GVP Expert Prep - Write This Setup?

[KatManDEW]

If I add partitions to an unused section of a hard drive with GVP Expert Prep, and then select "Write This Setup", will it destroy existing partitions?

Also - My two current partions show up as "NOMOUNT". Should I change DH0 to "BOOT" and DH1 to "MOUNT", and will doing that destroy those partitions?

[KatManDEW]

For the record - Adding a partition with GVP Expert Prep, blew away my existing partitions.

[jj]

As a general rule re-sizing or adding partitions will destroy the data on the drive and you usually get warned of this.

only specialist progs like partition magic on windows can get around this.  

Not sure if there is anything similar on the miggy.

[KatManDEW]

Only reason I was doing this was to try to get the Miggy to see more than 4 gig on the 50 gig drive, which is looking like it might be next to impossible.

I've used Partition Magic on the PC.

[Matt_H]

I was under the impression that you could add new partitions to unallocated space.

gvpscsi.device, however, I don't believe is 64-bit-compliant, so adding anything above the 4GB barrier will trash the beginning of the drive.

[nishtek]

@Matt_H

agreed.
Adding a new partition to unallocated space on a 2GB SCSI hard disk did nothing to existing partitions.
tested on: GVP Tekmagic 060.

[KatManDEW]

I added a partition past the 4 gig barrier, and it blew away all my partitions.

[Damion]

KatManDEW wrote:
I added a partition past the 4 gig barrier, and it blew away all my partitions.

Yeah, you'll need to patch the OS in order to use the rest of your drive, or it will wrap with bad consequences. Under normal circumstances, adding new partitions won't affect the earlier (unchanged) paritions. You might be able to find a Guru-ROM depending on the GVP controller you're using, direct-scsi version of PFS3 might be another option.

[KatManDEW]

-D- wrote:

KatManDEW wrote:
I added a partition past the 4 gig barrier, and it blew away all my partitions.

Yeah, you'll need to patch the OS in order to use the rest of your drive, or it will wrap with bad consequences. Under normal circumstances, adding new partitions won't affect the earlier (unchanged) paritions. You might be able to find a Guru-ROM depending on the GVP controller you're using, direct-scsi version of PFS3 might be another option.

How do I patch the OS? What's PFS3?

Thanks.

BTW: Cool avitar...

[Damion]

PFS3 is a filesystem you install instead of FFS. It was commercial, but you might be able to score an unused copy here or Amibay. OS3.9 patches the scsi.device, and there's a TD64 patch on Aminet for FFS, but I have no experience with that - I've always used PFS3 (direct-scsi version) with large drives.

 

[Bamiga2002]

You could try prepping the drive with HDInstTool instead.

[KatManDEW]

TD64 has installation instructions for a current file system of 40.1 or 40.4, but HDToolBox says mine is 45.1...?

There are no instructions with HDInstTool. When I run it, it says "Icon not found" and then it can't find any of my devices. If I run it with a command line argument of "gvpscsi" it finds my hard drive and CD-ROM, but all the HDInstTool buttons are ghosted (unusable).

[Matt_H]

There are two components to 64-bit compatibility - the filesystem and the device driver. FFS v45 is already 64-bit friendly, but I don't believe gvpscsi.device is. I'm not sure there are any patches to bring it up to spec.

[Damion]

Matt_H wrote:
There are two components to 64-bit compatibility - the filesystem and the device driver. FFS v45 is already 64-bit friendly, but I don't believe gvpscsi.device is. I'm not sure there are any patches to bring it up to spec.

DOH! Matt_H is right, I spaced the fact we're discussing gvpscsi.device, and not the default scsi.device. (IIRC, there may be an NSD patch for gvpscsi.device, installed by 3.9 setpatch, but I have no clue if that would help you.)

PFS3 direct-scsi is probably your best bet.

[KatManDEW]

Sure seems like the gvpscsi.device is the culprit. I've destroyed the HD and reinstalled OS 3.9 about 7 or 8 times this week :boohoo:

I don't think I want to shell out $60 for PFS3.