Unfortunately OS 3.1 does not support 64-bit addressing in ROM so even with third party patches, you still cannot do a full format with Workbench - also the Workbench will fail to correctly report the capacities of the larger hard disks.
Only 3.5/3.9 does this correctly as it patches the Kickstart ROM.
Sorry, but this is deadly wrong. You cannot patch a ROM. It's read *only* memory, you cannot write to it. There is no software whatsoever which allows you to boot from a partition bigger than 4GB from the internal IDE bus without replacing the physical ROM chip.
There is no difference if you add the required patches to WB3.1 or if you use OS3.9 which has the patches included. The boot partition always has to be inside the first 4GB.
All patches concerning big HDD support which are included in OS3.9 are also available for WB3.1, at least in beta versions. The only difference is that with OS3.9 you get everything installed automatically while with WB3.1 you have to install it manually.
The main benefits of OS3.9 which I remember are:
- new Workbench menus, e.g. sort icons by name
- Workbench ARexx port, i.e. most Workbench functions can now be controlled by ARexx scripts
- asynchronous Workbench operations, e.g. if you copy folders with drag & drop, the copy operation is now done in the background and you can continue your work
- ability to read OS3.9 icons. Unfortunately OS3.9 icons are not compatible to NewIcons, so there is no way to display OS3.9 icons on WB3.1.
- scalable backdrops: WBPattern now allows to automatically adjust a picture to the screen size
- the datatypes system now supports picture files with multiple images (e.g. TIFF FAX)
- the AmiDock bar. There are others, e.g. Toolmanager or AmiStart, but AmiDock has its own charm.
- ClassAct has been included into the OS and has been heavily improved and bug fixed
- CD-ROM support
- Internet (you get a free copy of Genesis with OS3.9)
- There are more improvements under the surface which are quite impressive for programmers
Bye,
Thomas
