[Coco] Multiple HDB-DOS 256 drive partitions Software Wanted

[Gene Heskett]

On Wednesday 24 April 2013 13:19:52 Bill Gunshannon did opine:

> > On Wednesday 24 April 2013 10:53:55 Mark Marlette did opine:
> >> Luis,
> >> 
> >> I don't believe this is correct.
> >> 
> >> In the current configuration of  the NitrOS-9 offset is 0 and works
> >> as you say but.....
> >> 
> >> If you were to add an offset to the SuperDriver descriptor it would
> >> then use that as it's relative LSN0 offset.
> >> 
> >> The size / drive geometry then kicks in to effect and you go up from
> >> there.
> > 
> > There is a bit, IIRC in the IT.TYP byte of the descriptor, and I miss
> > typed
> > in the previous nsg & called it IT.DNS, my bad!
> > 
> > See the superdriver descriptor doc you have on your site, which tells
> > format whether it should query the drive for its geometry and size, or
> > should take the descriptor info as gospel.  For a virtual floppy, my
> > /sh's IT.TYP is $81, but READ the docs!
> > 
> > THIS BIT IS THE MOST DANGEROUS MINEFIELD IN NITROS9.
> > 
> > Read, and set the bits in each device descriptor very carefully else
> > you may format the whole drive with a MB script.
> > 
> > YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
> > 
> > With this bit properly set, and the offsets in the descriptor properly
> > set so its safe to format based on the descriptor, you can do
> > anything you want. One could theoretically setup the first partition
> > at 120 megabytes so
> > it would only need a 1 sector per cluster FAT map, then setup the next
> > 41,287,680 bytes of the disk as 256 hdbdos virtual floppies, then do
> > the next 120 megs as a 2nd os9 partition, then by poking new values
> > into HDBDOS, have another 41,287,680 byte piece of the drive as
> > vdisks 257-512, and repeat that several more times on a 1Gib disk. 
> > All accessable at the same time with nitros9 if you have enough
> > /sh-like descriptors in the bootfile, each properly configured, with
> > even the 257-xxx hdbdos vdrives being bootable with the use of my
> > bootlink utility.
> 
> Wow...  This reminds me so much of Ultrix-11.  Absoluteley nothing
> actually on the disk to tell you what the partitioning is.  If you
> chose to do non-standard partitions and then moved the disk to a
> different system, pfftttt.  All gone.  Take the warnng above very
> seriously,  :-)
> 
> bill

This is also very true, and a lesson to learn about configuration backups.

Cheers, Gene
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