3.9 partition rules

[MarkAshley]

No I don't mean that my 3.9 partition *rules*  :lol:  I mean that this is a post about the rules of partitioning under 3.9.

I just want to confirm what I think I already know, before I set up my new A1200 system:

1. Boot partition has to be under the 4gb barrier otherwise the full partition won't be visible until after setpatch runs.
2. Other (non-boot) partitions can be over the 4gb barrier.

I also have a couple of questions:

a) Is there an upper limit on the size of non-boot partitions?
b) With an EPROM burner, would it be possible to burn a new, patched 3.9 kickstart, meaning 3.9 features would be available before setpatch? This would mean that one large partition could be used rather than separate boot and data partitions.

Thanks
Mark

[amigakit]

The first partition (boot) must be less than 2GB and the whole hard disk must be smaller than 2 Terrabyte.

However this is FFS limitations, many IDE interfaces have their own further constraints.

On the FastATA MKIII here, I am running 32.2GB non boot partitions without problem on a 250GB hard disk with FFS v45.13.

Be aware of limitations of other filesystems for example such as Professional Filesystem (PFS) which can only address a hard disk < 127GB.  

[MarkAshley]

I'm using FFS on the internal IDE bus. What's the biggest non-boot partition I can use?

[Piru]

@amigakit

Be aware of limitations of other filesystems for example such as Professional Filesystem (PFS) which can only address a hard disk < 127GB.

Nonsense, PFS3 is working fine with partition over 127GB limit. PFS3 limits the maximum partition size to ~100GB though.

However, some device drivers cannot access IDE HDD beyond 137GB limit (0xfffffff sectors, 512 bytes per sector == 128GiB). This has nothing to do with filesystem though, but LBA48 addressing. If the scsi.device (or whatever device you use) doesn't handle LBA48, there is no way to access > 137GB (128GiB) area.

[Thomas]

The first partition (boot) must be less than 2GB

OS3.9 boots happily from a 6GB partition with FFS 45.1.


The only important rule is: if you boot from the internal IDE bus the boot partition has to reside entirely inside the first 4GB of the HDD.

If your boot partition is on another controller or you use a different file system, other rules apply. Check the docs of your hard- and software.

Bye,
Thomas

[Dandy]

amigakit wrote:
...
Be aware of limitations of other filesystems for example such as Professional Filesystem (PFS) which can only address a hard disk < 127GB.  

What PFS version are you referring to?
I am using PFS3 (direct SCSI) on an 160 gB (!) HD in my A4kPPC without any problems...