PDA

View Full Version : format compap-flash for A1200 in SFS



Tiago
19th August 2009, 13:29
Can i format compap-flash for A1200 in SFS ?

I try the to format in standard format and it went fine, fast and easy.
but can i use a compap-flash for A1200 in SFS? Should i do just like as wiki says? "How to install SFS onto a real Harddrive within WinUAE " ?

any advantage in SFS over FFS apart from partitions size?

Harrison
19th August 2009, 14:34
It is a much faster and newer file system compared to Workbench's FFS, so it is worth using if you can. I can't see any reason why SFS would not work with a CF card.

Tiago
19th August 2009, 17:02
Ok,
for HDs or compact-flash larger then 4GB i read the info about it, and i understand what to do, i just don't get why the first partition should be less equal then 4GB if the second one could be 100GB.
what is the difference? If he recognizes the 2nd as 100GB why he doesn't do it for the 1st as 4GB? Is it because is the partition that has the boot ?

Harrison
19th August 2009, 17:51
Yes, that is correct. The Amiga has to start booting the HDD before the filesystem can be loaded to access the larger additional partitions. Therefore the first partition should be under 4GB. I normally make one about 2GB for the boot partition, and then split the rest of the drive up for whatever I'm needing, such as for games, demos, applications and files.

Tiago
3rd September 2009, 00:10
I bought a compact-flash of 8GB in ebay, very cheap one, it is not a recent one, (type I)

I did the SFS file system with the format stuff and use idefix, so i now have

DH0: with 2GB +/-
DH1: with 6GB +/-

works perfectly with the compact-flash to IDE converter from amigamaniac.com !!:)

I put classicWB and it's perfect for my A600 with A603(1mb ram), i must get the fast 8mb from zetr0 now... :)

Harrison
3rd September 2009, 01:09
Are you actually running the SFS formatted CF card on the A600?

AFAIK SFS won't work on an A600 as the SFS file system requires the minimum of a 68020 processor. I tried to use SFS with my A600 a while back. Set a 10GB HDD up on the PC using WinUAE and SFS, but when connected to the A600 it refused to work because of the 68000 processor.

If you have got a SFS formatted CF card working with an A600 I'm very interested in how.

I ended up having to use a 6GB HDD formatted to 4GB, using FFS, on my A600.

Tiago
3rd September 2009, 15:10
well, this card will be for the A1200, but i was houping i could do the same for A600, didnt know that.... anyway i will try it

Harrison
3rd September 2009, 15:58
When I tried a SFS formatted HDD in my A600 it just threw up an NDOS disk error and wouldn't boot. I also tried it via WinUAE and setting it up exactly the same as a real A600 also stopped it from working. It would only boot if the CPU was changed to an 020 or higher.

There are other file systems that support larger disks, but they are older and harder to use. I might one day try with an alternative one though to see if I can get more HDD space setup on the A600. Although I am thinking of switching over to CF cards, which would make file transfer between the Amiga and PC very easy. I might even fit an internal CF adapter so it is mounted at the rear, or side, so the card can be accessed and changed without opening up the system.

Tiago
3rd September 2009, 16:43
If A600 don't recognize the SFS and i put the FFS i can only go to 4gb per pertition, but i can have more then 2 correct?

Harrison
3rd September 2009, 17:25
I'm not 100% sure of that. I think with FFS you can only use a maximum of 4GB of HDD space in total across all partitions, with each partition having a maximum size of 2GB each.

I might however be wrong on that as I've never tested FFS larger than 4GB or FFS partitions that large. I have read that if the size is larger than 4GB it can cause data wrap/looping where the Amiga gets confused and writes the data from one end of the 4GB limit over the other starting end of the partition and so corrupts the drive.

Tiago
3rd September 2009, 17:35
In workbench when you go to Hdtools and set the partition size,
i set the DH0 to 2GB, and then the HD1 i passed the 4GB limit and he passes from 4GB to 0 counting again, so imagine that i want 5GB, i set to 5GB but hdtool says 1GB that corresponds to 4GB + 1GB he passes the limit...
but after IDEfix installed he reads HD1 as 5gb but with SFS of course.
In FFS i think we can only go to 4GB, but i dont see why not 3 or more partitions of 4gb each... i must try it

Harrison
3rd September 2009, 17:49
I think it is more to do with how the disk sizes are calculated and read using the FFS file system. I just don't think it can address the space larger than 4GB. A bit like ram sizes on older PC motherboards.

xpect
4th September 2009, 09:38
When I tried a SFS formatted HDD in my A600 it just threw up an NDOS disk error and wouldn't boot.

No, the problem with recent versions of SFS is that you need Kick 3.0+

Check this version for 2.04:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~hjohn/SFS184.lha


EDIT: I'm sorry, but ALL version of SFS need at least a 020 processor. I thought that these earlier versions could pass with a 68000 :(

Harrison
4th September 2009, 13:56
I also thought that initially xpect, but as my A600 has KS 3.1 installed I realised it wasn't. It is annoying not being able to use SFS with the A600 as it makes things much easier. Oh well.

Tiago
7th September 2009, 17:39
i am very :mad::mad:

i thought the 8GB compact-flash was working well, but i was wrong, after install 1st partition with SFS the 2nd one crash after copy some stuff into it, i am not able to use SFS in more then 1 partition, it crash after a bit. Don't know if it's from the card. I am doing everything bu the book, and the 1st partition works fine at 2GB, but the 2nd after copy some data crashes and i am not able to access it anymore.
I give up SFS... also because the card was for A600, so i format with FFS, but again, problems, if i put 2Gb+4GB+2GB it crashes and 1st partition goes do nondos... if i use only 2 partitions, the same, but i am able to work with the 2nd partition, formating again the 1st one, .... what a mess!!!!!

another thing that :rant:me .... is that the card is type I... so it takes a lot of time to copy files.... i spend more then 5 hours with this :rant: s***,
i will try now to use only 1 partition with 4gb, if it works.... fine, finnish, end

With real HDs, it never happend...
anyone try a compac-flash bigger then 4GB?

Harrison
7th September 2009, 17:45
I've not tried any CF cards with Amigas yet, but have been tempted.

I have however had similar problems with large HDDs corrupting. When I was originally setting up my current A600 HDD I had set SFS up and it was all working correctly. I had installed classicWB and waited a very long time to copy all of the KGWHD game and demo packs over to the drive. Then I removed the drive from the PC and connected it up to the A600, it booted and worked a couple of times, but then the drive went NDOS. On connected it back up to the PC the HD boot record had become corrupted. So I had to set SFS up again and do it all again. Second time it worked perfectly though.

Tiago
7th September 2009, 17:48
Exactly what happend!!
but it could do that in the beggining or in the end of copying all the files...

But today or tommorow i will get a conclusion... let you now after.

Tiago
7th September 2009, 23:30
I try it again, and best i could do was
2 partitions of 3,8 GB each.

But even with this simple setup i had a problem, after copy the files (games/demos) to DH1, the DH0 just went wrong, and went nondos.... so i had to format again DH0 and put again classicwb. But now it works good, so 3,8+3,8 should be enough for everything, but it is FFS not SFS...
in winuae works fine, i must try tomorrow in real A1200 and A600 (after receive the new rom)

Harrison
8th September 2009, 00:05
Not sure if it will work in a real Amiga, so I will be interested to see if you can get it to work.

Regarding when my HDD last its boot record. I forget exactly what the setting was, but I hadn't set SFS up completely right the first time and this caused the corruption. Running through the whole SFS process as I laid out in the Wiki worked perfectly the second time and the 40GB HDD in my A1200 works perfectly with a 2GB boot partition, a couple of 4GB partitions for software and data, and a large 28GB partition for WHDLoad games and demos.

Tiago
9th September 2009, 23:32
Not sure if it will work in a real Amiga, so I will be interested to see if you can get it to work.

Regarding when my HDD last its boot record. I forget exactly what the setting was, but I hadn't set SFS up completely right the first time and this caused the corruption. Running through the whole SFS process as I laid out in the Wiki worked perfectly the second time and the 40GB HDD in my A1200 works perfectly with a 2GB boot partition, a couple of 4GB partitions for software and data, and a large 28GB partition for WHDLoad games and demos.

I try it today, and yes in works in A1200 with 8mb ram.
compact-flash 8GB - DH0 (FFS 3,8GB) and DH1 (FFS 3,8GB) works well.

I install classicwb in DH0 and put several games in DH1 and works very nice.
All Games worked!!! :yesyes:

about SFS... no way, i cannot work with it in compact-flash, but will try in real HD.

xpect
10th September 2009, 11:37
about SFS... no way, i cannot work with it in compact-flash, but will try in real HD.

Don't forget Tiago if it's for the A600, SFS needs at least a 020.

Tiago
10th September 2009, 13:51
Yes, but i coundn't do it in A1200... :(

Harrison
10th September 2009, 14:40
Maybe some of the SFS settings you tried were not quite right. The first time I set an HD up with SFS I'm sure I must have got some of them wrong, as the second time it worked perfectly.

Also are you using a buffered IDE interface with the CF card? or connecting the CF to IDE adaptor directly to the motherboard IDE port?

Tiago
10th September 2009, 14:52
Also are you using a buffered IDE interface with the CF card? or connecting the CF to IDE adaptor directly to the motherboard IDE port?

directly,
but it try with partitions less then 4gb

Tiago
14th September 2009, 22:23
Great news:

It worked in A600:

I received the ROM 3.1 REV 40.63 for A600 so the system has:

A600
ROM 3.1 REV 40.63
A603 1MB RAM (total ram 1+1)
compact-flash 8GB - DH0 (FFS 3,8GB) and DH1 (FFS 3,8GB)

Works well, very very slow, but i was able to run "1943" in Whdload. :)
A600 reads both partitions without problems (but very slow)

Very cool, the same compact-flash runs in A600 and A1200 :D

With the extra 8MB Fast ram (Zetr0) will be so cool !!!

Harrison
14th September 2009, 22:29
Not sure why it would be so slow though. Unless the CF card is slow.

Tiago
14th September 2009, 23:43
Not sure why it would be so slow though. Unless the CF card is slow.

The card is very slow, it is type I and has the lowest speed :(
but in A1200 runs very nice, didn't run sysinfo or other to compare real HD Vs card, but looks the same on A1200. But in A1200 i have 2+8 Mb ram...

Anyway, it works !!!!