SFS AmigaOS 4 Classic and AmigaOS 3.x

[HammerD]

So I booted up my Amiga OS 4.0 Classic (no, I don't have 4.1 yet) using the boot floppy and then from CD. Once the OS came up I set up my partitions to have a 4GB SFS/00 partition followed by a 20GB SFS/02 partition and finally a SWAP partition of a few GB. Swap isnt enabled in OS 4.0 but I do plan on upgrading to 4.1 where I hear it is.

Next I installed the OS after rebooting a few times to make the partitions be seen. Everything was A-OK. Rebooted and played around with the newly installed OS 4.

The next morning, after a cold reset, my harddrives were nowhere to be found. I managed to make the Amiga boot back into OS 4 using the boot floppy and CD and then suddenly, voila, my drives were back.

Is there any way I can get the drives to appear normally under 3.x and still work in 4.x? Do I need to start over (again) and format SFS under 3.x and then use that partition under 4.x? What do I do?

Anybody have any ideas?

Did you put SmartFileSystem in the RDB?  Also make sure you are really under 4GB for your boot partition, and you might even have to make it under 2GB in order to be seen properly by the 3.1 roms.

[HammerD]

So I didn't see a lot of info on how to (or not to) put SFS in the RDB. Do you know where this is described? I see references to it everywhere, but no instructions on how to. I formatted the drive (quick format) under AmigaOS 4 using the Icon->Format Workbench menu.

If there is more to be done, I don't know what it would be. I've been at this all week. Not only this problem but several other drive related excursions wherein I've lost at least one full partition of FFS data (the reason for trying SFS) and various configuration upgrades. Adding a drive, moving them around, using the CF IDE drive as my first drive vs a normal hard drive. Later realizing that my original drive was wasting about 20GB of unused space due to the way it had been originally set up. Trying move data from one drive to another, etc....

So I don't really want to have to reformat and reinstall again if I don't have to, but will if necessary.

You shouldn't have to re-install to put SFS into the RDB.  It should be described in the OS 4.0 documentation, the SFS documentation, and also it is pointed out in the AmigaOS 4.1 Classic FAQ.  From the FAQ:

   Boot again with the Boot Floppy and Installation CD.

Select "Continue and start Workbench directly from the CD" when the blue Welcome screen appears. After the Workbench starts, launch Media Toolbox from the AmigaOS 4.1 Update 2 CD - it is located in the "System" directory. Verify that your boot partition is inside the first 4GB of your hard disk and that the partition is set to Bootable in Media ToolBox and has the highest boot priority with respect to other bootable partitions. Verify you can see and access the partition you installed AmigaOS 4.1 Classic to on the Workbench.

Double check that you placed a RDB (Rigid Disk Block) on your hard drive. To verify, start Media ToolBox, select your device, then select your hard disk and click "Edit partitions and filesystems". Click the "Add, remove, or edit filesystems" button. Ensure that you have at least SmartFileSystem and/or FastFileSystem listed in the details section. The Filesystem you have in the RDB should match the Filesystem selected for your boot partition. If it is blank (eg, there is nothing in the RDB), you can add the required Filesystem to the RDB.

To add a FileSystem to the RDB, select "Add new FS", then browse to the L: directory on the Installation CD and add either FastFileSystem or SmartFileSystem (or both). Click OK to accept settings. It is important to note that when adding the FileSystem to the RDB you must edit the "DosType" so it matches the FileSystem. For FastFileSystem (FFS\07) use 444F5307. For SFS\00 use 53465300.

You may need to reboot after doing this. For further information please read the section in the guide named "Hard Disk setup with Media Toolbox".

You can download the entire FAQ on Hyperion's Forums, see link below.  It's for AmigaOS 4.1 Classic but much of it would apply to 4.0.

http://forum.hyperion-entertainment.biz/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=92