from Aminet, run it and post its output here. It will tell us which filesystems and which versions are used.

Bye,
Thomas

[Thomas]

It is contained in OS3.9. As you want to use OS3.9 anyway, you shouldn't bother with some difficult-to-install patches but rather install OS3.9 at once.

The boot partition has to be inside the first 4GB of the HDD anyway, so you can use it to install 3.0/3.1 and CD-ROM drivers and create an OS3.9 emergency disk (if you don't yet have an emergency disk for OS3.9). Then boot from the emergency disk, it will load OS3.9 from the CD.

Then use OS3.9's HDToolbox to repartition the drive. This time make sure the correct file systems (FFS version 44+ or SFS) are listed in the Add/Update menu and that the partitions are associated with the correct file system in the Change menu.

Bye,
Thomas