External hard drive

I have an 320gb external hard drive, which I want to use for backup/storage, of the computers that my wife and I have in the house. It is a usb 2.0 device, in fact an external case in which I installed the hard drive.
I have partitioned it on my laptop with two partitions Media: and Music: I have copied over the video files, and mp3's from my laptop, and everthing seem's OK, but as soon as I plug it into my A1, my A1 locks up.

The two partitions are mounted as seperate drives on my laptop, but it has only one usb lead. Is the lock up due something being missing on the A1 usb system, or is it a problem with the hardware?

If it us the A1 usb system, how can I set up the external drive to be usable on an A1/OS4 machine, as well as my laptop, and my wife's PC?

Thanks for any help.

@Swoop

usb 2.0 device,
If you got the driver, it should work fine.
Same problem here:
http://www.amigans.net/modules/newbb/ ... php?topic_id=2018&forum=4

@Swoop

What format is the drive? it has to be fat16/32 for the A1 to use it, no mac formats or ntfs etc. will work.

The case also has to support USB 1.1 and if it's one of the small 2.5" drives that has 2 usb plugs on the hub/computer end of the drive then you'll probably need to use a PSU with it.

@Swoop

Try repartitioning it again on the laptop using swissknife
Its free and available here.

http://www.compuapps.com/download/Swissknife/swissknife.htm

This should allow you to have one large fat32 partition on your external drive.

Then give it a whirl.

@Severin

It's formatted as fat32. I bought an external case and put a 320gb ide drive in it, but the case has usb connector's.


@Jurassicc

Yes, I wondered if a single partition was the answer, and whether or not the OS4 usb system could mount 2 partitions over one usb commector.
I used a program on my laptop to partition it, Paragon 8.5 I think, but I will have a look at the program you linked to.

My next job is to install OS4.1, I have prepped my hard drive, I just want to swap a dvd-writer, install my 9250, and possible drop my vcore to 1.39v. Then I'll be ready.

Thanks for the input guys.

@Jurassicc

Quote:Hi Carl,

Thanks for that, I have repartitioned it as one partition on my laptop, using swissknife. It was very easy.

Anyway, I ended up with a 298gb partition, and transfered 22.75gb from my laptop. When connected to my A1, once the drive is initialised (big drive) I can open it up and the capacities are shown at the top of the window but no files are listed. When I select Icon/info, again all the sizes appear correct, and the filesystem is L:CrossDOSFileSystem, but it shows it as FAT2 in brackets.

The only good thing is that it doesn't lock up my A1, and I can connect/disconnect as a usb device should.

Is the Fat2, just an error in CrossDOS?
Is there a way to configure CrossDOS?

Can this info be passed on to the OS4 usb maintainer?

@Swoop

FAT2 is FAT32.
It only displayed wrong because the ASCII-Code of "2" is 0x32.

@Swoop

I recently bought a Western Digital Passport Essential external HD (250GB) for backup purposes too, prior to installing OS4.1.

It works great on both PC and AmigaONE-XE.
The only problem on the A1 is that if I try to copy a whole partition with all its sub-directories in one hit, the A1 will freeze, requiring a reboot. However, if the files are copied individually then there aren't any problems.

@Lemen

Well with a 512 Mo stick, I have the same problem.

The solution I choose is to copy groups by groups and not in one only loop.

Second, I notice but don't know if it is always true but now I will copy from hd to USB after the OS4.1 is loaded.

I DO NOTHING BEFORE AND WHILE I COPY.

In fact, when I play with windows or others programs, it seems that USB (or OS4.1) does not like it and freezes my system.

That's only I can tell you.