Amiga file system for large HD

[Harrison]

I recently obtained a very old P1 IBM laptop for free. My initial thoughts were to install Linux on it, but I cannot get it working because it's missing the PSU. It also has no CD drive or USB ports so is quite useless anyway.

So being as this is all but useless as I cannot power it up I decided to open it up and see what was inside (as you do). The system specs state a 1GB HD which I thought would be great to use with an Amiga. Imagine my delight when opening it up I discovered it had been upgraded to a 6GB 2.5" HD. Excellent!

So this is now going to a new home in one of my A1200's.

Now the question. I've always just used the FFS with Workbench as I've only ever had HD's under 4GB on Amigas. To format the HD to its full 6GB what is the best Filesystem I should use?

Also it only has KS3.0 roms in the A1200 at the moment so I will be stuck with WB3.0 until I get some 3.1 roms, then I will update it to WB3.9 which I understand directly supports larger HDs as standard. Is that right?

[cicobuff]

I am not 100% sure, but I thought that on 3.0 roms the hard disk size limit was only 4gb, so unless you actually fit 3.1 roms in the unit you would only be able to "see" the first 4gb of any hard drive connected to the IDE connector.

This ebay seller from Germany I have noticed the past couple of years is always knocking out a set of 3.1 ROMS, bizarelly they sell Titanium rings (look very nice actually), but always also have at least one set of 3.1 roms for sale for the A1200, worth checking out.

I myself won an auction on Ebay a year or so ago buying 3.1 ROMS (from a different seller), they turned out to be programmed EEPROMS not original but do the job just fine, however the picture of these on Ebay from Titanium World look the real deal http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Titanium-World-UK
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Kickstart-3-1-...QQcmdZViewItem

[Harrison]

Cool, thanks for the link.

I thought the HD 4GB limit was a restriction of the filesystem used by workbench, not a restriction of the Kickstart version. Can anyone else shed more light on this for me? Can I use a large HD with KS3.0 roms, or do I need to get some KS3.1 roms first?

[cicobuff]

What I round about meant was that though lol, you basically have answered your own question anyway!. Without 3.1 Kickstart ROMS you are not able to install Workbench 3.5 or 3.9 which supports a larger FFS, because of that fact 3.0 ROMS do not support hard drives greater than 4 gb, due to the software support limitation though rather than programming of the particular EPROM.

Unless anyone knows of a patch to access greater than 4gb for Workbench 3.0?

[Demon Cleaner]

Maybe this can help you out.

[Harrison]

Thanks for the link. Basically that thread is saying that with a KS3.0 A1200 you cannot use an HD larger than 4GB. So that will have to be the first upgrading I do before adding the 6GB HD to the system.

I love a quote from that topic you linked to:

Finally there is always an 80% chance that the problem is sitting in front of the keyboard.

[Puni/Void]

Thanks for the link. Basically that thread is saying that with a KS3.0 A1200 you cannot use an HD larger than 4GB. So that will have to be the first upgrading I do before adding the 6GB HD to the system.

I'm not sure that is entirely correct. I've used a 6.8GB HD on an Amiga 1200 with old 3.0 ROM's. You can use an alternative file-system instead of the FFS (fast-file system).

One of the better alternatives is, the one I used, called Professional File-system.
Here is a link to a review of the file-system on Aminet: (don't know if it is the latest version)

PFS

This file-system should be available many places, and I think there is a more recent version than the one in the review. The point is, this file-system let's you have BIG harddrives on your Amiga, even if you do not have Kickstart 3.1 or something like that.

[Harrison]

Great, thanks. I was sure there was an alternative file system that would work as I remembered readong something about it a long time ago.

[Puni/Void]

No problem. Glad to be of help. I'm sure there are alternatives to the PSF as well. I think the PSF system came on a CD with a game called Kangaroo or something. A friend of mine actually bought the file-system. He got a good package with every tool you could need to organize and keep the HD in shape. Happy file-system hunting!

[TiredOfLife]

I was under the impression that it's not the size of the drive that matters on OS3.0 but the size of the partition.
As long as each partition is 4 gig or under, there is no problem.
Other posters on the above link also agree with this.
The first partion should be the boot partiton.
PFS and SFS are other file systems that get round this limit.
So does the software provided with the buffered ide interfaces.
I bought 3.1 roms from the titanium guy.
They were the real thing.