A1200 HD upgraded advice sought

[Hewitson]

So can a hard drive. But why you'd want to set up your Workbench on the PC rather than the Amiga is beyond me.

[DH]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

So can a hard drive. But why you'd want to set up your Workbench on the PC rather than the Amiga is beyond me.

Probably cause you can do it much quicker using WinUAE straight to the CF then plug it in 'n' you're up and running

[illy5603]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

So can a hard drive. But why you'd want to set up your Workbench on the PC rather than the Amiga is beyond me.

Think about how much easier it is to access aminet and this forum from a PC than it is a bone stock A1200. You don't have to worry about transferring files between an Amiga and a PC this way because the CF card shows up on both the PC OS and the Amiga emulated OS. If all you want to do is install workbench and play games, working from diskette is fine, if you want to get things like classic workbench or any of the other workbench packs running, CF card is the best way to go. Hard disks work as others have said but it can be difficult to install an additional amiga hard disk in a PC laptop. Yet another reason to go with the CF card.

Well after a hectic week, hence the lack of postings, I finally have some time to sort my miggy out.
Thanks for all your opinions.

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

I've not had any trouble with my 1200's supply with a CF, Indivision, IdeExpress and Blizz 030.

If your stock 1200 supply can cope with all that, I reckon I'll be just fine for some time yet.

Originally Posted by Cammy

Your problem with the drive showing up as only 30mb is a bit odd, though. Is it an old drive? It's possible it's just been ruined by someone in the past.

Well I decided to just accept whatever the machine thought it was and have moved on to set up some partitions. Glad I did because it is letting me set up 4,124Meg's worth of partitions so I guess the drive is fine.

Is this the within the 4Gb limit I've read about?...or do I need to still leave some of it unused?

Originally Posted by Cammy

I'd highly recommend forgetting about using a hard drive at all. They're noisy, slow, generate heat and draw a lot of power. A Compact Flash card, on the other hand, doesn't! You can get a IDE CF adapter for a buck on eBay, pick yourself up a 4GB CF card from your local shop, and use that instead of a hard drive. It will boot up Workbench and your games in half the time a hard drive takes, and it's completely silent and low-power.

Thanks for the advice. I’m loving the idea of a silent A1200 and, with faster loading times, lower power consumption and more space left inside for other things , you’ve totally got me sold. I have already ordered this CF>IDE adapter, but will still try to get the HD working, firstly for a bit of practice but also because the adapter will take a little while to ship from HK.

Originally Posted by Deleauvive

I am sure the advice on using CF cards instead of HDDs is valuable, however the fact that OUR Amiga Princess has a boyfriend is a bit disappointing .

At least, if you get a new boyfriend, I am sure many EAB members would appreciate if you keep the secret next time you grant us a glimpse at your intimate life.

Sorry everyone.

Originally Posted by cosmicfrog

I agree always called my sys: workbench and hated calling the other work, its just that`s how its seemed to have evovled and i was going for easy names, would`t have more than 2 partions though, for a couple of reasons 1, they use memory and 2 directorys are just as good as there is no repartitioning on the fly as it where well non that I`m a ware off

I was thinking of creating three partitions:
Workbench (204Mb) – HDToolbox jumps up by 7Mb at a time)
Work (1,895Mb)
Play (1,896Mb)

How much memory do additional partitions use? Will it slow the machine noticeably, bearing in mind it is currently a stock A1200?
Any other comments/advice on my 3-partition plans?

Originally Posted by Boo Boo

Another good thing about using CF is if youve got a CF adater for your PC it can be set up under WinUae ready for your Amiga.

Potentially very stupid question now…what’s WinUAE?

Thanks again to all of you for all your wise words.


M.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by ScoobyM

Potentially very stupid question now…what’s WinUAE?

WinUAE is the most advanced Amiga emulator available for Windows

See http://www.winuae.net/ for more information and download links. The author, Toni Wilen is an extremely active member on EAB

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by ScoobyM

Well after a hectic week, hence the lack of postings, I finally have some time to sort my miggy out.
Thanks for all your opinions.


Is this the within the 4Gb limit I've read about?...or do I need to still leave some of it unused?

That depends on what version of the default FFS you are using.

Originally Posted by ScoobyM

Thanks for the advice. I’m loving the idea of a silent A1200 and, with faster loading times, lower power consumption and more space left inside for other things , you’ve totally got me sold. I have already ordered this CF>IDE adapter, but will still try to get the HD working, firstly for a bit of practice but also because the adapter will take a little while to ship from HK.

Cool. If your HD light doesn't work with this adapter I can recommend one that will.

Originally Posted by ScoobyM

I was thinking of creating three partitions:
Workbench (204Mb) – HDToolbox jumps up by 7Mb at a time)
Work (1,895Mb)
Play (1,896Mb)

How much memory do additional partitions use? Will it slow the machine noticeably, bearing in mind it is currently a stock A1200?
Any other comments/advice on my 3-partition plans?

M.

Those partions should be fine.

If you're worried about memory usage I suggest you swap from the standard FFS to SFS, you can read all about it here

Hi again everyone.

Just a quick update. I've managed to sort out the 2.5" 4Gb HD and split it into the three partitions I wanted - Workbench (211Mb - bootable), Work (1896Mb) and Play (1895Mb) - and installed WB3.1 onto the Workbench partition.

I just wanted to say a big thank you to you all for helping me out.

M.