Re: Hard Drives Partition

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

In article <3l4de7$3dj@freenet.vancouver.bc.ca>,
Gavin Fung <gfung@freenet.vancouver.bc.ca> wrote:
> Is it possible to partition the hard drive for several different
> format, ie. HFS, ProDOS, and MSDOS.

It is possible to set up a SCSI hard drive with HFS and ProDOS
partitions which can be accessed from (and boot, if necessary) a Mac
and Apple II.  The Mac and Apple II use the same partitioning scheme.

MS-DOS, however, uses a different partitioning scheme that is not
compatible with the Mac/Apple II scheme.  Special software is required
to access data on an hard drive with the PC's standard partitioning
scheme, and you cannot mix MS-DOS and ProDOS/HFS partitions on the
same disk.

It might just be possible with PC Exchange on a Macintosh - I'm pretty
sure it can read disks using the PC partitioning scheme, so if you had
specially written software you might be able to set up an HFS or
ProDOS partition under the PC partitioning scheme, and access them on
the Mac.  You probably wouldn't be able to boot the Mac from it.

This would also be no use on an Apple II unless someone wrote a device
driver that could cope with the PC's partitioning scheme (i.e. a new
version of SCSIHD.DRIVER for use with Apple's SCSI cards, or a new
RAMFast ROM).
--
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz
Snail mail: P.O. Box 27-103, Wellington, New Zealand