Creating hardfile problem

Hi,

Just upgraded to 1.4.4 but am having a problem creating Hardfiles!

I enter a size and click create and get an error that says "Failed to create......"

Additionally, there is a label named 'Type:' that has nothing behind it to make a selection with for the file type. The dos type field constantly remains greyed out and never activates.

Is it me or is there a problem?

Malakie

[Toni Wilen]

Enough free disk space? Did you notice size is in megabytes, not bytes (or was it kilobytes?) like it was long time ago..

(type select box is missing since 1.4.1 and nobody has noticed it until now... anyway, not the reason for error)

Hi,

Yeppers.. I have over a terabyte available. Additionally, I have tried on more than one machine, different HD's, different partitions and in both WinXP and WinVista as well.

I did not know the button was missing from that option.. I had not updated in a while so I noticed it gone right away when I upgraded.

Ideas on the hardfile issue?

Malakie

[Ed Cruse]

Originally Posted by Malakie

Hi,

Yeppers.. I have over a terabyte available. Additionally, I have tried on more than one machine, different HD's, different partitions and in both WinXP and WinVista as well.

I did not know the button was missing from that option.. I had not updated in a while so I noticed it gone right away when I upgraded.

Ideas on the hardfile issue?

Malakie

I specified size in kiobytes once. I wanted 100meg harddrive, I specified 100,000. I didn't have 100,000meg harddrive. That was only time I've ever gotten that error.

[glue]

no - u are wrong

use only 100 (mb) and WINUAE create 100MB on your pc harddrive

100 000 mb = 100gb !!

[Thorham]

If you are using ntfs and NOT fat, then can I suggest you don't use hardfiles at all, but use folders as amiga partitions? I've tried hard files, and I really didn't like them at all, as they are slower then ntfs and you can't access their contents from windows. Also folders really have no disadvantages in my opinion. Another thing you could do (again, only if you use ntfs) is use an amiga formated harddisk! The back draw of this is, again, that you can't access it from within windows (but it sure is handy for copying your amiga system to pc).

[BippyM]

Originally Posted by Thorham

Also folders really have no disadvantages in my opinion.

Amiga allows use of characters in filenames pc's can't read, in that instance a hardfile is better!

It'd be useful if a hardfile could be treated like a real drive.. maybe petition so daemon tools supports them

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by bippym

Amiga allows use of characters in filenames pc's can't read, in that instance a hardfile is better!

I guess you have never tried "illegal" characters in directory harddrives.. They do work very well as long as the drive is NTFS formatted.

[BippyM]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

I guess you have never tried "illegal" characters in directory harddrives.. They do work very well as long as the drive is NTFS formatted.

You guess right. I stand corrected

[Thorham]

Further more, if you try folders with fat32, the amount of files you can store in the drives are small. I tried copying my miggy drive to fat32... As it contained well over 10000 files and folders, this got screwed up pretty badly. Only use ntfs for folder drives.

[Ed Cruse]

Originally Posted by glue

no - u are wrong

use only 100 (mb) and WINUAE create 100MB on your pc harddrive

100 000 mb = 100gb !!

That's what I was trying to say, I messed up and specified size in Kbytes and got the error message. My drive wasn't big enough to handle a 100G hardfile.

[Ed Cruse]

Originally Posted by Thorham

If you are using ntfs and NOT fat, then can I suggest you don't use hardfiles at all, but use folders as amiga partitions? I've tried hard files, and I really didn't like them at all, as they are slower then ntfs and you can't access their contents from windows. Also folders really have no disadvantages in my opinion. Another thing you could do (again, only if you use ntfs) is use an amiga formated harddisk! The back draw of this is, again, that you can't access it from within windows (but it sure is handy for copying your amiga system to pc).

Your correct about not being able to access hardfiles from the PC, I use a directory drive as a common between the PC and the Amiga, which is not great but it works. As far as speed goes, I'm using an NTFS harddrive and my hardfiles are a lot faster then a directory drive. Now I use the RDB method for my hardfiles, which I discovered yesterday to be much faster then the regular hardfiles. Maybe that's why your hardfiles are slow, it's difficult to say. I can copy my 50meg Work: partition to another hardfile in 2.5 to 5 seconds, it varies. From work: to the common directory drive takes 13 seconds. Both the hardfiles and the directory drive are on the same harddrive partition. From Work: to a regular hardfile takes, well I gave up after 75 seconds. I'm not totally convinced I'm setting up the regular hardfile properly, that seems to slow.

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by Ed Cruse

As far as speed goes, I'm using an NTFS harddrive and my hardfiles are a lot faster then a directory drive.

I have never managed to see any major speed differences.. Usually it is problem with Windows-side, like too high priority setting or some other weird utility (like crappy virus checker) slowing down everything.

Also regular harddrives only have 50 buffers by default (it is not configurable, at least not yet). Addbuffers may help.

[Ed Cruse]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

I have never managed to see any major speed differences.. Usually it is problem with Windows-side, like too high priority setting or some other weird utility (like crappy virus checker) slowing down everything.

Also regular harddrives only have 50 buffers by default (it is not configurable, at least not yet). Addbuffers may help.

Are you using the quiet option with copy when making comparisions? If you don't it really slows down the copying of a large number of files, even with Picasso. The differences would be greatly reduced. I used to use only regular hardfiles and it seemed like they were the same speed as RDB hardfiles, but I recently tried several times and the difference is considerable. I'll play with the priority, it probably won't make any difference because I have a dual core cpu, in the past it hasn't.

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by Ed Cruse

Your correct about not being able to access hardfiles from the PC, I use a directory drive as a common between the PC and the Amiga, which is not great but it works. As far as speed goes, I'm using an NTFS harddrive and my hardfiles are a lot faster then a directory drive. Now I use the RDB method for my hardfiles, which I discovered yesterday to be much faster then the regular hardfiles. Maybe that's why your hardfiles are slow, it's difficult to say. I can copy my 50meg Work: partition to another hardfile in 2.5 to 5 seconds, it varies. From work: to the common directory drive takes 13 seconds. Both the hardfiles and the directory drive are on the same harddrive partition. From Work: to a regular hardfile takes, well I gave up after 75 seconds. I'm not totally convinced I'm setting up the regular hardfile properly, that seems to slow.

Really? I must admit I've never spotted the RDB method... Might have something to do with the fact I'm using WinUae0.9.something Also, in this version the hardfiles might just be slower then in the latest version. Gonna have to check it out.

[Ed Cruse]

Originally Posted by Thorham

Really? I must admit I've never spotted the RDB method... Might have something to do with the fact I'm using WinUae0.9.something Also, in this version the hardfiles might just be slower then in the latest version. Gonna have to check it out.

You really should try the latest version, there's been a lot of changes. Toni has done a lot since 0.9, WinUAE is so close to being like a real Amiga that I forget I'm actually on a PC.