Big partition problem (not 4Gb barrier!) with 50GB partitions...

[Jose]

Solved the previous HD size/parameter recognition problems by installing BB2, wich gave me around 111GB( strange as it's a 120 one), installed it, partitioned it, rebooted from emergency disk, reinstalled up to BB2 on 1st small 512MB partition and then started to format the other partitions, wich were organized like this:
512MB(for Amiga)/
1GB( for Debian;)/
1GB(.. Shapeshifter)/
1GB(other stuff)/
8GB(audio recordings/other data)/
50GB(Video/other data)/
50GB(video/other data 2)

Everything went well up till the 1st 50GB partition wich ended with (can't remember for sure) a "not a dos disk" message or something.
After rebooting I got the checkmark screen and after booting with the emergency disk the partitions were all gone :lol:

Is this a known problem ? Didn't find any big partion thread about it, they were all related to 4GB barrier.

:pint:

[Framiga]

AFAIK ShapeShifter must be in the first 2GB of the HD.

and to be honest, better to use it on a separate HD ;-)

[Piru]

Solved the previous HD size/parameter recognition problems by installing BB2, wich gave me around 111GB( strange as it's a 120 one)

120*1000*1000*1000/1024/1024/1024

These are called "marketing gigabytes".

After rebooting I got the checkmark screen and after booting with the emergency disk the partitions were all gone

Is this a known problem ?

Well, your RDB got wiped, which means you don't really have the >4GB access working, or you used some format without quick option for example.

Anyway, you should try check4gb.

[Thomas]

There definitely *is* still a partition size limit with FFS, but I am not sure what it is. I *think* it is 8GB for 512 byte blocks. So for a 50GB partition, you have to use a block size of 4096 bytes.

But at first I agree with Piru. If the RDB got wiped, you're not using the right software for big HDDs.

Which Format program did you use and did you do a full format or a quick format ? 64bit support was first added to Format with BB2, IIRC, so you have to use the Format program from the BB2 installation in order to fully format any of the big partitions. Quick format should work correctly with all versions, though.

1GB( for Debian;)/

I'd create a 1GB swap partition and a 10 GB root partition at the end of the HDD. The Linux kernel knows well how to deal with big HDDs and the Linux launcher has to be run from AmigaOS anyway. So you can install the launcher on your AmigaOS partition and have the Linux partitions above the 4GB line without size limit.

All important data should be stored above the line, either. Because *if* something happens because of the 4GB limit, the area *below* the line will be hit, never the area above.

Bye,
Thomas

[Jose]

Hey :-)

Well, I used the format from BB2 without the quick option so it should be ok for BB2. But after the drive was partitioned (BB2) I had to reinstall 3.9 again and then BB1/BB2 since the partitioning obviously deleted previous partitions so maybe those steps messed it up, I can't think of anything else...
I'll try it again, maybe I messed up something...


[EDIT]

By the way, I only formated the big partitions on the 2nd BB2 install..

[Piru]

Frankly I don't see much point in doing regular format these days. It really doesn't serve any purpose, at least if the HDD is new.

If you suspect the HDD is faulty and want to diagnose it, grab the diagnosis program for the particular HDD (seagate, samsung, hitachi or whatever), and do a full diagnosis run using a x86 boxen. In fact, many many manufacturers have this step in their RMA procedure (I guess they want to avoid perfectly working HDDs being sent for RMA).

[Jose]

Got it! It was the block size as Thomas suggested. Raising from the 1024 default value to 4096 solved the problem:)

So there is a GB definition made for marketing purposes only ?  The {bleep}s :-x

BTW, why is it that format doesn't serve any purpose ?
Regarding the Debian/Mac partitions (I'll probably get the Mac one on a different HD as Framiga suggested, I've heard too many problems about it), is there a way to avoid showing them in Workbench as they'll be using a filesystem not accessible by AmigaOS and therefore not usable ?

[Daedalus]

Jose wrote:
is there a way to avoid showing them in Workbench as they'll be using a filesystem not accessible by AmigaOS and therefore not usable ?

To just hide the icons you can use the Workbench prefs programme in 3.9, there you can choose to hide certain devices from view. They will, however still show in device listings such as file requesters and the DOS info command. To avoid this, use HDToolbox (the appropriate version for large discs!) and uncheck the automount option for whatever partitions aren't AmigaDOS. The other OS will use its own mounting routines to recognise the partition.

[Jose]

Exactly what I wanted, thanks! Still too used to 3.1... 8-)

[Piru]

BTW, why is it that format doesn't serve any purpose ?

Formatting the partition is useless. Initializing the filesystem is not, and quickformat does just that.

Quickformat takes seconds, regular format - depending on the partition size and the controller speed - can take hours.