SFS for hard drives larger then 4 gig. How to install?

[SIR-GERMAN]

how do i format with sfs
what do i have to do after i add the sfs to the hardrive

[tonyvdb]

All my partitions are smaller then 1.5 gig but thanks for the tip. I will try to do a quick format of the drives.

[Piru]

@tonyvdb

This has nothing to do with size.

The location of the partition matters. If it resides even partially over the 4GB limit, regular format will trash the RDB and you lose all partitions.

[tonyvdb]

Ok good to know. Does this mean that the partitions above the 4 gig size are not going to be as stable/relyable?

[Piru]

Does this mean that the partitions above the 4 gig size are not going to be as stable/relyable?

Not at all.

But many applications are not able to access them. For example:

- Format
- ShapeShifter
- DiskSalv
- QuarterBack tools
- many older disk repair tools, editors etc

However, since many of these tools work only on FFS anyway, it doesn't matter much.

Obviously anything writing the disk directly (bypassing the filesystem) will be dangerous, since if the application doesn't handle >4GB correctly it will "wrap back" and trash the RDB and/or the partitions below 4GB. This is the reason why you should never use the regular (non-quick) format.

[tonyvdb]

Great information to know. Its all working great now.
Thanks

[amigagr]

Piru wrote:
@tonyvdb

This has nothing to do with size.

The location of the partition matters. If it resides even partially over the 4GB limit, regular format will trash the RDB and you lose all partitions.

i have a 28.6gb hard disk on the a1200, my 5th partition is 12gb and start at 14.5gb of the disk. i have format them all (6 partitions total 2 of them 6gb) with the standard full format and until now i have no problems

dh0 512mb
dh1   2gb
dh2/3 6gb
dh4  12gb
dh5 2.1gb


-edit-
of course i mean with sfs

[Piru]

@amije

Naturally it depends on your Format command version and the standards supported by the device driver. But even so, there are actually *three* different standards to access disk above the 4GB limit, and even the AmigaOS 3.9 Format only supports one of these methods.

So, in short, due to all this uncertainty, it's much better to assume that the format is not safe.

Full format is waste of time anyway.

[pVC]

Phew... same questions always, same misunderstandings, same presumptions... isn't there any FAQ to point people Sorry, but one should think that people would have learned something during the years

[amigagr]

the format is v44.14 the scsi.device 43.43
do you think that may will be safer to reformat all the partitions with format-quick or SFSFormat just to avoid future problems?

[amigagr]

pVC wrote:
Phew... same questions always, same misunderstandings, same presumptions... isn't there any FAQ to point people Sorry, but one should think that people would have learned something during the years

yes of course the same questions etc. not all problems happend with the same results at all configurations/hardware we all have here. and of course we keep learning day by day new stuff and keep finding new problems to solve day by day too. that's one of the reasons of these kind of forums here at amiga.org too.

[Piru]

@amije

If the format goes bad it goes bad right away (that is the RDB is lost on next reboot, first partition(s) get corrupted). There is no delayed effect other than that.

There is no need to reformat. If you had experienced the problem you would have lost all your partitions already.

[amigagr]

ok, thanks for the info  :-)

[SIR-GERMAN]

there is another tutorial for sfs
http://eab.abime.net/faq.php?faq=amigaos_faq_item#faq_winuae_sfs_hd_guide
also if you get the lastest hdinst.lha   6.9 from aminet .
the only thing you have to do is selec the sfs file you are done .
just do a format

[VickyPettit]

I have done that several times.  It doesn't work.

[VickyPettit]

I followed your instructions to the letter and the drive wouldnh't even format correctly.