Installing a hard disk - wrong size

[alkis21]

I'm trying to install a 3.2GB Maxtor hard disk to my Amiga 1200 (ROM 3.0, Workbench disks 3.0). I formatted the drive in a PC (otherwise HDSetup wouldn't even recognize it) first so I am positive that the size is correct. Now HDSetup sees it but I think I am doing something wrong configuring it. I go to Change Drive Type -> Define New and then I click on Read Configuration, and the size displayed is negative!

Size: -1041784K (-1017 Meg)

When I format the disk, it displays a size of 1538M, which is less than half of the drive's actual size.

Can I do anything to get the disk's actual size or do I have to settle for that?

[fitzsteve]

Hi alkis21,

In my experiance its normal for these sizes to reported in this way, most of my drives have reported - sizes.

You didn't mention anything in your post about creating the partitions, will it not let you even create a partition above 1538M?

Its advisable to keep your partitions below 2gb and use just a small partition for the boot, 200mb or something.

Steve.

[alkis21]

Originally Posted by fitzsteve

You didn't mention anything in your post about creating the partitions, will it not let you even create a partition above 1538M?

That's right, it will not.

[alkis21]

By the way, all the other information that is displayed is correct, meaning it's the same data that is written on the disk's label.


Cylinders: 6256
Heads: 16
Blocks per Track: 63

The only value that is not written on the label is Blocks per Cylinder, Workbench shows 1008 but I don't know if that's correct.

[Toni Wilen]

Try FixHDDSize from Aminet.

Blocks per cylinder = Blocks per tracks * heads.

[alkis21]

OK here is what FixHDDSize reports:

The drive has 630648 blocks of 512 bytes each (3079MB)
The disk is installed as 6256 cylinders with 1008 blocks of 512 bytes each (6306048 blocks, 3079MB).
The highest number of cylinders which fits on the drive is 6256 which results in 6306048 blocks (3079MB).
The disk is already installed correctly.

Then why is it only 1538MB then?

[fitzsteve]

Do you have access to Install 3.1 disk or are you able to try and partition the drive via WinUAE? I've had a drive report strange sizes on my A600 but partition correctly via WinUAE.

Steve.

[alkis21]

Please forget everything I said. I am an idiot. I didn't understand the Partition menu correctly; everything was fine as soon as I clicked on "delete partition".

Thank you all for your help. FixHDDSize in particular helped me understand that I was doing something wrong. In my defense, so many of my previous efforts to install a new hard disk have failed that when I encountered no problem I had to imagine one!

[fitzsteve]

Glad you figured it out =)

Doh! The answer was staring me in the face all along, 1.6gb is what... Half of 3.2, you had the default two partitions!!!