>4GB on Amiga 1200 / 3.1 Workbench?

[Macca]

It's probably one of THE most asked questions...

Explain it to me like a child.  I know I need some kind of IDE patcher and also I need a different filesystem.

But which ones?  And, more importantly, where can I get them from?

Many, many, many thanks for anybodys help.


Macca.

[adolescent]

I don't have a step by step, but there are a couple of things you need.

1.  An updated scsi.device that supports HDs larger than 4GB.  (This comes with OS3.5/3.9, IDEFIX or IDEMAX)
2.  A filesystem that can support partitions above the 4GB barrier (OS3.5/OS3.9 FFS, SFS, PFS, etc.)

Note: since these patches aren't in ROM, you'll need to keep at least the boot partition in the natively usable area.

[Brian]

Don't know exactly how to do as I've not yet bothered with bigger drives (though I'll get a 40Gb for my A4000 soon and I hope OS3.9 will help me a bit on the way then).

Anyway, to help me when the time comes I've downloaded a few files (fixdisk.lha, hdinsttool.lha, nsdpatch43_20.lha, rdbrecover.lha, sfs.lha, sfstools.lha) from aminet and saved this link in my favorites.

[Macca]

Well at the moment I have it partitioned as the following:

Workbench - 300MB
Work - 3.1 GB

I have 17GB going begging on this hard-drive - so I guess I'm going to have to install OS 3.5 rather than 3.1

I know IDE fix is shareware - is the other tool free?

[adolescent]

IDEMax is just the new/current name for IDEFix.  They are the same product, and are both commercial.

[Brian]

Nah patches and SFS will work with OS3.1 but I'm surprized that you've not encountered problems with the Work partision... OS3.0/3.1's FFS only support 2Gb partisions and having a 3Gb drive is an accident waiting to happen (once passed the 2Gb mark even if you belive it's 2.1Gb it will actually start write over stuff in the beginning of the partision).

[Macca]

Last quick question.

IDEFix on it's own.  Will this fix my problems?

Cheers,

Macca

[Brian]

Nope... as far as I know that's just the "device" and you'll still at least need a new filesystem.

[pjhutch]

[Brian]

Well I might be wrong on the overwriting part but the original 3.0/3.1 FFS limitasions are 4Gb drive and DOS limitation are 2Gb partisions so I suspect you'll find more problems with this than just size being displayed wrong. Format probably doesn't support full format and I wonder what reorg, disksalv and other tools might do to a partision too big.

[manicx]

I had the same question. It was fully answered here.

[pjhutch]

You are correct, you must use Quick Format for partitions >4GB. There are some 64bit Format programs on Aminet which you can use to replace the WB3.1 version.
None of the existing disk tools will work on partitions over 4Gb unless it specifically says so. There is a new version of DiskSalv (4 or later) you can use, although you have to buy it (probably isn`t avail any more)