Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!psuvax1!psuvm!cunyvm!maine.bitnet!tar
From: TAR@MAINE.BITNET (Thom Rounds)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: How to use a hard disk with Minix
Message-ID: <89332.220027TAR@MAINE.BITNET>
Date: 29 Nov 89 03:00:27 GMT
References: <312@trux.UUCP>
Lines: 93

In article <312@trux.UUCP>, car@trux.UUCP (Chris Rende) says:
>
>After a year of on and off hacking at xt_wini I finally had it patched to
>work with my 5Mb and 10Mb hard disk. This past weekend I was able to do a
>"mkfs /dev/hd0 5000; /etc/mount /dev/hd0 /user" and load all kinds of stuff
>onto the hard disk.
>
>(I used hd0 because I don't have the partitioning part of xt_wini working
>yet...).

    I hope there was nothing on that disk, because if there was, you trashed
it.
>
>I have some questions about using a hard disk with minix:
>(I have Minix 1.2 but plan to upgrade now that my HD works).
>
>1) I supose that the correct "way" is to use hd1-hd4 instead of hd0, right?
>   This is probably where fdisk comes in...
>
    My God!! You don't even know what FDISK is for, and you went and did that
ANYWAY??!
    To answer your question, yes. Fdisk partitions you hard disk for you. Re-
partitioning your hard disk has the same effect as reformmatting it. The data
is all there, but you can't get at it. You have to reformat it first. /dev/hd0
under Minix is the entire first hard disk, *** IT IS NOT THE FIRST PARTITION.
/dev/hd1 is the first partition, /dev/hd2 is the second, /dev/hd3 is the third.
/dev/hd4 is the entire second hard disk, etc. Try to remember, re-partitioning
your hard disk means you lose what is on it. I learned this the hard way.

>2) If you only have a 5Mb hard disk to use, what's the best way to use it?
>   Make one big 5Mb partition? Mount it on /user? Mount it on /usr?
>   Make two partitions? Mount one on /user and one on /usr?
>
>   What Minix directories are best used as mount points for the hard disk?
>
    This is all up to you and how you want your system configured. These are
also thing you should work out BEFORE you commence this operation (I didn't,
and I learned the hard way). With only five meg, you probably want the whole
thing as one dir (probably /usr). The best directories to use as mount points
are empty ones on the root file system (/usr, /user, or make your own).

>3) I'd like to the RAM disk for as little as possible (if at all). Is it
>   wise to use the hard disk as the ROOT FS?
>   How do you move the ROOT FS from the RAM disk to the HD?
>   How do you get rid of or reduce the RAM disk in order to free up RAM?
>
    I would advise leaving the root FS on the RAM disk. You probably don't need
much more RAM than you have. Minix only takes just what it needs plus a couple
of K.

>4) When I get my second drive (10Mb) to work, what would be a good disk layout
>   for using the two drives together?
>
    I have a hard time beleiving that you aren't using either hard drive, and
if you are using them, DON'T repartition EITHER of them until you back them up!
    Once you get them both working, I would suggest you mount them just as you
would your floppies, and make two spare dirs on your root directory for flopp-
ies. The root directory will have to stay on the ramdisk so you have something
to mount you hdisks to (You cant mount them on themselves).

>5) How can I boot from the hard drive? - I'd like to get the floppies out
>   of the boot process, if possible.
>
    WHY BOTHER?? Minix is just a small Unix system, and at present cannot be
made to match Xenix or any other Unix sytem. It's just an alternate op sys.
It wouldn't be worth  the hassle. And besides, if you are running DOS and you
do configure Minix for boot off hdisk, you will have to boot DOS off floppy.
    The Moral: You can't have your cake and eat it too.

>Any pointers about HD use with Minix would be greatly appreciated.
>
>Observation:
>I can see the head positioning mechanism moving on the HD while the disk is
>operating. Minix seems to do alot of seeks back to the start of the file
>system, cyl 0, super block, or whatever. While doing a "cat somefile" the
>head seeks to a block from somefile, returns to the start of the disk, seeks
>to the next block of somefile, returns to the start of the disk, etc...
>Why does the head keep returning "home"? How can this be reduced?
>
    Minix isn't doing that. The hard disk is doing that so it knows where to
look for the next block of somefile. It's perfectly normal, and I can't see why
you would want to reduce it anyway.
>car.
>--
>Christopher A. Rende           Central Cartage (Nixdorf/Pyramid/SysVR2/BSD4.3)
-------
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