Partition large harddisk

[hyami]

Recently I've installed some 'new' hardware in my A2000. It now contains a GVP 030 Combo card with 16MB ram and a SCSI card reader attached to it. For now I use a 2GB CF card in it which is enough for AmigaOS 3.2 and some software.


I also installed a Buddha flash card to which I connected an old SATA laptop hdd of 320GB, using a generic PATA/SATA converter. When I want to partition this drive, it only shows as a 128GB drive in Read configuration in HDToolbox. When I run hddreport, it also says Capacity : 128GB.



What could or should I try to address the full capacity of the drive?

[thomas]

AFAIK the Buddha firmware is still at the level as developed by Elaborate Bytes decades ago. It does not support LBA48 and is therefore limited to 128GB. Do not touch anything above that limit, it will cause similar issues as the 4GB limit. You are aware of the 4GB limit, aren't you?

[Toni Wilen]

Buddha had firmware update released few years ago that added LBA48 support.

[fgh]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Buddha had firmware update released few years ago that added LBA48 support.

Good. Do you know if they fixed support for devices reporting as ‘removable’ as well? (Same code as idefix, as was discussed to death ten+ years ago)

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by fgh

Good. Do you know if they fixed support for devices reporting as ‘removable’ as well? (Same code as idefix, as was discussed to death ten+ years ago)

Yes, for some mysterious reason I do know all the details

Update is based on KS ROM (post-OS39BB2) IDE scsi.device. It is totally different driver.

[fgh]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Yes, for some mysterious reason I do know all the details

Update is based on KS ROM (post-OS39BB2) IDE scsi.device. It is totally different driver.

Oh, good job!
And this can be flashed to the older cards as well?

[Toni Wilen]

I think it does (I never had any old variants), better check icomp forum first.

[hyami]

Thanks for the information. It is an old version of the Buddha card. Probably > 10 years old. I'll check the icomp forum.

[hyami]

Originally Posted by thomas

You are aware of the 4GB limit, aren't you?

Yes, I know there are limitations. I was just not sure how AmigaOS 3.2 would affect that, as it was claimed to have "Support for storage media bigger than 4 GB".



Anyway, I've checked the iComp site and forum and decided to flash the card with the current version 52-101. Although flashing seems to work flawless, it makes my hdd disappear. To rule out the SATA/PATA adapter I've also tried a regular 40GB PATA hdd, but that's not visible as well. Reflashing to an old version of the Buddha rom fixes the availability/visibility of both the hdds. Interesting situation, so I'll see whether Jens knows a solution to this issue.

[daxb]

Originally Posted by hyami

Yes, I know there are limitations. I was just not sure how AmigaOS 3.2 would affect that, as it was claimed to have "Support for storage media bigger than 4 GB".

It is a bit complicated. At boot time (before S-S launches) the ROM is available and its limits (that vary with different ROM versions. E.g. scsi.device) are valid. With OS 3.2 (and some other versions) in S-S (with LoadModule or whatever) ROM update modules will load from disk to RAM if newer then or not present in the ROM. This is usually resident and at the next reset/boot (not hard reset) the new loaded stuff is valid. So, there are some possible combinations that are relevant at certain time. The Buddha just adds some more complication.

[thomas]

Originally Posted by hyami

I was just not sure how AmigaOS 3.2 would affect that, as it was claimed to have "Support for storage media bigger than 4 GB".

They added large HDD support into all components which are part of the OS. This includes hardware drivers for mainboard resources such as the A600/A1200/A4000 IDE and the A3000/A4000 SCSI controllers.

It should be obvious that they cannot speak a spell and magically add that support to third-party components.

The principle has not changed: the limit comes from the interface between file system and device driver. Both components have to "speak" 64bit. If one does not, the other one cannot bypass the limit on its own.

And as daxb pointed out the support is only available if all components are in a ROM. Either in the Kickstart ROM or the boot ROM of the expansion you use. If you need to load drivers from disk, the partion you read them from has to adhere to the limits of the ROM drivers. An exception is the file system code, it can be stored in and read from the partition table rather than a mounted partition.