Hard drive for 3.0 on 1200

[r0jaws]

Hi all,
I'm a total newb for this system but have a couple of questions so please forgive any unintentional faux pax.
I have a standard, unexpanded 1200 with workbench 3.0 that I have just bought a 4gb 2.5" hard drive for.
Can 3.0 support a disc this big or will I have to partition the drive into say 2x 2gb partitions?
Also what do I have to do to boot from this drive? ie can I just bung it in the case, connect it up, install 3.0 to it and go from there, or is there more to it?
Is there a specific partition structure for amigas?
ie 50mb for workbench, 20mb for swap partition and the rest for data?
I do intend to upgrade to 3.1 at a later date, but for now am limited to 3.0 I'm afraid. Does this present unassailable hurdles that only 3.1 can fix, or will 3.0 do for now?
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
 :-)

[amigagr]

3.0 is fine for the moment. if your hd is not 2.5 inch but 3.5, you need an adaptor 2.5 to 3.5 ide. after that put the install3.0 disk if you have it, run hdtoolbox, partition the hd in something like: 100mb for workbench (mark it as bootable) and the other space as you wish. personaly i use one partition for programs and games and one for data (pics,music etc.) if you have the workbench3.1 disks you can install 3.1 too with rom3.0. after partitioning reboot with the install disk in, format at least the boot partition, run the installer to install the os, and format the other partitions. remember to use back ups of your floppys not the originals, and always have them protected from erase.

[Piru]

I try to keep the number of partitions as small as possible. Every partition takes precious system memory (buffers). If you later on find out that you can't fit everything to your music:-partition, you need to backup all data, resize partitions, format, and restore data (or store your music to some other partition, which kind of beats the purpose of different partitions for different types of data anyway...).

I rather make as large partitions as possible and create directories for different type of data. Then the free capacity stays available for whatever data I want to use, and no free storage is "lost" storing some particular type of data. Moving data around is just renaming it.

So with single HDD I'd have two partitions, system and the other for everything else.

The only downside I can think of is that if you're using FFS, validating the partition can take a long time. Personally I use PFS3 for all partitions. Others have found SFS good, aswell.

With WB 3.0/3.1 you want to keep single partition size <=2GB, or some applications will get confused.

[Brian]

4GB 2.5" IDE disk is superb. OS3.0/3.1 both handle max 4GB HDD if not using special device driver and filesystem. And for partision, yes it's best not to go past 2GB as some apps will report size as negativ and refuce to do stuff correctly.

For partision strukture I'm pritty sure most will aggree with at least 2 partisions being "System" and "Work". To that usualy comes a "Games" partision. As said already, every extra partision will decrease the memory some as the partisions buffers use up memory.

OS3.0 takes up less than 5MB but then there's always a bunch of things that will have to be added to the clean install so I'd suggest something along 50MB for the System partision. No matter how much programs I install I've never managed to get past 300MB on my Work partision but that's because I always add a specific "Data" partision for all data files such as music, pictures etc. If you ain't planing on a 4th partision you should ask yourself what will you use the HDD for most... games or programs+datafiles and partision the HDD accordingly.

What to do:
1. Insert the HDD into it's drive cage in the computer.
2. Partision the HDD with HDToolbox on your install disk.
3. Install the OS using your install disk.
4. Go from there...

[r0jaws]

Hi guys,
thanks for the quick replies! I have just looked and realised I don't have an install disc for 3.0. Darn! I notice there is one for 3.1, am I missing a disc or do i have to buy the install disc seperately?

[meega]

Have you got, or can you obtain, HDToolbox. If so, then you don't need any install disk at all. You can install manually by dragging stuff about - or you can do it through the bestest DOS - once the drive has been part'ed and formatted..

[Brian]

Usually when the A1200 was sold without HDD there was no install disk and if it was sold with HDD there was a install disk.

I don't think you can use the 3.1 install disk with the rest of the 3.0 disks but there's no harm in trying. Drag and drop stuff isn't the easiest of things and you'll get a bunch of unnessesary files on the HDD by doing so.

A suggestion is to buy a set of OS3.1 disks aswell as the 3.1 ROM's from a retailer such as AmigaKit.co.uk.

[r0jaws]

Again, Thanks guys. It looks like a set of 3.1 roms & workbench then anyway. No problem, it was a planned upgrade anyway. Cheers for your help.  :-)

[meega]

Please don't be put off from installing 3.0. You have an install disk for 3.1, therefore you should have HDToolbox (or something like) and should be able to ensure that the drive is prepped properly. The base OS sits on 5 floppies of 880KB each, non-compressed and runnable as is, so installing some 'unnecessary' files is really not an issue. Drag and drop is easy and works fine as a method of installation.

Buying 3.1 ROMS/OS will not increase your RAM. The base A1200 is *only* 2 MegaBytes *total* RAM. This is not much. Virtual RAM in swap files is no match for real live RAM. (EDIT: I think it would be better to) Spend the money on an expansion card, which might also include a faster processor and could increase your pleasure no end...