Amix: hard drive too big?

[jnordness]

I finally got around to installing AMIX on my 2000. I am doing the single hard drive install method on a 4.3GB hard drive. When the install script shows the available partitions, it is WAY off. I have a 200mb partition at the beginning of the drive where I put the install image on, and the A3.1 partition after that at about 167mb. The install script detects these as 1.6 and 1.3GB, respectively. The only other SCSI hard drives I have are 120 and 240mb, not enough to be useful to me. Is my hard drive too big for AMIX? Should I look for a smaller one? My SCSI controller is an A2091 by the way.

[jnordness]

Nevermind, I did the 2 HD install method using the 240mb drive. This time, it installed all of the files correctly, only to fail when it tried to install the bootloader. The 2mb boot partition is there and everything... Are there any AMIX guys out there that can help me out?  :-?

[Matt_H]

I partitioned for AMIX from AmigaOS - HDToolbox has a UNI/01 partition type. Name the partitions Unix_Boot:, Unix_Swap:, and Unix_Root:, respectively, and the AMIX installer should autodetect and take care of the rest.

[jnordness]

Does the order matter? It put the boot partition after root and swap. I tried re-installing it again and it gave me the same error. Here's all it gave me:

Patching kernel...
Installation of boot partition failed.
init: status 0x6300

It then restarted the install script. I'm so close. I wish I didn't have to wait 1.5 hours to install everything to know that it didn't work!

[jnordness]

I repartitioned the drive in the order you said, Matt, but I made the size of the boot partition 21mb to see if size was the problem. Nope, it is still giving me the same error as above. I am stumped.

[Tahoe]

Exactly what hardware are you running this on?

[jnordness]

I am running it on an A2000 with an A2620 board (7.0 roms), A2091 card, and an 8UP! ram board (8mb between the 3). The install drive is an IBM 4.3gb, and the media drive is a Quantum 240mb. It has 3.1 roms in it by the way. It is an older motherboard revision (4.5 I think). Not fancy, but it should be able to run it.

[Failure]

Hm.  I dug through some old threads and such, and I don't recall that anybody tried on a drive > 4GB.  I know I installed mine on what I think was a 4GB drive.  I'll try and find the thing (I just moved :-)) and verify the drive size in it.

If you've got spare time ;-) maybe try in reverse?  Install to the 240MB, let it partition automatically...you can always use the space on the bigger drive after the install!

One last thing, again can't verify but maybe someone else here can.  Aren't there some quirks with the A2091 vs A3000 SCSI re: AMIX?  I thought I recalled some discussion on that but I haven't been able to uncover the thread.  Maybe it was on Usenet.  More digging may be in order.

[Tahoe]

what ROMS does the A2091 have?
4.3 GB drives do not work properly with 6.6 or older. Also, check your SCSI revision (-08 prefered).

Try removing the 8up! board, I don't think this is confirmed working under Amix.

[nishtek]

I recommend that you get a 2nd hard disk - install the Amix image to it (aka "tape" drive).  That 240mb is plenty as the cpio file is <200mb.
Then using WB 3.1 Hard disk Tools partition your 4 GB hard disk as follows:
900MB amiga os partition, 1.1gb amiga os, 1gb amiga os, 1gb amiga os.  before exiting, purposely delete the 900MB amiga os partition.  this partition will host the Amix install.  Boot up with Amix Boot & then insert Amix_rootv2 disk.  The install script is picky about 1gb partitions hence why i recommended you make it 900mb. (also why ur partitions may be way off).
The script should create for you:
1 Unix Root   780 MB
2 Swap      100 MB
3 Boot      2 MB
4 Extra       whatever remains MB

This works on my Amiga 2000, 68030, 2091 SCSI controller.
The script did not work at all on my Amiga 3000 (but it didnt matter that much as i did the installation on A2000)... i dunno if anyone was able to get it to work on A3000....

[jnordness]

@Failure: I was just thinking about doing everything in reverse like you said; I'll try that over the next day or so. Also, FYI, AMIX acted funny with my drive at first. If ALL of the available partitions went over 1gb total, it would report funky sizes, ala my initial post. Keeping everything below 1gb let me get to the point of actually copying files.

@Tahoe: I have 7.0 roms for my A2091 also. I upgraded the roms for that and my A2620 when I got my 3.1 roms. But just because my A2091 doesn't have a problem with my drive doesn't mean AMIX won't. I can't remember if it tells me how much ram is available, but I'll try removing my 8UP! Thanks for the help guys. I'll keep you posted.

[nishtek]

Hey I had the same problem on Amiga 3000 installation.  Never got it to work.  Spend 10+ hours on that - I gave up on A3000, as I got it installed via my Amiga 2000.
If you get errors like:
SC_ADD failed
swap: Invalid Argument
SC_REMOVE failed
swap: Not enough space
rdb: partition start and length blocks must lie on cylinder boundary
Then you must re-partition.
if you don't then that script will still error out.

[nishtek]

You must create all partitiosn to fill up the drive.
eg 900, 1.3, 1.1, 1.0 gb...  once done all of them should be amiga os partitioned...  then delete the first partition 900 mb in my example - and boot using disk.  amix will look for available partition space findign the 900mb one and this way you isntal to that... this should solve the problem and the freaky partition errors you're getting.
btw my 2091 controller has 7.0 roms and the WD SCSI -08 chip (ordering some for another fellow email if interested in that SCSI rev 8 chip).

[jnordness]

I tried it your way nishtek, same error. Also, it appears that the script changed the partition types of some of the amiga partitions I made to unix type partitions, even though I formatted them all as amiga partitions. I'm trying Failures idea as we speak.

When the amix disks load, they show 8.5mb of fast ram... does this confirm that the 8UP! works under amix?

[jnordness]

Fun. I just found out that the 240mb hard drive has a couple of bad sectors. That MIGHT be why I am having problems. I've been trying to do it using the single hard drive method again, but it is still reporting funky partition sizes, even though the size of all of the partitions is less than 1gb. Are the bad sectors stored somewhere in the MBR so unix doesn't try to overwrite them?