Re: Partioning SCSI drives larger than 130 Megs?

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector) wrote:

>In article supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer) writes...
>
>>obsbedia2@aol.com (Obsbedia2) wrote:
>>
>>>Now that external hard drive prices are dropping, I've upgraded a couple
>>>of Apple //e's to 80 and 160 megabytes.  I'm using the Apple SCSI Utility
>>>disk, but it will only allow up to four 32mb partitions (128 mb).  I've
>>>read the ads in the old Apple II magazines that were selling 200 and even
>>>500 mb hard drives for the Apple II computers (10, 20, 40, 80, 100,), so
>>>I figure that there must be a way to partition a SCSI drive into more
>>>partition, just like the FOCUS IDE drive can be partitioned into up to 14
>>>partitions.
>>>If I'm on the right track, then what program am I looking for?  Is there
>>>anything in Freeware, Public Domain or Shareware?
>>
>>Find yourself an Apple IIGS motherboard.  These can be found
>>cheap on comp.sys.apple2.marketplace.  Replace the IIe motherboard
>>with he IIGS one.
>
>    It is not as simple as that, it requires you find a ROM 00/01
>motherboard that has the IIe keyboard and power connector pins on
>the board (most only have bare solder pads) and then find a metal
>base pan with the GS port cut outs. I suppose you could get pin
>connectors to solder in and cut the base pan with a hacksaw, but
>why bother?

It is not that hard.  Just desolder the power and keyboard
connectors from the IIe and install them on the IIGS
motherboard.

>It is also worth noting there is pretty much
>zero use for a 500 MB hardrive in an Apple IIe, you can get by
>nicely with a 20 MB drive (an Apple IIgs needs more obviously,
>but a 200-300 MB drive is certainly comfortable).

Well let me tell you that the last time I checked, I've filled
up 500+ megabytes of my 1GB IIGS drive.  ;-)

>>Now run GS/OS.  Use Advanced Disk Utilities to partition the disk.
>>Note that with GS/OS, you can use HFS, a filesystem that breakes
>>the 32mb barrier.  That means you can have one 32MB ProDOS
>>partition and have the rest as a big HFS partition.
>>
>>I like HFS a lot and have never had a problem with it.  I just wish
>>the IIGS can boot off an HFS partition so that I did not have to
>>mess with ProDOS at all.
>
>    HFS has far too many limitations on the IIgs to be considered
>a worthy alternative to ProDOS as a filing system (at least with
>the current HFS.FST, and it is very unlikely it will be updated).

I disagree.  I have had ZERO problems with my IIGS hard
drive partitions, Zip disks, or floppy disks.  In fact, I hardly
ever touch ProDOS anymore.  HFS works fine for me.

>Pros:
>
>- Large partitions (up to 2+ Gigabytes in size)
>- Long descriptive filenames with few naming restrictions
>
>Cons:
>
>- Very slow for reading and writing (especially writes)

I don't notice.  Maybe it is the accelerator.

>- Incompatible with ProDOS 8 (and some GS/OS) applications

I have never run into a GS/OS application that is incompatible.
For ProTERM, my only P8 program, I just install it on the boot
partition (my only ProDOS partition).

Basically, I use almost exclusively HFS.  No problems.  I think
HFS gets a bad rap.  People should try it and decide for
themselves.

>- Not accessible from ProDOS 8

So what?  We IIGS users (at least serious ones) rarely use
8-bit software.  For the few ones that we do use, the boot
partition is more than enough.

>- File allocation units increase with partition size

So what?  I suppose you think what FAT and FAT32 does
is better?  They do the same thing!

>- No IIgs HFS maintaince software (optimize, repair, undelete)

Back up your hard disk.  Dude, really.  How many of us
have ProDOS maintanace software?  I don't.

>- HFS.FST very buggy and unstable, corruption chances higher

Applied the patch.  Never had a problem.

>- Cannot boot from HFS partitions

Agreed that this is a con.  Still, the boot ProDOS partition
then means you have some space for your few 8-bit
programs.

>- Requires special (invisible) HFS driver to be read on Mac

We are talking about HFS on the IIGS.  Still, even Mac
sharing is not a problem.  Just use GenEx to extract the
Mac driver from ADU, then ADU can install it and the
drive will be Mac compatible.

>There are probably a few more issues I'm forgetting, but the
>main one to keep in mind is *no HFS maintaince software* is
>available for the IIgs. If something goes wrong, your in big
>trouble. I have a Macintosh Plus handy to take care of this
>if need be, but not everyone has a Mac. With my 330 MB drive,
>I have 8 * 32 MB ProDOS partitions and the remainder as HFS
>(72 MB or so, but I hardly touch that partition for the above
>reasons).

I've filled up 500+ MBs of my 1GIG drive and it would
be a nightmare if I had to use only ProDOS.  I hardly
ever touch ProDOS anymore!  I do have one ProDOS
partition in addition to the boot one, but that one got
QUICKLY filled up with archived csa2 threads.  For the
serious IIGS user, ProDOS is simply not enough!