Re: Partitioning

[nathan@visi.com (Nathan Mates)]

In article <52hkqs$p8h@rock101.genie.net>,  <l.middleton3@genie.com> wrote:
>Isn't there a way to partition a hard drivelarger than 32 megs with Prodos
>using the RamFAST utilites?  I know I read about it somewhere.

   If I'm reading you correctly, this has been in the comp.sys.apple2
FAQ for a bit over a week now at
http://wwww.visi.com/~nathan/a2/faq/csa2.html

   I quote from the FAQ:
---

Q#35 Why do partitions have a maximum size of 32MB?

A: ProDOS, the usual choice for Apple II disks (Hard Drives, CD-ROMs,
etc), is limited to 32MB per partition. It would require rewriting
large chunks to get it to work with larger partitions.  Just use the
partitioning tools (included with the SCSI card or the like) to make
several 32MB partitions.

If you have a GS with System 6.0, you can install the HFS FST (you
must do a customized install, not the Easy Update), which lets you
have partitions larger than 32MB. The System 6.0.1 HFS FST should have
the patch applied to it before it is used with volumes >96MB, but I
(Nathan Mates) have had volumes corrupted and don't really trust the
HFS FST. (See the System 6.0 Minifaq in this FAQ for details on where
to download the patch.

The differences between HFS and ProDOS are as follows:

ProDOS partitions: Limited to 32MB, your boot (first) partition MUST
be a ProDOS volume.  Disk integrity checkers exist (ProSEL by
Charlie's Appleseeds, Salvation by Vitesse) to make sure your disk
remains uncorrupted as possible.

HFS partitions: Requires GS/OS System 6.0 or higher, and therefore
1.5MB RAM. Maximum volume size is either 2 or 4 terabytes (pretty darn
big either way). Default HFS FST with System 6.0.1 is buggy; even with
patches it may not be stable. The only way to verify that a partition
is uncorrupted is to take the HD to a Mac and run Disk First Aid or
Norton on it-- no GS HFS disk verification programs exist.

Keeping good backups of your files is a real lifesaver when problems
happen, no matter what filesystem they're saved to.

--- End of quoting

   And if you're asking _how_ to get the RamFAST to create partitions
larger than 32MB, I could do so just fine with my 3.00l ROMs-- after
creating a bunch of 32MB partitions, I clicked on 'add new partition',
and sized it to the remainder of the drive. If your ROMs are a much
older version, you may want/need to upgrade to get such functionality.

   Although I haven't used it, David Empson has been raving about the
CMS disk tools software for some time now; you may be ale to use it to
repartition your drives with >32MB partitions. He recently posted it
to comp.binaries.apple2; it looks like ground.isca.uiowa is currently
having a bad afternoon so I cand't give an exact path there.

   [And a bit of warning: repartitioning will essentially blow away
the contents of all partitions on the drive (technically, if you
create new partitions of the same size in the same order, disk recover
programs like ProSEL have a pretty darn good chance of recovering
files in subdirs, but I wouldn't want to bet any files that), so make
sure you back up anything you want first.]

Nathan Mates

--
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.visi.com/~nathan/      <*>
# What are the facts? Again and again and again-- what are the _facts_?
# Shun wishful thinking, avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors
# think-- what are the facts, and to how many decimal places?  -R.A. Heinlein