>4GB IDE HD in A4000

[edd_jedi]

Apologies if this has been covered before, but a quick search yielded nothing conclusive. As you may remember I was toying with adding a SCSI HD to my A4000. I now want to fit an IDE drive instead because it is easier and cheaper. I don't need SCSI speed, but I do need the storage and reliability of a 'proper' hard disk.

So, I want to buy an 80GB IDE hard disk. In layman's terms, what exactly do I need to do to use all 80GB of the space with my Classic WB 3.1 setup? I think I need to format it using HD toolbox as FFS, and then need to patch some driver to support the full size, perhaps using IDEfix? An idiots step by step guide would be much appreciated

Also, am I right in thinking I can daisy chain 2 IDE drives with no modifications? I'd like to use the CF card I already have as a means to transfer data.

Any help appreciated!

If you really want FFS, use the latest version which support large drives.

http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/ffstd64

But I think better idea is to use PFS3 or SFS filesystem.

And second question... yes, you can use 2 drives together on internal A4000 IDE port. But no CD-ROM in that case.

[demolition]

You can use a patched scsi.device. Some different versions have already been included in ClassicWB. Either you can integrate it into your kickstart (complicated) or you can simply load the patched scsi.device from HDD after which the system will reboot using the new scsi.device. I think ClassicWB will automatically do this if you simply copy the relevant version into devs: and name it scsi.device.
Your boot partition cannot be bigger than 4GB though.
This thread has some useful information:
http://eab.abime.net/project-classic...pport-4gb.html
Edit: See solution 4.

[edd_jedi]

Thanks for the links, very helpful. So I assume that what I need to do is install the new IDE drive alongside my current CF HD, then update the scsi.device in my CF HD Devs drawer, so that I can then partition and format the larger IDE drive in HDToolbox. Once formatted, I can use Dopus to copy the system files to the new HD. Does that sound right? I can't think of any other way of doing it.

Also, what happens when there are 2 drives connected? How does the Amiga decide which one to boot? I obviously don't want to wipe the CF of system files until I am positive the IDE drive is working properly.

[fitzsteve]

Hi Ed,

Get yourself a USB2 external HDD caddy and setup the HDD in WinUAE, it will be much faster especially when it comes to transferring data such as WHDLoad Games.

As you know I offer a HDD setup service over Amibay, you can always send me your 80gb HDD and I can set it up for you if you get stuck.

Only Classic Workbench has the provision for automatically patching the scsi.device placed in 'Devs' this is not something that works on a standard WB3.1 for example.

I recommend SFS or PFS3, johnim has an SFS picture guide you can follow again over at Amibay.

If you will be using CDROM drive consider installing IDEFix97, this will also take care of the large drive support (in conjunction with the updated file system of course)

If you need to use two HDD's and a CDROM drive this is possible with a 4WayIDE device, I'm pretty sure I have a spare one you could have for a fiver if you need that

By the way you can set priority of each HDD (maybe even each partition*) in HDToolbox to override which one will load first.

Good luck.

Steve.

[edd_jedi]

Thanks Steve, very helpful. I will probably end up doing it that way, as you say much easier and faster.

The drive arrived today, I plugged it in and booted from a WB floppy, and HDToolbox can see it. I do have one problem though - I can't get my Amiga to run both the new HD and the old CF card (which currently has everything on it) at the same time. In fact, although the CF interface works just fine when plugged directly on to the motherboard's IDE interface, it doesn't work when connected to the end of an IDE cable.

Any idea why this may be Steve? I noticed the CF adapter has some jumpers, will they make any difference? I think the IDE cable is OK as it works with my 2 IDE HDs just fine.

Although I'll probably do all the transferring with UAE, I would like to be able to run both drives at the same time in the long run.

Cheers,
Edd

[fitzsteve]

Hi Ed!

Is the CF adapter you have a dual adapter? This might not work with other IDE devices as it might occupy both master and slave.

Like old PC's you need to set one of the CF/HDD to Slave and the other Master, if they wont work together I suggest try another Cf adapter, in fact one like I linked below would be good as you can mount it on the back for easy file transfers:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3-5-IDE-to...item2ec7d9b45f

[edd_jedi]

Thanks for the link Steve, will have to pick one of those up!

Yes it is a dual CF thing I have, any idea why it would not work on its own with an IDE cable? It works fine plugged directly to the motherboard. I've tried rebooting.

[fitzsteve]

I assume it's due to how they're designed to be used?

This device is already active as Master & Slave so you can't add any further devices on the same channel, probably adding a cable causes a conflict with that?

Really I'm no expert so i could just be talking a load of rubbish lol

All you really need is a cheap standard CF adapter to use on the end of your 2 way cable and you'll be fine:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CF-Compact...item5643dd2ac9

(if you can wait they're only 99p from China! No idea how they can sell the item and include shipping from China but they can lol, all for 99p!)