Author Topic: Installing to a 1TB Hybrid SSD  (Read 15452 times)

gerry

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Installing to a 1TB Hybrid SSD
« on: September 14, 2015, 02:57:47 pm »
Are there known issues with installing multiple OS's to a hybrid SSD (alignments, for instance) ? If I partition the drive (with the eCS Installer) in my usual way of Win7 in a primary and everything else (Ubuntu, eCS and sundry other volumes) as logicals, then on re-booting, eCS sees only the Win7 primary as installable. However, if I partition it with 3 primaries for Win7, Ubuntu and eCS, and everything else as logicals, then I can install both Win7 and eCS (not tried Ubuntu). But Air-Boot will not run, so the only way of choosing the OS is by using DFSee to flip the 'active partition' setting! And Windows cannot see any of the logical partitions (one of which I would normally format with FAT32 to be shared between the three OS's.

My preferred set-up works well on my Tosh laptop with a 1TB 'normal' hard drive, so it is not the h/d size. And I think that I have switched-off all the traces of EFI and SecureBoot (else I should not be able to instal anything).

Any ideas, please ?


ivan

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Re: Installing to a 1TB Hybrid SSD
« Reply #1 on: September 14, 2015, 06:15:07 pm »
Unless you are very careful win7 will use a small primary boot partition and a larger partition for everything else.  I think this might be what is causing you your problems.

May I suggest that you use DFSee to do the partitioning.  I can't help with Air-Boot as we never use it, just the standard Boot Manager which allows us to boot OS/2, OS/2 maint, Suse and, on my test machine, BeOS with everything being in logical partitions. 

gerry

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Re: Installing to a 1TB Hybrid SSD
« Reply #2 on: September 14, 2015, 09:41:57 pm »
Thanks, Ivan, but I don't think so.

 1. Windows is exactly where I put it, in Primary partition 1, and does not interfere with eCS installed in Primary 3. Win7 can see a bunch of other local disks, but thinks they are all of zero size.

2. eCS2.2 can see the partitioning perfectly, but would not allow itself to be installed in anything other than the 'active' partition

3. AirBoot was installed ok in the MBR, but would not run because of perceived partitioning errors (I abandoned the IBM BM a few years ago as there were too many problems with it)

4. DFSee sees the disk partitioning ok as far as the first logical, then sees only free space.

5. I did try partitioning with DFSee, but then the eCS installer could not see anything at all - and installing eCS is the main objective of the whole exercise ....

It seems to me that everybody is seeing a different view of the layout (and mostly seeing errors), which is why I am wondering about the Hybrid SSD ... but Seagate say you treat it as an ordinary drive ... but that is the most striking difference from my other, working, systems.

ivan

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Re: Installing to a 1TB Hybrid SSD
« Reply #3 on: September 14, 2015, 11:09:54 pm »
OK, I still think that windows is the fly in the ointment somehow - it might be tied in with how the drive firmware sees windows.

The thing I forgot to ask is, make and model of the drive.  Once I know that I can get one of my people to see what we have on record about it.

gerry

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Re: Installing to a 1TB Hybrid SSD
« Reply #4 on: September 15, 2015, 12:00:48 pm »
Thanks again, Ivan. As an ex IBM Tech Planner (CICS comms, security, OS/2, 400) I am more than happy to blame Windows for all the ills in the world 8-) but in this case  I will give it the benefit of any doubt as the same setup works perfectly well in the 1TB Tosh laptop. I am also not too sure that DFSee is entirely comfortable with the different geometry of TB drives. On the Tosh, DFSee sees nothing in the logical but free space; whereas on the old machine that I am trying to replace, which has two 500GB drives, DFSee displays the whole layout perfectly.

The Hybrid SSD is a Seagate ST1000DX001-1NS162. I have only managed to find some general comments about putting padding into the layout for performance reasons - nothing about considerations for complex partitioning. If you can find anything I will be very grateful! Otherwise I shall have to buy a conventional drive to put in as disk 1.

Greggory Shaw

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Re: Installing to a 1TB Hybrid SSD
« Reply #5 on: September 15, 2015, 01:45:53 pm »
...

The Hybrid SSD is a Seagate ST1000DX001-1NS162. I have only managed to find some general comments about putting padding into the layout for performance reasons - nothing about considerations for complex partitioning. If you can find anything I will be very grateful! Otherwise I shall have to buy a conventional drive to put in as disk 1.

I have one of those (Seagate) and works fine with my setup. The instructions are a bit old, but I still use the same setup.

http://os2notes.duckdns.org/os2dualboot.html


Greggory
« Last Edit: September 15, 2015, 05:16:11 pm by Greggory Shaw »

gerry

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Re: Installing to a 1TB Hybrid SSD
« Reply #6 on: September 15, 2015, 03:16:50 pm »
Thanks, Greggory .... glad it works for you! Maybe I need to go back and have another hard look at the motherboard (asus a88xm-plus) and bios settings ......

Pete

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Re: Installing to a 1TB Hybrid SSD
« Reply #7 on: September 15, 2015, 06:41:55 pm »
Hi Gerry

Have you made the 1Tb drive eCS(OS/2) Compatible?

i seem to recall I had to use DFsee to Wipe start of disk to 0 exit DFSee, reboot and then eCS could partiton/volume the disk using LVM. Prior to that eCS could only "see" about 500Gb.


Regards

Pete



Doug Bissett

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Re: Installing to a 1TB Hybrid SSD
« Reply #8 on: September 15, 2015, 06:47:22 pm »
Thanks, Greggory .... glad it works for you! Maybe I need to go back and have another hard look at the motherboard (asus a88xm-plus) and bios settings ......

I doubt if that will help. The problem is probably in the disk layout. If it was done by anything other than DFSEE, booted to OS/2, it is likely wrong for OS/2. It might work okay, if you keep all of the OS/2 partitions completely inside the first 500 Gb, but windows wants the first partition.

I have an Asus A88XM-A motherboard (I don't know what is different on the plus), and I have a 1 TB drive (but it is not the boot drive). DFSEE is happy with it as a single partition, formatted as JFS. I think I have a 1 TB drive that I can wipe, to see if I can install eCS. It is not a hybrid, but that should be totally transparent to software. Speed variations (depending on what is in the solid state part) could cause some problems at boot time.

FWIW, I suspect that using a hybrid drive will be self defeating, unless you always run either windows, or eCS. Switching between them will tend to save parts of the disk that get used in the running OS. When you switch to the other, it will take a while for it to re-sync. Switch back, and it starts over again.

Greg Pringle

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Re: Installing to a 1TB Hybrid SSD
« Reply #9 on: September 15, 2015, 08:04:51 pm »
I have installed a Seagate hybrid by using an older motherboard to do the install and then  replacing the older motherboard with a new one. I had tried to install the drive using an Asus B85m but it would not work in any mode tried. I can install regular drives and ssd drives on the Asus but not a hybrid. I was able to install the hybrid using an old mother board and simply replace it with the Asus. It works fine.

Doug Bissett

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Re: Installing to a 1TB Hybrid SSD
« Reply #10 on: September 15, 2015, 11:34:09 pm »
Quote
I think I have a 1 TB drive that I can wipe, to see if I can install eCS.

It is not a hybrid, but I used DFSEE to clear the front end of the drive, then I attached it (as the only drive) to my A88MX-A motherboard. Then, I booted the eCS 2.2 b2 DVD, and installed eCS. The first thing was that the disk check found nothing on the disk, and put a partition table on it (as expected, and this is probably the critical step). Then, it needed a reboot, and got to the disk setup. It found no partitions (as expected), and started miniLVM. I then added the boot manager (AirBoot 1.1.0), and made my partitions:
300 GB for windows, bootable, primary, no drive letter.
50 GB for a FAT32 drive, bootable, logical, letter D:.
2 GB for the first eCS boot drive, logical, bootable, letter C:.
2 GB for the second eCS boot drive, logical, bootable, letter M: (no good reason for the letter M:).
the rest minus about 1.5 GB, for my data/programs disk, advanced, letter W: (no good reason for the drive letter).
the rest for a bootAble maintenance partition, bootable, letter Y: (no good reason for the drive letter).
Saved, and selected C: as the install partition. Formatted that as JFS. Then, I formatted the rest of the eCS partitions as JFS. The windows partitions are left not formatted, for now.

Then, I set up eCS on the C: drive, putting all of the optional stuff (%HOME%, %PROGRAMS%, CUPS, RPM/YUM etc.) on the W: drive. A few minutes later it was all done, and works with no trouble (so far). AirBoot did require a little adjusting, which is easy enough.

As I said earlier, the drive should always appear to be a normal drive to the software. All of the speed up should be done invisibly (but, I could be wrong about that).

Some other things about the motherboard:

I had to specifically select UniAud for sound. I don't think sound works, but the driver loads (no speakers).

I also had to install the LAN with the IBM NULL adapter. The available R8168 (8110) driver will not work, and it can turn off the interface so that even windows won't turn it back on. If that happens, you need to turn the machine off, pull the plug, wait for about a minute, then plug it back in and turn it on. The ONLY driver, that I have found, that will properly run the NIC is the newly released MMRE driver, from Arca Noae. The newest R8168 driver (from Arca Noae) works for a short period of time, but then it slows to a stop. Older versions probably trap.

I am also using QSINIT so that I can use the memory above 4 GB as a RAMDISK.

gerry

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Re: Installing to a 1TB Hybrid SSD
« Reply #11 on: September 26, 2015, 10:31:29 pm »
Gentlefolk ... thanks for all those comments ...

Yes, I did clear the disk (wiped it completely to make sure), then used DFSee to set the logical geometry to 255/127. The eCS installer was happy to set up the partitions exactly how I wanted them, using the whole 1TB. But on restarting, the installer decided that the only partition it was prepared to install into was the one earmarked for windows. The only way I could get to install eCS in partition 3 was to define those first three partitions as primaries, and even then I had to use DFSee to mark P3 as startable. Having installed eCS, AirBoot installed but refused to run, citing CHS problems. So it was already screwed, without windows being anywhere near the system. I do now have Win7 and eCS2.2 both installed and running but the only way of switching between them is to flip the 'active/startable partition' marker. Not very satisfactory.

Thanks, Doug, for the comments about the Realtek driver - I didn't think that either of the new ones was working for me as I was still getting 'network unreachable' messages. But I was wrong - the messages were due to using dynamic network addressing (looks as if mptn setup maybe should be waiting for dhcpstrt to complete before issuing its ROUTE commands). The new MMRE driver actually had the network interface humming all the time. As for lack of audio: at the moment I am not that bothered, but once I have (if ever!) got everything else working I might want to add a decent PCI sound card ... any suggestions for one with good eCS support ?

Now I know that the network works, I am re-motivated to go back and sort out the installation. I don't have a spare SATA-capable m/b to play swapsies with, so it's back to the drawing board with the machine as it stands. But this time I promise to be more methodical and keep better notes ......

Thanks for all advice so far!

Doug Bissett

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Re: Installing to a 1TB Hybrid SSD
« Reply #12 on: September 26, 2015, 11:35:58 pm »
Quote
then used DFSee to set the logical geometry to 255/127.

I think this is not valid for OS/2. Wipe the disk, then start the eCS installer. When the disk is checked, it will tell you that there is no partition table, and offer to fix it. Do so, and it will write the table, and set the geometry correctly (windows won't care). FWIW, I put an OS/2 boot partition at the very end, and it works fine. Windows does need to have the first primary partition.

Quote
But I was wrong - the messages were due to using dynamic network addressing

You should try the new dhcp client from https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/76425158/dhcp-client-preview2.zip. It says it is a preview, but it works better than the old client (for me).

Quote
I might want to add a decent PCI sound card

I have used a number of different sound cards, but the best, so far, is a SoundBlaster Live. It needs the driver from the eCS install CD:
\CID\SERVER\MMECS\DRIVERS\SBLIVE
README.TXT says it is version 0.81, but it is really version 0.82, which has been fixed to accept high IRQs.

Andi B.

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Re: Installing to a 1TB Hybrid SSD
« Reply #13 on: September 27, 2015, 11:17:15 am »
Quote
....dhcp client from https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/76425158/dhcp-client-preview2.zip....
Doug, is there any reason why you suggest this old build instead the current rpm version? yum install dhclient give the the latest version from netlabs.org. The netlabs version is also checked into the official repository. It is tested and adopted to xwlan too. So why do you stick with this special build.

Doug Bissett

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Re: Installing to a 1TB Hybrid SSD
« Reply #14 on: September 27, 2015, 05:12:35 pm »
Quote
....dhcp client from https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/76425158/dhcp-client-preview2.zip....
Doug, is there any reason why you suggest this old build instead the current rpm version? yum install dhclient give the the latest version from netlabs.org. The netlabs version is also checked into the official repository. It is tested and adopted to xwlan too. So why do you stick with this special build.

Well, it works, and the YUM version doesn't always work (obviously not properly tested, or not properly installed by YUM). I have two (perhaps 3) machines where the YUM version will not get an address, unless I run SETUP.CMD from the Startup folder. The one that I mention works every time, on every machine, including the ones that use XWLAN.