TOS partition sizes (and possibly Hatari)

[SteveBagley]

I thought TOS 2.06 was capable of accessing partitions up to 512MB in size? (e.g. as specified in the HDDriver FAQ)

The reason I ask is that I've tried a couple of times recently to create partitions greater than 256MB and TOS 2.06 (and MiNT/N.AES on top of TOS2.06) crash when I try and access a partition greater than 256MB. Switch to MagiC or TOS 4.04 (on a Falcon) and the partition can be accessed.

I'm testing this in Hatari (compiled from the sources recently) using various sized disk images but with an old version of HD-Driver v6.00 (it's the version I bought back in the 1990s ). Is this just an issue with TOS 2.06 (and earlier)?

Steve
PS For info, the partition layout is:

[mikro]

FreeMiNT doesn't care about TOS limits (unless you run some old/tweaked version which uses the original GEMDOS - maybe Hatari-specific kernel?). So if it crashes for you, the problem is somewhere else.

512 MB in TOS can be used from TOS 3.0x.

[SteveBagley]

FreeMiNT doesn't care about TOS limits (unless you run some old/tweaked version which uses the original GEMDOS - maybe Hatari-specific kernel?). So if it crashes for you, the problem is somewhere else.

I was using the version that came with N.AES, so relatively old (1.15).

Steve

[jedidiah]

I thought TOS 2.06 was capable of accessing partitions up to 512MB in size? (e.g. as specified in the HDDriver FAQ)

The reason I ask is that I've tried a couple of times recently to create partitions greater than 256MB and TOS 2.06 (and MiNT/N.AES on top of TOS2.06) crash when I try and access a partition greater than 256MB. Switch to MagiC or TOS 4.04 (on a Falcon) and the partition can be accessed.

I'm testing this in Hatari (compiled from the sources recently) using various sized disk images but with an old version of HD-Driver v6.00 (it's the version I bought back in the 1990s ). Is this just an issue with TOS 2.06 (and earlier)?

Steve
PS For info, the partition layout is:

I use one of the ready built Ubuntu packages for Hatari and I have no problems with partitions greater than 256MB in TOS 2.06.

I use a much newer version of HD-Driver. I also use a registered copy.

I also have hard drive images built and booted with ICD Pro that work fine with partitions greater than 256MB.

[DarkLord]

512 meg HD partitions (actually safer to go just slightly under) can be used with TOS v1.04 and up.

I have a 4 gig SCSI hard drive with the Mega ST4 that runs DarkForce! and I used it with TOS v1.04
for years with no problems and that includes the boot (C:) drive.

I have 4 gig SD-cards with my Mega STe and STacy (Ultrasatans) that also use 512 (well again, just
slightly under) HD partitions, also with no problems at all.

This is all with HDDriver v11.xx.

[mikro]

Ouch, you are right guys -- I mixed TOS 3.0x ROM size (512 KB) with disk partition size (512 MB). :D So yes, one can use 512 MB partition since TOS 1.04, as @DarkLord says.

[Cyprian]

512 meg HD partitions (actually safer to go just slightly under) can be used with TOS v1.04 and up.

I see there that 512MB partitions limit for TOS 1.4:
http://joo.kie.sk/wp-content/uploads/20 ... _Guide.pdf

But I wonder why Uwe Seimet metioned that 256MB was the TOS 1.04 limit:
https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.at ... q6mpfH9UQJ

[DarkLord]

Wow, that is kinda strange considering that on his HDDriver website, it says this:

https://www.hddriver.net/en/faq.html

"What is the maximum partition size supported by HDDRIVER?

This depends on the operating system. TOS 1.00-1.02 supports partitions of up to 256 MiB, TOS 1.04-3.06 of up to 512 MiB, TOS 4.0x of up to 1 GiB. These sizes are also valid for boot partitions and TOS/Windows compatible partitions. With MagiC or Big-DOS the non-boot partition size can be up to 2 GiB. In addition MiNT and MagiC support filesystems (FAT32/ext2) that do not have any relevant size limits.
HDDRUTIL displays the maximum partition size supported by the current operating system with "System Limits".

[czietz]

Sigh. I don't understand why these questions pop up again and again, when the answer always remains the same.

Limits according to HDDRIVER for TOS 1.04:

grab0005.png

Limits according to HDDRIVER for TOS 1.02:

grab0006.png

Note that these are megabytes (MB, 10^6), not mebibytes (MiB 2^20).

[SteveBagley]

I'm attaching the disk image I've been using to test (it doesn't have any hd driver software installed on it for obvious reasons). If I try to access drive E: (parititon 3) from TOS 2.06's Desktop it either hard crashes the machine (HDDriver 6) or does nothing (latest HDDriver demo -- i.e. no window is opened when double clicking on it). Opening the same partition in TOS 4.04 or MagiC works fine.

I'd be interested to know if it works for anyone else, since it'd be interesting isolate why it doesn't work.

Image was created using dd to create an empty file, then partitioned using the HDDriver tools from HD-Driver 6…

Steve

[jedidiah]

I'm attaching the disk image I've been using to test (it doesn't have any hd driver software installed on it for obvious reasons). If I try to access drive E: (parititon 3) from TOS 2.06's Desktop it either hard crashes the machine (HDDriver 6) or does nothing (latest HDDriver demo -- i.e. no window is opened when double clicking on it). Opening the same partition in TOS 4.04 or MagiC works fine.

I'd be interested to know if it works for anyone else, since it'd be interesting isolate why it doesn't work.

Image was created using dd to create an empty file, then partitioned using the HDDriver tools from HD-Driver 6…

Steve

I tried out this disk and had no luck with the ~270M partition.

The broken partition looks like it is not formated at all. I pulled it up in HDDriver 12 and tried to show the disk details and they are blank.

bad-disk.png

Here is an example from a working partition that's a little less than 512MB.

ebay-2G-game-disk_large_partition.png

[czietz]

I'd be interested to know if it works for anyone else, since it'd be interesting isolate why it doesn't work.

You can always use the "Check boot sector" function of current HDDRIVER versions to figure out if a certain partition is supported by the TOS version you are using. In case of the E: partition on your image under TOS 2.06:

grab0009.png

... it tells you why it does not work: The cluster size is too big for TOS 1 - 3.

As a side note, your image works under EmuTOS because EmuTOS does not have that restriction:

grab0010.png

[Eero Tamminen]

Image was created using dd to create an empty file, then partitioned using the HDDriver tools from HD-Driver 6…

If single partition HD images are enough, you can create PC & Atari compatible ones with Hatari helper script: https://git.tuxfamily.org/hatari/hatari ... d-image.sh

[czietz]

If single partition HD images are enough, you can create PC & Atari compatible ones with Hatari helper script: https://git.tuxfamily.org/hatari/hatari ... d-image.sh

But that creates only a DOS-compatible partition table, right? At least I suspect so, because I re-checked that HDDRIVER cannot be installed on an image created by this script:

grab0001.png

[SteveBagley]

If single partition HD images are enough, you can create PC & Atari compatible ones with Hatari helper script: https://git.tuxfamily.org/hatari/hatari ... d-image.sh

I have my own C code that generates correct partitions (or does now ), I was just surprised HDDriver 6 created partitions that didn’t work.

I can confirm that creating the partition with 8192 byte sectors works fine.

Steve

[ldv-01]

For EmuTOS:

Maximum partition size : Approx 1GB (Atari) ; Approx 2GB (DOS & FireBee).

Source: https://github.com/emutos/emutos/blob/m ... /fat16.txt

[Mikerochip]

I don't understand why these questions pop up again and again, when the answer always remains the same.

It's because we don't have this info to hand, anywhere.
We really need a chart, much like the Amiga users have on EAB, for what the limits are, per OS, per driver, per device type.

[mikro]

It's because we don't have this info to hand, anywhere.
We really need a chart, much like the Amiga users have on EAB, for what the limits are, per OS, per driver, per device type.

This should cover all your needs and more: http://joo.kie.sk/wp-content/uploads/20 ... _Guide.pdf

[czietz]

This should cover all your needs and more: http://joo.kie.sk/wp-content/uploads/20 ... _Guide.pdf

... with one exception: It doesn't cover EmuTOS , but fortunately for EmuTOS there is not much explanation needed: FAT16 partitions generally just work; even if they were created on a PC, without requiring special Atari compatibility settings. (The exact file system limits are documented here: https://github.com/emutos/emutos/blob/m ... /fat16.txt.)

[Eero Tamminen]

If single partition HD images are enough, you can create PC & Atari compatible ones with Hatari helper script: https://git.tuxfamily.org/hatari/hatari ... d-image.sh

But that creates only a DOS-compatible partition table, right?

Yes.

At least I suspect so, because I re-checked that HDDRIVER cannot be installed on an image created by this script:

HDDRIVER does not support DOS partition tables?!?

[czietz]

HDDRIVER does not support DOS partition tables?!?

Of course it does, as long as you load/boot it from somewhere else. But it cannot be installed (afaik) onto a drive with purely a DOS partition table. So, if one wants to boot from a disk and have it compatible with a PC, one creates a DOS and an Atari partition table. Which is what HDDRUTIL does when partitioning a disk as TOS&Windows-compatible. Or which I did here: https://www.newtosworld.de/viewtopic.php?t=74.

EDIT: By the way, I don't think this is a HDDRIVER issue. Did you try installing AHDI, ICD, HuSHI, CBHD, ... onto a disk image created by atari-hd-image.sh?