sl242030@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Robert P. Humphrey) (03/05/91)
Did you know that, if you use the Hard Drive installer that
comes wth the Macintosh System Software, and after formatting,
installing ONE partition, that you can get an extra Meg out of your
Hard Drive?
Where did all that extra space come from? Answer:
A/UX
--
*******************************************************************************
Robert Humphrey, "It's easy to grin when your ship comes in,
Gentleman Scholar And you've got the stock market beat;
But the man worthwhile, Is the man who can smile,
sl242030@ucs.indiana.edu When his shorts are too tight in the seat."
-Ted Knight, Caddyshack
*******************************************************************************minich@unx2.ucc.okstate.edu (Robert Minich) (03/06/91)
by sl242030@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Robert P. Humphrey): | | Did you know that, if you use the Hard Drive installer that | comes wth the Macintosh System Software, and after formatting, | installing ONE partition, that you can get an extra Meg out of your | Hard Drive? | Where did all that extra space come from? Answer: | A/UX Bzzzt. I think the real problem is just a dumb default. (LaserWriter 6.0 users can sympathize.) If you crank up "HD SC Setup" and click on the partition button, you'll get a nice little display that shows how the space on your disk is used (assuming it was formatted with the Apple software, of course.) The following figures are from my disk, a Qunatum 40MB drive that shipped inside my SE/30 and was formatted upon arrival (it was shipped unformatted) by HD SC Setup with the "initialize" button, ie the default partition map. Title Name Firs Block Size Type Partition Num ----- ---- ---------- ---- ---- ------------- Partition Map Apple 1 35.5K Apple_Partition_Map 1 * Mac Driver Macintosh 64 16 K Apple_Driver 2 * HD40 MacOS 96 40000 K Apple_HFS 0 Free Space Extra 80096 966.5K Apple_Free 3 First, the block size on this drive is 512 bytes, so the 40,000K size for the HD40 (my disk name, BTW) is 40,1000/1024 = 39.06MB, not 40MB. Also note that "Free Space" partition, number 3. There's another 960K to be had on that darn disk! Well, here's what I should have done if I knew about this stuff when the Mac first came in: start up the Mac off of a disk other than the Apple one you want to "expand", crank up HD SC Setup, select that hard disk with the Drive button. Hit the partion button and resize the Mac partition to take all the grey colored space (by dragging the edge of the block in the picture.) I haven't done this yet but rest assured I will as soon as something happens to my hard disk, like a crash or (yikes) a backup. Yes, I'm too dumb (cheap?) to make that little effort. <sigh> Self abuse. Anyhow, you'll probably be asked if you REALLY want to do this, as I assume it would probably trash the partition. So, you have to backup first or be prepared to reinstall everything, which won't be hard if all you need is the installer disks from Apple... The Bzzt at the top was just to say that this "extra" disk space isn't reserved for A/UX (it's way to small for that!). I suspect but cannot prove that is is the result of using drives from different manufacturers. Instead of figuring out how many blocks it could snarf, HD SC Setup probably assumes 40,000 bytes is fine and divies the rest up as needed <?> for the partition map, the driver, the the "extra" space. I'd like to see how much space is wasted on various Apple labeled HDs in other people's Macs, like the 80 and 160MB ones. Any volunteers? -- |_ /| | Robert Minich | |\'o.O' | Oklahoma State University| "I'm not discouraging others from using |=(___)= | minich@d.cs.okstate.edu | their power of the pen, but mine will | U | - "Ackphtth" | continue to do the crossword." M. Ho
sl242030@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Robert P. Humphrey) (03/06/91)
I got a letter from someone (sorry I don't give credits, but I
lost his letter), that said that the extra space was where bad sector
information was stored. I've been running mine this way since August,
and haven't had any problems. (Of course, I don't have any bad
sectors, either.)
What I didn't mention in my first post was that you had to do
a custom install, and yes, you have to backup first because it blanks
everything.
A technician I do some work with at a Macintosh dealership
said that the blank space was set aside for A/UX, but he's going to
call Apple in the next couple of days to get the real scoop.
--
*******************************************************************************
Robert Humphrey, "It's easy to grin when your ship comes in,
Gentleman Scholar And you've got the stock market beat;
But the man worthwhile, Is the man who can smile,
sl242030@ucs.indiana.edu When his shorts are too tight in the seat."
-Ted Knight, Caddyshack
*******************************************************************************d88-jwa@byse.nada.kth.se (Jon W{tte) (03/06/91)
In article <> minich@unx2.ucc.okstate.edu (Robert Minich) writes: >by sl242030@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Robert P. Humphrey): >| installing ONE partition, that you can get an extra Meg out of your >| Hard Drive? >Bzzzt. I think the real problem is just a dumb default. (LaserWriter 6.0 >* HD40 MacOS 96 40000 K Apple_HFS 0 >Free Space Extra 80096 966.5K Apple_Free 3 >First, the block size on this drive is 512 bytes, so the 40,000K size >for the HD40 (my disk name, BTW) is 40,1000/1024 = 39.06MB, not 40MB. Notice the "block size". Files are allocated in blocks on the disk, and I _think_ that the default value is chosen so that the block size won't go over a limit, and double. Perhaps using all the space on the drive means going up to 1K block size, and that would mean a _lot_ more "wasted" space at the end of each file (since files always occupy whole blocks) h+@nada.kth.se Jon W{tte "The IM-IV file manager chapter documents zillions of calls, all of which seem to do almost the same thing and none of which seem to do what I want them to do." -- Juri Munkki in comp.sys.mac.programmer
swansond@cube05.csus.edu (Dennis Swanson) (03/07/91)
In article <1991Mar6.140018.5729@nada.kth.se> d88-jwa@byse.nada.kth.se (Jon W{tte) writes: >Notice the "block size". Files are allocated in blocks on the >disk, and I _think_ that the default value is chosen so that >the block size won't go over a limit, and double. Perhaps using According to my Silverlining manual, it's a volume's (or partition's) maximum size that determines the block size. There's a couple of articles in the latest installment of the info-mac digest on this topic, specifically about some poor chap with a gargantuan HD who has found him/herself with a 15K minimum allocation size for files. Would someone who's able shed some more detailed light on the relationship between maximum volume size and block size, and maybe provide us with a table showing at what volume sizes the block size goes from 512K to 1024K, then to the next higher block size, etc. , or maybe the formula for figuring it out for ourselves? This would greatly help people with large HD's decide how small to partition to avoid obscenely large block sizes, and utilize more of their storage capacity. The Silverlining manual I mentioned before makes a passing reference to a 'allocation bit table', having a fixed size of 32K. I feel therein lies the answer to my question, but I can't at the moment figure out how to use this bit of info to construct the table I seek. Anyone? Den /Dennis M. Swanson --> swansond@csus.edu / "He was as calm as a/ /Macintosh Lab Assistant/Computer Science Student/ Perry Como groupie."/ /University Computing and Communications Services/ -- Sledge Hammer/ /California State University, Sacramento /"Harness the Macpower!"/