Installing a 20gB drive in a A1200'a ?

[Mr B]

There just has to be more people then me trying to do this...

Run a 20Gb HD under Workbench 3.1 on a A1200

I have considerd using the ide hack, and run multiple drives, but then i just happend on this drive, and then thats not really needed. However i know there is a few limitations to what the Amiga enjoys using. I got the tip / advice to use FFS and hdToolBox, there is supposed to be a patch for the FFS, what it does, i have yet to find out, and all the info i found googling pointed in the direction of OS 3.5 or later, and i'm really wanting to stick to my WB 3.1 Currently im using a 2 Gb drive in the Amiga, and i have though of keeping it as a systemdrive, and somehow configure the 20Gb as a secondary drive, and go from there. I'd rather remove the 2Gb drive completly, but...

Oh, and yeah, i searched, and snooped about on the forum, but cant find anything that made me any wiser then i was when i started poking around, and going by trial and error seams scary.

Advices would be apreciated.
B!

[woody57]

The simple answer is to install smart file system & its handler in L this allows you to split your 20gig drive into smaller partitions eg 4 gig each , format them with sfs and then be able to use the whole HD

[thomas]

Originally Posted by woody57

The simple answer is to install smart file system & its handler in L this allows you to split your 20gig drive into smaller partitions eg 4 gig each , format them with sfs and then be able to use the whole HD

No. This is simply not true. SFS with Kickstart 3.1 does not allow to use a single byte more than the first 4GB of the drive. Even with NSDPatch you cannot access more than the first 8GB of the drive. You *need* a replacement scsi.device in addition to a new file system.


Replacements for scsi.device are contained in AmigaOS 3.5/3.9, IDEfix97 software or the files on this page: http://home.arcor.de/micky.d/IDE.html

Replacement file systems are FFS V43+, SFS or PFS3. The latter only works with IDEfix97.

[thomas]

One addition: there is no problem *connecting* the 20GB drive to the A1200, even without all the software patches mentioned above. Just don't create partitions beyond the first 4GB of the drive.

[woody57]

Of course your your right Thomas

I had forgotten I had added an external CD drive via IDEfix 97 long before I looked at adding larger HD's than the useal 1.2 ,2.3gig etc so consequently I completely missed out its necessary addition

Thanks for providing an accurate correction & links to aide this user & future enquires in regard to this issue

[Mr B]

Seams like keeping the present system drive, and either do the hardware hack for the ide's at once, or run master / slave and just keeping it in mind for later, is a good idea.

Since im swedish, and not german, the text info on the linky, isent that clear to me, but from what i understand it is again mainly refering to Amiga OS 3.5/3.9 ... will it still work on WB 3.1, which i assume is Amiga OS 3.1 ? exacly what is the differance on 3.1 and 3.5? since i have no cpu accelerator, or memory addons i feel kinda limited. Im mainly intressted in using the Amiga for my own amusement, as a nostalgia thing, so i have no intension to spend a whole lot getting upgrades and so on.

On the topic of file systems for the final result. What are the ups and downs of each, and what are the limitations... and more important perhaps, what tools do i need to obtain in order to set it up ?

Im able to do most the hardware configurations from WinUAE, with the system drive hooked up, i should then be able to dump the system drive to a image, and configure the 20Gb drive to run with it, end reconnect the system drive, and simply update the drive, with the new image data. This, since it might be hard to get the bits and ends transfered to the amiga in any other way, and i only have 1 interface to hook up 2.5" drives in my computer.

Im probobly asking some obviues and rather easy to answer questions, but seeing it from my end, i never had a hard drive to start with back in the day, just recently got my hands on a 2Gb, and allready that was alot of trouble to configure, now this? This is a whole lot more. Thanks for all your time and effort.

B!

BTW, i think i remeber the avatar, and the nick "thomas" from one of the guys that i was asking silly questions a year or two ago, when i got the other drive. Atleast that time he did good, if it was him, and got me on the right track.

[Charlie]

thomas will probably give you a more accurate account, but for now...

SCSI_IDE43_23.lha will get you access to a the full 20gig ( in <4gb partitions via HDToolbox )

The lha does contain English instructions on how to use it - if that is any better help.
The new scsi.device needs to be in your Amiga's memory before you can access the whole 20gig drive safely, so you need to keep using the smaller drive for your sys: partition as a source of this scsi.device at boot time.

It should work fine with OS 3.1 along with one of the FS's below.

IDEFix97 for example would get you round this but at a (small) price.

File systems:
OFS - don't use it. - just my opinion.

FFS - Amiga's rather poor FS. Everybody's main complaint with it ( apart from it being v. slow ) is that if HDD access is interrupted you can't use that partition until it's been re-validated with a tool such as:
http://main.aminet.net/util/boot/TurboVal.lha
A regular frustration.
Also even with the above scsi.device you'll need to patch 3.1's FFS to get full/safe access to your new HDD.
http://main.aminet.net/disk/misc/ffstd64.lha
I've heard rumors that it's a bit buggy.

PFS3 - In my opinion the best FS for the Amiga. Reliable, fast etc: but commercial software & no-longer developed ???

SFS - Safe, very fast, comes with good tools, still under development, free. It does have some technical short-falls but in practice you are unlikley to notice them.
http://main.aminet.net/disk/misc/SFS.lha

NB.
You MUST have the updated scsi.device AND a filesystem that can cope with your big drive installed together if you want to use the whole 20gig without loosing all your data......
Don't forget to keep you partitions under 4gig, and don't forget to use HDToolbox to add you chosen FS to the drives RDB and manually select that FS for each and every partition or you'll default to FFS with the above problems.

Not all of the above is strictly true, but for simplicity's sake.....

Sorry I'm incapable of writing short posts.

'Hope this helps.

[Gavilan]

Let me see if i understood everything, since i have here a 40GB hadd which i dont use anymore on the PC...

Basically, i have to do this?
1) Format HDD using HDtoolbox (FFS)
2) Install, say, 3.1 OS
3) Once installation is finished, update FFS for SFS (the one of my choice)
4) AFTER installing SFS on main partition, do the same on other partitions (im planning on doing at least 4 or 5 partitions, one for DEMOs, one for GAMEs, one for APPLICATIONS etc)
5) After installing SFS on all partitiosn, install OS 3.9

Is that right? Or should i do some process in other order??

Thanks in advance

[Mr B]

Hhum, if I figure this right? i need to grab the scsi.device thingy, from the german site, some where insert the line "LoadV43Module >NIL:a300.ld.strip"
(Aparently a updated LoadModule no longer requiers the reboot flag to be set, but reboots unless you DONT set the flag "noreboot")

Now i just have to figure out what my S:Startup-Sequence is, and where to find it, so i know where to add this. Might help if i actually get of my behind and go down and dig out the Amiga to start with.

On with this then. After adding this device handler, i should be able to access the entier disc, next step is to make it usable, in enters the file system, and how to get it in use.

Aparently, with SFS, which i selected as "preferable" based on the info provided earlyer in this thread, it should be possible to make 1 partition of the entier drive, altho that would be making it unusable for booting purposes, with the scsi.device/LoadModule aproach (how is this resolved then?) One idea is to make the system partitions within the first 2Gb, and slapp in the rest of the drive when the system is up and running, properly configured. That has the advantage of letting me use only one drive. However, i seam to be lacking instrucktions on how to fuse this neat filesystem with the OS ?
Im guessing this "to add you chosen FS to the drives RDB and manually select that FS for each and every partition or you'll default to FFS with the above problems." is a good instrucktion, for someone that knows even remotly what your talking about Charlie :- )

I however have no clue. Im good enough with PC's but thats why the amiga is intresting... its "all new again", great challenge.
(for those intrested im not even owning a tv, no scandoubler, or amiga monitor, yet i plan to use the amiga ;- )

Since im not all that intrested in running a later OS then 3.1, then i should be done by now?

I guess thats all the questions and thoughs i had as of now, i'll be back when i have more, or when you guys told me im right / wrong.
Big thanks for your time.
B!

[Charlie]

OK.
Sorry if I was assuming too much. I would strongly reccomend you NOT using a large drive with 3.1 unless you are sure you have set things up correctly. Your best bet is to hand your Amiga to someone who has done this before and get them to do it for you. Not getting it right will loose you ALL your data with little or no chance of recovery.
Warnings aside....this may be a looooonnnng post.
Some bits from memory ( no Amiga in front of me ) so BE CAREFUL.

More experienced members may have a better plan.

The fundamentals:
- OS3.1 needs the new scsi.device to be able to 'see' the whole of your larger drive.
- You then need a FS that can reliably read/write such a drive. OFS and unpatched-FFS will not understand the extra capacity so will mess up your data.

It follows that you could have a small boot partition on a large drive without problems using the built-in scsi.device because the computer will be unaware of the rest of the drive. Using this partition to load the new scsi.device to then reveal the rest of the drive and its previously hidden partitions will work - in theory. In practice this is very dodgy - you will be very lucky to get away with it.

You will need:
1) Amiga+your 20gig drive. IDE 0:1
2) Your old 2gig boot drive. IDE 0:0 ( unless you have something like IdeFIx 97 )
3) http://home.arcor.de/micky.d/bin/SCSI_IDE_43_23.lha ( not if IdeFix 97 )
4) http://main.aminet.net/disk/misc/SFS.lha
5) A text editor - one of the ones with OS 3.1 will do.
6) A working OS 3.1 install on you 2gig drive attached to IDE 0:0
( This could be done from a modified 3.1 boot floppy but it will complicate things )
7) Some knowledge of the AmigaOS structure.
How you get the files on you Amiga I leave to you...

Here we go...
Working Amiga booting 3.1 off your 2gig drive ( or if you insist a boot-floppy )
Add the 20gig drive to your other IDE port 0:1
In you boot partition you need to know about five directrories:
Tools: Where HDToolBox lives
DosDrivers: Where I'd suggest you put the new scsi.device
C: L: S: Where your system files live. You can't see these directories by default.
Reveal these directories by opening your sys: partition by right-clicking on the Workbench toolbar - navigate to Window->Show->All files.

I suggest putting the new scsi.device in DosDrivers:
Put the associated files from its .lha in C:
Put the filesystem file from SFS.lha in L: The rest of the files in this archive are various tools and readme's - not needed for now.
You now have an scsi.device that can see the whole of your drive and a filesystem ( SFS ) that can reliably access it on your boot partition.

Now to get it to work.
S: is where the Startup-Sequence file lives. Its purpose is to tell the Amiga what files to load on startup. This is file that is referred to in the instructions from the SCSI_IDE_43_23.lha. Load it into a text-editor and make the suggested changes. You may not have placed the files in the places assumed by those instructions, so make suitable alterations.
Save the new version of the file and cold-reboot. If no errors, you've got this bit right, your computer is now able to see all of your new drive.

Now run HDToolBox. You'll have a short list of devices. Select scsi.device, and on the next screen the SECOND hdd. ( 0:1, NOT 0:0 you don't want to play with your boot drive at this stage )
At this point my memory gets a bit hazy so BE CAREFUL.
HDToolBox will probaly ask if you want to install/initialise the drive - say yes.
You should then have a window saying you have a 20gig drive with a suggested set of partitions below it. Good - your new scsi.device is working.
If errors or it says your drive is about 4gig, you are still using the built-in scsi.device - fix whatever you did wrong then get back to this point.
DO NOT COMMIT THESE SUGGESTED PARTITIONS TO YOU HARDDRIVE. ( save )

Bottom right corner of the window ( I think ) should be a selectable dialoge to open a new window for installing new file-systems to your RDB. ( Amiga version of MFT ). Use this to navigate to your L: directory and the SFS file system. Add this to the list -remembering what number it has been allocated- then write this FS to your RDB. ( save ) You may well need to reboot at this point.

SFS is now on your new HDD ready to be used. I would suggest adding it to your boot drive too for future use.
Fire up HDToolBox again, and navigate to the page of suggested partitions for your 20gig drive. If you like them as they are - fine. If not make your changes but DO NOT commit them to the drive until the next bit.
In this window look for a dialoge that gives you a list of FileSystems installed. Select SFS for each partition in turn - be careful not to miss one and double-check! You will probably only see the number allocated to SFS not its name so I hope you rememberd from before.

Finally - commit this lot to your HDD ( save ) followed by a reboot. Workbench should now show some extra disc icons each called NotDos - or something like that. Select each in turn, go to the workbench toolbar, select Quick Format. Another dialoge will appear giving you the chance to name your new partition(s) and if you want a trashcan.
All being well they will now all be accessable - ready for use.
Reboot again to make sure no further errors show up - check everything again if so.
Then go back to the tools from the SFS.lha to confirm you realy do have working SFS partitions and nothing else. ( FFS if accidentally used on your 20gig drive will seem to work right up to the point you loose all your data )

PHEW. So far so good.....

At this point if youre feeling clever copy the contents your Boot/Sys: partition to a spare one ON YOUR SMALL BOOT DRIVE. Then run HDToolBox again, make the partition you copied to bootable, and change the origional boot partition to SFS. Quick format it so it is now an empty SFS partition.
( There may be a few reboots in here )
Now copy your system files back to the new SFS partiton. Start HDToolBox again, make sure this partition is bootable and do what you will with the temporary boot partition you made. ( It is good practice to keep a backup SYS: partition on you boot drive in case of problems as AmigaOS will automatically select the functioning backup in case of trouble - most of the time!)

This is why I suggested putting SFS in the RDB of your boot drive too.

Why do this?
You need SFS on your big drive to reliably access it, but SFS has great advantages over FFS on your small drive too. Faster, and you won't get the regular annoyance of your FFS boot drive needing validating.
No functioning boot partition means no working access to your large drive. ( no new scsi.device loaded ) Keep an OS3.1 boot floppy to hand with the relevant repair tools on it.

NB
Never try to access your large drive without using the new scsi.device - it may seem to work, but you will loose data
Never use a FS with any partition on your large drive that can't cope. It will bugger-up ALL your partitions in ways that you won't notice untill its too late.
OFS - V.BAD
FFS - BAD
PatchedFFS - OKish
SFS - GOOD
PFS3 - V.GOOD

FAT32 & ext2FS can also be used if youre feeling brave/clever/smug.

I hope the above helps - even if only to put you off trying this without help at hand.
There are some deliberate half-truths/lies included above for simplicty's sake.

If my memory has let me down please feel free to ammend this post.

Ummm... At this rate I'll never learn to write short posts!

[Mr B]

No need for short posts, this was very informative... im going to go on a work trip for aprox 3 weeks, when i get back, i got a bit of free time, by then i'll see if i cant get this set up. Im going to cheat a bit. Im going to hook the present drive up in WinUAE, and add a virtual drive, and backup all my data to the PC's harddrive, to start with. Since i have both winUAE, and a 2.5" harddrive conversion thingy for the pc, im going to try and see if i can "practise" in there first.Atleast in theory that sounds good.

Huge thanks for the in dept guidiance. This is a case where it helps to be treated like a child, and less knowing. Offcourse, if anyone has a different opinion on how to do it, they are most welcome, but i have both saved your post to harddrive, and bookmarked the thread, so atleast im not going to lose track of this.
B!

[BarrySWE]

My OS3.9 System partition is 200MB , and the other partition is 9.5GB both using Smartfilesystem.
I havent notice any problems at all with it..
I'm using OS3.9BB2 and Idefix97 software.
I don't need to worry then?

I'm using v.1.247 (16.7.2005) of the smartfilesystem..

Recent changes in SmartFileSystem:
1.248 (17.7.2005)
- Fixed a bug in the OS4 update3 check which enables the workarounds
for the Workbench, ContextMenus, etc. bugs.
1.247 (16.7.2005)
- Allows writing to existing too large partitions again, but not
formatting new ones. As increasing the limits would require changeing
the data structures and make such a version incompatible to current
and old versions of SFS I wont change them.
You may get a "Disk Full" error now on too large partitions, instead
of trashing the partition like SFS versions <= 1.244 did, even if
there are still hundreds of GB free space on the partition.
- ACTION_FILESYSTEM_ATTR times are in milli seconds now.
1.246 (13.7.2005)
- Special version for AmigaOS4 update3 users (2 old workarounds, for bugs
in the workbench which were fixed in the meantime and broken tools like
ContextMenus, enabled again).
1.245 (12.7.2005)
- SFS now refuses to format too large partitions and existing too large
partitions are mounted read-only. The current partition size limits
of SFS are:
64 GB with 512 bytes/block
128 GB with 1024 bytes/block
256 GB with 2048 bytes/block
512 GB with 4096 bytes/block
1 TB with 8192 bytes/block
2 TB with 16384 and 32768 bytes/block
Don't keep using old SFS versions because you have too large
partitions and want to continue using them, you WILL get errors on
such partitions sooner or later.

[Charlie]

MR B:

Very happy to be of help.

I agree, using WinUAE as a backup & file-transfer tool is a good idea - my own preferred method...

The first couple of times I did this were very frustrating - lots of "why won't the f***ing thing work?", and "why am I getting b****y errors now?", so I hope I've helped save you from some of that.

Yes, it's worth finding other 'guides' on doing this. I worked this out largely by trial & much error. There may well be more elegant ways of setting this up.

Best of luck.

BarrySWE:
You have OS3.9 & IDEFix97, so either way you have a useable scsi.device & a version of FFS that can access large drives.
I agree using SFS is still the better option over 3.9's FFS. It is still a work in progress so remember to backup your files.

I'm guessing 'Recent changes in SmartFileSystem:' and on is a quote from the readme rather than part of any problem you have.

My best advice is:
1) Don't Pannic - sorry couldn't resist, you should be fine.
2) Keep your SFS version up-to date. ( HDToolBox the upgrades into your RDB. )
3) If you upgrade your copy of SFS check the changelog first in case the new version has broken something your setup relies on.....!
4) Your current SFS partitions will not be the same version as any upgrade in your RDB, so may not be compatable!!! - Potential data loss!! Remember to re-format all your partitions after the upgrade so versions match.
Doing this one-by-one while shuffling data between old and new partitions is the usual way to go. A complete back-up first is safer.
NB
You will be very unlucky to have trouble if you don't do 4), but the further apart the versions are the more room for trouble.

'hope this helps.

My knowledge of file-systems is getting a bit streached now. I hope one of the more experienced members will come to my rescue if things get more in-depth than this.

[Charlie]

Gavilan:
Sorry didn't spot your post among my lengthy ramblings....

If you have a boxed copy of 3.9 ( me too ) just follow the install instructions. They should lead you through setting-up for your large HDD.
No need to bother about 3.1 or worry about old versions of scsi.device/FFS not working.
I would suggest getting it all up & running as standard. Then install SFS to RDB & quick-format your partitions to SFS one at a time.
Don't forget you will need two bootable partitions so you have somewhere functional to copy SYS: so it can be formatted to SFS too.

NB
Make sure you update with Boing-bag 1 & 2 as soon as possible. I believe the first release 3.9 had some remaining FS bugs with large drives.

[Gavilan]

Charlie: i do have a boxed copy of 3.9 of course..
My fear is, actually, to loose all my data, when i do the change from FFS to SFS, get my idea? I want to migrate all my partitions from FFS to SFS without loosing anything... I dont have afresh system, i have tons and tons of old data & stuff i dont want to loose... i already have BB2 installed in that machine

Im guessing that since the RDB is written, everything will be lost, but, would it be possible to make a backup of all my system, and then install SFS all over again and after that copy back all my backup? So at the end, i would have the same system i used to but with newer SFS....

Cheers

Sebastian

[woody57]

While backing up media data from your old partitions and transfering it back is not a problem, the saving & re-installing of data types, specialist application libraries ,user startup-sequence etc would STILL require some form of seperate tasking.

This is also true of some games as well, so changing the file system requires some planning in what you also need to copy back & what needs re-installation

[Jope]

Nah no need to reinstall anything, just copy clone everything back and forth, they're just files on your harddrive.

[thomas]

Originally Posted by Gavilan

Im guessing that since the RDB is written, everything will be lost, but, would it be possible to make a backup of all my system, and then install SFS all over again and after that copy back all my backup? So at the end, i would have the same system i used to but with newer SFS....

As long as you only use HDToolbox, your data is safe. Although at some stage it looks as if everything on a partition is lost, you can just fire up HDToolbox again, take your changes back and every file will be back again.

Of course, once you start to go forward and format the SFS partition, all data on that partition will be lost. So you have to backup the data first. It's not really difficult, though. As Jope said, it's just a matter of copying files forth and back. I usually pack everything into an LHA archive but this needs quite some time for an entire partition. And the archive might be corrupted, so you first have to check it and eventually start all over again. It's probably easiert to just create a backup directory on another partition and copy all files to there.

When it comes to converting the boot partition, you should boot from an emergency disk or from an alternate boot partition. Because formatting the partition you have booted from might lead you to a bunch of "please insert volume Workbench into any drive" requesters without being able to work any more.

[Charlie]

Yep,
In a nutshell - it is safest to backup all your files to seperate media first, but 'all' you have to do is use HDToolBox to add SFS to your RDB - no need to reformat your HDD - no worries about your current partitions failing.
Then you 'just' re-format each partition to SFS one at a time having moved the contents to other partitons first.
This will also do for your SYS: partition. Just make sure the copied version is set as bootable.

[manicx]

I think that a topic like that should be made sticky or at leasts all posts from Charlie and Thomas. Such topics have been started by several members (including me ) and I am sure many more will start similar topics in the future.