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AmigaOS 3.1.4 and large HD support

Posted: Wed Jun 12, 2019 8:03 am
by TenLeftFingers
I have a 16GB SD card for a hard disk, but only use 4GB of it so Workbench won't run into problems. After installing 3.1.4 (ROMs + OS update from 3.1), the extra unpartitioned space is still unrecognized. Is the only option to do a clean install? That would be pretty inconvenient.

Re: AmigaOS 3.1.4 and large HD support

Posted: Wed Jun 12, 2019 8:30 am
by EzdineG
Does HDToolbox show the additional unpartitioned space? If not, you may have to "change drive type" and most likely lose that data. You can use the FS-Uae or WINuae emulators to mount that CF drive , copy contents elsewhere and copy them back once your partitioning is in order.

What IDE controller are you using? If it is not driven by Amiga OS's scsi.device, 3.1.4 does not guarantee the capability of large HD support.

Re: AmigaOS 3.1.4 and large HD support

Posted: Wed Jun 12, 2019 10:14 am
by McTrinsic
What do you mean by “unrecognised” - by which program?

Re: AmigaOS 3.1.4 and large HD support

Posted: Wed Jun 12, 2019 1:24 pm
by TenLeftFingers
EzdineG wrote:Does HDToolbox show the additional unpartitioned space? If not, you may have to "change drive type" and most likely lose that data. You can use the FS-Uae or WINuae emulators to mount that CF drive , copy contents elsewhere and copy them back once your partitioning is in order.
Thanks EzdineG. It doesn't. It acts as if the existing FFS partitions are the entirety of the disk. I tried reading an Amiga disk on FS-UAE (linux & MacOS) before without luck but it might have been just the way I was doing it.
What IDE controller are you using? If it is not driven by Amiga OS's scsi.device, 3.1.4 does not guarantee the capability of large HD support.
I can't run HTDoolbox now to answer that question (I'm running a backup script to get everything off the disk), but between the physical roms and the 3.1.4 upgrade, I would be confident it's the Amiga OS 3.1.4's device driver.

Re: AmigaOS 3.1.4 and large HD support

Posted: Wed Jun 12, 2019 1:25 pm
by TenLeftFingers
McTrinsic wrote:What do you mean by “unrecognised” - by which program?
By this I mean that HDToolbox presents the disk as if it were only my FFS partitions. The unpartitioned 12GB on the remainder of the SD card is not available to format/delete/etc.

Re: AmigaOS 3.1.4 and large HD support

Posted: Wed Jun 12, 2019 5:52 pm
by obitus1990
Good luck, I hope you get it sorted out. If you have to lose data by repartitioning, I’d opt to use PFS instead of FFS (even this enhanced version) for large HDs.

The Mac FsUAE that I had tried wasn’t that good, and couldn’t read native Amiga disks. winUAE has no problem with it at all, though.

Re: AmigaOS 3.1.4 and large HD support

Posted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 4:20 am
by TenLeftFingers
Thanks obitus1990 (and everyone else who has commented). I'm running LHA now to copy everything off into archives to restore later. Looks like it'll take a while :)

I'm going to stick with FFS. I've read a lot of posts on forums and subjective experiences seem to vary wildly. Since FFS is a standard already (well documented etc) I think it will give me the simplicity I'm looking for by sticking with it. To mitigate the risk of corruption I've switch to using an SD card slot[1] for this installation. It means that without even needing to remove the keyboard (just the top cover) I can quickly transfer it to a laptop and image it onto my laptop.


1: https://retroready.one/products/brand-n ... a600-a1200

Re: AmigaOS 3.1.4 and large HD support

Posted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 9:44 am
by McTrinsic
Did you update the ffs in the RDB of the harddrive?

If not it might still be the old one.

So backup your data (always a good idea) and then update the file system. It might be that simple.

Re: AmigaOS 3.1.4 and large HD support

Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 8:06 am
by TenLeftFingers
McTrinsic wrote:Did you update the ffs in the RDB of the harddrive?

If not it might still be the old one.

So backup your data (always a good idea) and then update the file system. It might be that simple.
There is an application called HDSetup to be run before running HDToolBox. This way, I was able to get the entire new drive recognised. I had this done before I saw your comment! I wouldn't know how to update the RDB of the harddrive, but it's an experiment I'd like to try.

Re: AmigaOS 3.1.4 and large HD support

Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 8:52 am
by McTrinsic
Hi,

I guess i could write about it, while others have already done so.

A nice guide to start with is on devtty.io (straight-linking to the site's articles breaks for some reason).

With some extended information about setting up an alternative filesystem in the following link. This could be PFS3 kike in this example or you could exchange the FFS filesystem for a newer one:
CF / SD Large Drive FAQ
Partitioning 16 GB Compact Flash card with WinUAE and PFS3

Have fun,
McT