HD Installation Problems

[zipper]

One of the options is directory  caching on file systems, introduced in WB 3 if I remember correctly. If  you have a very large partition with billions of little files on it, the  Amiga grinds to a halt trying to cache it all.

Which was meant for floppies afaik. I remember I once created a HDD boot partition unintentionally with FFS-DC on OS 3.9 and it did continuously show read errors until I found the culprit to be that filesystem. Changing it to  FFS stopped the errors immediately.

[Python15]

Thanks guys and apologies to Mike, I did read your post but obviously (and foolishly) didn't realize that the 4Gb limit applied to the entire drive, nos simply partitions as explained by Thomas. I now have a much better understanding! Thanks again and back to the drawing board! As I said earlier, this is a very steep relearning curve I'm afraid so you'll have to be patient with me being a bimmblehead!

[LoadWB]

FTR, I am watching this thread with interest.  I picked up a very nice 4000D system without SCSI and am now taking the time to do some IDE stuff.  I have been repeatedly successful with my 1200's IDE, but the 4000's seems to be a little more cranky.  I may have determined the problem is with the actual drive I am using (a KingSpec 64GB PATA SSD) but I have more experimenting to do.

Essentially, I am starting from scratch with OS3.1 and then upgrading 3.9-BB1-BB2.  No WinUAE for me, though.  So you can't post up too much info, IMHO.

[Thomas]

Drives following new ATA specs, for example CF cards and probably SSDs too, require MaxTransfer set to below 128KB, othwise files bigger than 128KB might get corrupted. Usually 0x1fe00 is used. It does not hurt to always set MaxTransfer to 0x1fe00 for all drives and partitions.

[Pat the Cat]

Without a hack for both the filesystem (FFS) and the device driver (scsi.device) you will run into trouble copying anything beyond the first 4gb of your drive. Hardware devices like the Idefix patch the device driver on the fly, software solutions will perform an extra reboot when starting your Amiga from cold. As for the filesystem, most popular would be to use SFS, though some will recommend PFS3 (which, by exception, does not need an updated scsi.device).

The best option IMO would be to install OS3.9 since ...

Yes, I would be one of those people who recommend PSF3 if you are sticking to 3.1 of AmigaDOS. Which is OK for most A1200s out there.

I can see why you recommend the upgrade to 3.9, as you have gone the Blizzard PPC and Cybervision route. Very nice machines, but perhaps not necessary in this case.