Internal MyIDE Question

[Goochman]

Ok,

 

Im starting from scratch and want to make sure I get this right. I dont understand all the specifics around getting these #s right so Im hoping someone can help me.

 

I have a CF->IDE adaptor with a 512meg CF card in it as my hard drive.

 

I want to setup 4 16 meg partitions and also have image loading.

 

Here is what the FDISK.BAS program reported back (version 3.1 on utils disk)

 

Cylinders 994

Heads 16

Sectors 63

Partitions 0

Image Load OFF

Cyl/Image 0

OPTONSBYTE 0

 

----------------------------------

Can someone help me get this configured for 4 16 meg partitions and give me the right IMAGE LOAD offset???

[JR>]

Set the image offset to 1 and you should be able to get 3 16Meg partitions in before the image area with enough left over for a 14 Meg there (but don't create that one if you just want 16 Meg partitions. Then you can still get 3 more 16 Meg partitions after the image area with about 6 meg to spare. This then will give you room for 256 disk images in the image area. That's the best way I've found to do my 512 CF with identical parameters.

[Goochman]

Thanks JR - can you give me #s yo uuse for all this - I think I set my previous one up wrong and my image offset overwrote my HD area

 

Image offset = 1

 

when I create my first partition what should I plug in?

[JR>]

Sure, set the image offset to 1 then start creating partitions. It will ask if you want to use the area after the image are. Answer NO for the first 3 (or 4 if you want the 14 Meg partition too) and enter 65535 for the number of sectors and 1 to select double density. If you do create the 14 meg partition you can still enter 65535 and it will just assign all it can. For the next partition answer YES if it asks you to use the area above the image area and you can then create 3 more 16 Meg Partitions there.

 

This give you the area from cyl 256 - 768 for images with 2 cyl per image...enough for up to 256 disk images.

[Goochman]

Ok - just so I understand -

 

I can create 3 16 meg partitions answering NO to the after iamge area.

 

I can create 3 more 16 meg partitions (for a total of 6) answering YES to after image area?

 

Do you use Shawn Jeffersons Image Load utility at all? I had some bugs with it I believe but it couldve been my setup.

[JR>]

Yes, that is correct, but since the partitions are created consecutively, once you've answered YES once, it won't ask you any more. All subsequent partitions will then be created after the image area..

 

No, I haven't done much work with images at all yet.

[Goochman]

Thanks JR> - This helps alot. Im off this weekend but will reconfig when I get back

[Shawn Jefferson]

My tools for the MyIDE OS v3.1 internal/external are at:

 

MyIDE Tools

 

I've made some improvements over these versions but they are in the newest builds which only support MyIDE OS version 3.5F. One day I'll add in the improvements to the older 3.1 supporting versions. I've used the above tools on my version 3.1 with little problem. There is a nasty bug in the 3.1 MyIDE OS that will corrupt your partitions if you copy from one MyIDE partition to another. You have to be aware of that.

 

The MyIDE Config program I worte will put all partitons under the image space until you try to create one that doesn't fit there and then it will ask you if you want to put it after the image space.

 

The newer MyIDE OS versions have a better interface for third party programmers. The versions currently at my website were written by dissassembling Sijmen's source code and jumping directly to routines there.

Edited September 13, 2005 by Shawn Jefferson

[Goochman]

Shawn - DOH! - SO with 3.1 IM kinda hosed - I had problems with my partitions and I was copying between them - I thought it was my config, but it appears it was the drivers

 

So,

Im kinda stuck then? I hear 4.0 is coming soon - I presume that will be my only fix to this issue?

[Shawn Jefferson]

Shawn - DOH! - SO with 3.1 IM kinda hosed - I had problems with my partitions and I was copying between them - I thought it was my config, but it appears it was the drivers

 

Yes.. it bit me a couple of times too. My whole ATOS partition was wiped out after I had customized it.

 

So,

Im kinda stuck then?  I hear 4.0 is coming soon - I presume that will be my only fix to this issue?

 

You could copy to ramdisk first, or to a SIO2PC based location then to your myide partition. Sijmen mentioned that the 4.0 eprom based MyIDE OS may only support 3 partitions due to a limited amount of RAM space.

 

3.5F (the ram-resident version) fixes this problem and is much better overall than the 3.1 versions. It's ram resident though, so any program that swaps out the OS or uses space under the OS won't work.

[Shannon]

Note too self... dont use 3.1.. check.