Yes, another annoying >4Gb harddrive question

[mr_a500]

I have a feeling this has been discussed many times before, ad nauseum, but I can't find an answer to my question anywhere.

A tedious explanation first:
I have an A500 with Viper520 and a 20Gb 2.5" IDE harddrive attached and 3.0 ROMs on the card. I have a 3.1 ROM in the original slot on the motherboard and have set up a switch to switch between 3.0 and 3.1. I have WB3.9 on one partition and use it with the 3.1 ROM to access partitions >4Gb on the HD. But, the 3.1 ROM is slow (16bit vs the 32bit ROMs on the card) and I hate WB3.9 and want to use only WB3.1&3.0ROMs and still access my partitions >4Gb. All my partitions are FFS version 45.9 and so I only need scsi.device 43 to be able to access them.

Here's the question:
Is there any way to copy the scsi.device 43 from WB3.9 and use it in WB3.1? (and without having to use the 3.1 ROM)


(I do have some A1200 3.1 ROMs, but I'm too scared to put them on the Viper card. One little soldering mistake and I'd be screwed!)

[SilvrDrgn]

I would not want to try what you want to do.  Who knows how it's going to operate that way?!?  Might work, might not.  Why do you thing the ROM is slow?  Have you thought of maybe getting a ROM remapping utility and mapping the ROM into RAM and run it from there?

[mr_a500]

@SilvrDrgn

When I run WB3.1 with the 3.1ROM, it runs at less than half the speed of WB3.1 with the 3.0ROMs. This is because the 3.1ROM is relying on the A500 16bit bus, while the 3.0ROMs on the card are read as 32bit.

Yes, I have considered using a ROM remapping utility like Skick, but I can't find a ROM that works. How annoying - I legally own an A500 3.1ROM, A1200 3.1ROMs, AmigaForever 3.1 ROM file, but I still don't have a 3.1ROM file that works with Skick. The other downside of using ROM remapping is that it would use 512Kb of my precious RAM.

[Brian]

Tried TransROM on your machine? It'll make a copy of your ROM and save it as a file.

[Thomas]

Is there any way to copy the scsi.device 43 from WB3.9 and use it in WB3.1? (and without having to use the 3.1 ROM)

Yes. the Blizkick archive contains a program to split the RomUpdate file into single modules. Use it and copy scsi.device to Devs:.

Then get Thomas Richter's LoadModule and copy it to C:. Also copy the Reboot program from the Install3.1 disk into C:.

Finally add something like this to the beginning of your Startup-Sequence:

version scsi.device 43
if warn
  loadmodule devs:scsi.device
  reboot
endif

Don't forget to read the documentation of all mentioned archives before you start. Probably the LoadModule program contains a check and reboot option on its own.

However, are you sure the scsi.device V43 affects the Viper's driver at all ? AFAIK it is only for the internal IDE bus of the A3000, A4000, A1200 and A600. Perhaps the Viper's driver already is able to address more than 4GB. You might need NSDPatch though (to convert TD64 into NSD commands).

Bye,
Thomas

[mr_a500]

@Thomas

Thanks for the info. LoadModule might be just what I'm looking for. I'll try it. (I'd put a smiley here if I knew how)

Yes, I'm pretty sure the scsi.device is being used to access the partitions. When I go into Scout:Mounted Devices, all my partitions say scsi.device.


@Brian

Thanks for the TransROM suggestion. I'll try that if LoadModule doesn't work.

[mr_a500]

IT WORKS!!!! Thanks Thomas!

I had to add a >Nil: to the version check or else I had a lockup, but I can access all my partitions now.

Of course, now I have the unexpected problem of extra drive icons on the desktop that I can't hide and a double boot when starting up. So, I think I'll only use this occasionally when I need to access those extra partitions rather than all the time.

Ex-cellent. (said like Mr. Burns with a slight demonic grin..)