format compap-flash for A1200 in SFS

[Tiago]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.