Large partition support on GVP HD+8 Series II

[Hewitson]

Am I correct in thinking it's not possible to use large partitions with this controller unless you have the Guru ROM?

[thomas]

Partition size is only restricted by the file system used. What is limited by the controller / ROM version is disk size. You can use any partitions which fit on the drive.

Regarding the GVP HD+8, I cannot tell you what the drive size limit is for this controller. But I think you could try to go without the Guru ROM is you use a file system which supports Direct-SCSI (FFSTD64, PFS3ds, SFS up to version 1.84).

[Hewitson]

I have attempted to use the Direct SCSI version of PFS3, I am sure it said the controller didn't support the commands.

However I will try it with SFS as no one seems to know the answer to my question.

Thanks

[coze]

you have the latest version of the GVP ROM ? 4.15

[Zetr0]

Originally Posted by coze

you have the latest version of the GVP ROM ? 4.15

Using this ROM on my A500HD+8 HDTools (WB 3.1: using gvpscsi.device) it was able to see an 18GB SCSI 2 wide Hard disk, workbench was able to partition it to multiple places (in FFS)...

However as it was a basic 68k cpu machine setting up FFS partitions these cannot be used or they will become corrupted -

One would need to use SFS, however this requires an 020 cpu or higher.

I am hoping that PFS3 is available soon =)

[coze]

Zetty, I believe the os 3.9 version of FFS is 68000 compatible and can be used with big HDDs. You would need to do some ROM-patch juggling though ...

[Hewitson]

Originally Posted by coze

you have the latest version of the GVP ROM ? 4.15

I do. But I don't think that it supports drives >4gb. NSDPatch does not support it either (only the Guru ROM).

Can anyone confirm the 3.9 FFS works on 68000?

[thomas]

Can anyone confirm the 3.9 FFS works on 68000?

Not sure. But it won't help you anyway. Get FFSTD64 from Aminet. If will give you access to the entire drive.

NSDPatch does not support it either

NSDPatch can be configured to support every device. But you shouldn't use it, it adds some limits which you don't need.

But I don't think that it supports drives >4gb.

Instead of guessing, you should try it out. Install the drive, create a small boot partition, format it and install the OS to it, create some more partitions but don't format them, then run Check4GB utility from Aminet and post the report here.

[Hewitson]

Thanks a lot thomas, FFSTD64 sounds like exactly what I was after. But I don't quite understand the difference between using this or the OS3.9 FFS, if you could explain that it would be great.

I will try it as soon as possible and let you know the results.

[thomas]

FFS V43 (a.k.a. FFSTD64) supports TD64 and Direct-SCSI for large hard drives. FFS V44+ (OS 3.5 and above) only supports NSD. As your controller knows neither TD64 nor NSD, Direct-SCSI is the only way to support large harddrives without additional patches.

NSDPatch could be used to make the controller support NSD, but it does nothing else but translate NSD commands into Direct-SCSI commands. So why the hassle and not use Direct-SCSI at once.

Also NSDPatch is loaded in startup-sequence, i.e. when partitions have already been mounted. This could mean that partitions above the 4GB bar are not seen unless you manually add DiskChange commands to your startup-sequence after NSDPatch. Even more hassle.