Re: Partition big drives on a GS ?

[dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

Mark Cummings <NOTfigjams@primus.com.au> wrote:

> > [Partition drive using ADU, need a "trick" to get more than 8 partitions]
>
> After you did this could you then take that drive back to a Mac and mount
> it, and see either ProDOS or HFS vols on it or both ?

This depends on the driver installed on the hard drive by ADU.  I set up
a third-party driver (actually the one which came with my SyQuest), so
in theory I can connect the drive to a Mac.  I don't recall whether I
ever bothered to try, and if so whether or not the ProDOS partitions
were visible (I suspect not, but this would be a limitation of the
driver I used).

If you have a genuine Apple hard drive (i.e. one for which Apple has
patched the ROM, such as the internal drive from a Macintosh), ADU will
install the Apple driver onto it, and I believe this can read ProDOS
partitions (as long as the Mac has the appropriate extensions to support
the ProDOS file system).

(You can also set up the Apple driver for use with compatible third
party drives.)

> > > Also why did the Mac spit the dummy with the drive, and will I ever be
> > > able to put it back there ?
> >
> > Are you referring to your original problems with Apple HDSC Setup, or
> > the end result, with the drive having been partitioned by ADU?
> 
> Yes, I was refering to "Apple HD SC Setup". I didn't make notes of every
> step I took, so I'm a little fuzzy on what happened. At one stage I
> partitioned using the Customize option and had ~1.1G partition and an ~10M?
> Apple_Free or plain greyed out partition at the end. I changed that space
> into a ProDOS partition. So far OK. Then I noticed that there was a grey gap
> between the HFS and ProDOS part. So I dragged it up. That's when the sh*t
> hit the fan. I think the machine "hung". When I tried to go back and
> re-partition that drive, I was not allowed to, and I had errors. I could not
> even Init it. I would have to do it all again and take notes to be sure, but
> afraid that'll be a case of deja-vu.

Sorry, can't help here - I've never used Apple HD SC Setup, only Drive
Setup.

> It is definately a Apple-logo Quantum 1.2G drive. It would be nice to be
> able to move it between a GS and Mac, but last time I tried to do this with
> a Apple-logo Quantum 40/80Mb drive I got this result... if I formatted it on
> the GS it would not mount on the Mac ever

This would depend on what created the partition table.  If you used
8-bit software such as HDSCPARTITION (supplied with the SCSI card) or
Chinook SCSI Utilities, then there are no partitions available for
writing a Mac driver to the disk.

If the partition table was created by ADU, it leaves four partitions for
installing Macintosh drivers, and may put the Apple or third party
driver into one of them.

The Mac will refuse to do anything useful with the drive unless it
contains a driver partition with a supported driver.

> and if I formatted it on a Mac, the GS would spit out the first two
> volumes every time I booted it. It was seemingly spitting out the Mac
> Driver & Partition Map AFAIK.

If you partition a drive on the Mac using Drive Setup (possibly also
recent versions of Apple HDSC Setup) then it writes two Mac drivers onto
the disk (each in their own partition).  The "classic" driver has a
partition type of "Apple_Driver", which is recognised and ignored by the
SCSI drivers on the IIgs (and the SCSI card firmware).

The second driver is for use with version 4.3 or later of the SCSI
Manager, which has some major performance improvements and new features.
This driver has a partition type of "Apple_Driver43".  Unfortunately,
the Apple II SCSI software looks for exact matches rather than prefixes
when deciding whether a partition is to be ignored, so the Finder asks
if you want to initialize or eject this driver partition.

> If this is the only way to make it work then I'd rather not have it set up
> that way. If you know of a sure fire way to do this, I'll give that a go.

In theory, the best solution is to ensure that the partition table has
been created by ADU, and allow it to write the driver; alternatively use
Apple HD SC Setup on a Mac (though I don't know why you had trouble with
this).

You should end up with a drive which has the desired partitions for the
Apple II, a Mac driver (only a "classic" driver, not a 4.3-compatible
one), and the drive will work on both machines without complaint.  (It
won't get full performance on the Mac, but that isn't a problem if you
are only using it on rare occasions.)