what tool to use to create a large fat32 partition?

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453
S95 S110

Re: what tool to use to create a large fat32 partition?

« Reply #20 on: 06 / May / 2019, 14:16:23 »

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@reyalp the error is gone when starting up, but it's a long wait.

to test the reboot function, i first have to make it a dual partition card.
since stick does not recognise the large sd card although it's formatted in FAT32, what are the other options?

the method of creating a dual boot card in camera does not work anymore because the resulting size of the first partition is too small..or is that fixed in CHDK1.5?

« Last Edit: 06 / May / 2019, 15:05:20 by Mlapse »

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reyalp

13673

Re: what tool to use to create a large fat32 partition?

« Reply #21 on: 06 / May / 2019, 16:01:09 »

Quote from: Mlapse on 06 / May / 2019, 14:16:23

to test the reboot function, i first have to make it a dual partition card.
since stick does not recognise the large sd card although it's formatted in FAT32, what are the other options?

I'd suggest gparted under linux. There are various liveusb / livecd distros that provide this. You can make the card bootable in camera afterward.

Since windows 10 now has some support for multi-partition removable media, you might be able to do the partition there, either with CLI commands or though the computer management storage / disk management snapin.

Quote

the method of creating a dual boot card in camera does not work anymore because the resulting size of the first partition is too small..or is that fixed in CHDK1.5?

The partition is not too small, it only needs to contain DISKBOOT.BIN.

That said, the in camera partitioning has always seemed pretty dubious to me. You still need to *format* the partitions outside of the camera.

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453
S95 S110

Re: what tool to use to create a large fat32 partition?

« Reply #22 on: 06 / May / 2019, 16:31:14 »

Quote

The partition is not too small, it only needs to contain DISKBOOT.BIN.
That said, the in camera partitioning has always seemed pretty dubious to me. You still need to *format* the partitions outside of the camera.

I have used it with succes up until 1.4,
the trick is as you say in the fact that you had to format in windows, so before windows could accept dual partition cards, you'd have to place the small build on partition one to be able to swap partitions in the camera and set up CHDK on partition 2.
With only 2Mb that was, and is, not enough for this method since CHDK1.4.

I'm guessing i'll go with the linux option.
Windows may recognise dual partition SD nowadays, but still can't make them.

« Last Edit: 06 / May / 2019, 16:44:57 by Mlapse »

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reyalp

13673

Re: what tool to use to create a large fat32 partition?

« Reply #23 on: 06 / May / 2019, 16:46:34 »

Quote from: Mlapse on 06 / May / 2019, 16:31:14

With only 2Mb that was, and is, not enough for this method.

You should only need DISKBOOT.BIN or PS.FI2 to swap partitions.

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453
S95 S110

Re: what tool to use to create a large fat32 partition?

« Reply #24 on: 06 / May / 2019, 16:55:40 »

thanks to @zeno excellent work I first tried Stick, but since it does not support large SD cards, this method does not work (yet).
luckely he does have this link to fat32format on his STICK page...and that helped me later.

thanks to @dmitrys I had another option: Chimp, that does support large cards, but it had to download a build instead of me pointing it to an existing one and then I got this error: 1 is not a supported code page.
Since i found no answers to what went wrong, I did not know how to solve this and so I tried something old.

I used CHDK to make a dual partition card.
Put it into a windows 10 system, since that does recognise both partitions there is no need to swap active partitions anymore.

Formatted the 2mb partition with windows, did the large partition with fat32format.
Unpacked the build reyalp made for me yesterday
Placed it back in the camera and tried to use the card lock method, failed to autoboot as I expected after a format in windows.
So then I tried CHDK to make it bootable, but that failed to autoboot too....something i did not expect.
I tried several times but to no avail.

So I fired up Chimp again, just to make the card bootable, you do not need to download a build for that.
worked first time as described on the tin.

And I now have a dual partition bootable large SD card...have to do some testing.
After that i will set up a rig to test the reboot somewhere close to 24 days.

It is really a shame that this dual boot method only works with FAT16+FAT32 and not FAT16+exFAT, but i'm guessing that is a Canon limitation.
Because as we discovered some posts back, the speed of the card has suffered dearly from this FAT32 conversion

« Last Edit: 07 / May / 2019, 06:40:14 by Mlapse »

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453
S95 S110

Re: what tool to use to create a large fat32 partition?

« Reply #25 on: 14 / June / 2022, 14:25:10 »

best to continue this old thread i thought, since it is the same issue.

against my better judgement I picked up an even larger card for a next year project

and have again that error at boot: missing modules.
PC test: exfat vs fat32 approx 10% slower at fat32...still above 90MB/s read 70 MB/s write
card is v30, class 10, U3, I.

i tried on the g1x 101a and s110 102b, both moved from the spash screen in a few seconds when it was still exfat.
after formatting to fat32 it took some 14 seconds on the s110 and G1X before the canon splash screen was over when started in play....before loading chdk, no card lock.

when starting regular with card lock, only very long press starts cam. so the lens extended and then i got the chdk splash... error:missing module

Reyalp, I thought you changed that timing to change with card size since we had that issue with the s95.
but maybe not dynamically enough

is it possible to extend that wait time some more? serious request

I know i don't like my question...more time lost while (re)booting

« Last Edit: 14 / June / 2022, 17:07:00 by Mlapse »

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philmoz

3407

Re: what tool to use to create a large fat32 partition?

« Reply #26 on: 14 / June / 2022, 20:03:22 »

@mlapse

Cameras that can autoboot from FAT32 cards don't support dual partitions because the code to do so was not added - it was not thought necessary.
However there is no reason they cannot do so - it just requires a change to the CHDK startup code to detect and swap partitions.

I have tried this on my G1X and it seems to work fine.

In addition supporting a dual partition card with the 2nd (large) partition formatted as exFat is also just a code change to the CHDK boot code (provided the camera natively supports exFat). The G12 has always had this and I have tested this in my G1X as well.

If you can tell me the firmware version of your G1X I can create a test build that handle dual partition cards.

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CHDK ports:
sx30is (1.00c, 1.00h, 1.00l, 1.00n & 1.00p)
g12 (1.00c, 1.00e, 1.00f & 1.00g)
sx130is (1.01d & 1.01f)
ixus310hs (1.00a & 1.01a)
sx40hs (1.00d, 1.00g & 1.00i)
g1x (1.00e, 1.00f & 1.00g)
g5x (1.00c, 1.01a, 1.01b)
g7x2 (1.01a, 1.01b, 1.10b)

reyalp

13673

Re: what tool to use to create a large fat32 partition?

« Reply #27 on: 14 / June / 2022, 20:17:00 »

Quote from: Mlapse on 14 / June / 2022, 14:25:10

Reyalp, I thought you changed that timing to change with card size since we had that issue with the s95.
but maybe not dynamically enough

is it possible to extend that wait time some more? serious request

In r5183, I changed the timeout from 4 seconds to 10. This is a fixed value, it doesn't know anything about card size or file system or anything like that.

Here's a test build with it set to 20 for g1x 101a.

I'm a bit reluctant to make it arbitrarily long, because if there are any ports that don't reliably call core_spytask_can_start, users will be forced to wait the full timeout for every boot.

It's also not a very good workaround for people using large cards. As I mentioned when the topic first came up, it's possible that different fat parameters could have some effect. However, I don't have any cards larger than 64 MB to test, and haven't noticed those being particularly slow.

An alternative solution might be to extend multi-partition support to allow a FAT boot partition and exFAT, but I'm not sure how much work that would take, and multipartition is such a source of installation problems and help requests I'm not keen to bring it to modern cameras
edit: I see phil is already there, and I have no objection to it being added if it works.

g1x-101a-1.6.0-6107-full-reyalp-boot-wait-1.zip (847.29 kB - downloaded 2 times.)

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453
S95 S110

Re: what tool to use to create a large fat32 partition?

« Reply #28 on: 15 / June / 2022, 01:32:43 »

Philmoz, i tried a dual partition fat16/exfat on the s95 with a 256gb card, but that did not work.
but if you say fat32/exfat will work i will give that a try to see if it speeds things up... the g1x is 101a

Reyalp, the longer time gives no warning of missing modules.
it works normally, but only if you start via play.
if started via on/off you have too keep the button pressed for 5 seconds for it to respond and, as expected, it pushes the cam to record mode immediately.

and yes, the idea of even larger cards worries me a bit too, on the other hand the standard only runs up to 2TB with fat32, so we are almost there

next year I've got this project where i will have a cam for 3 month running without me being able to physically touch it for that period.
if it breaks down in that period all is lost and i have to start again one year later.
since i've had little time and progress to work on chdkptp this larger card is my fall back solution so the project can go onwards instead of being put on hold until i've become a decent programmer

« Last Edit: 15 / June / 2022, 01:45:59 by Mlapse »

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philmoz

3407

Re: what tool to use to create a large fat32 partition?

« Reply #29 on: 15 / June / 2022, 01:43:59 »

Attached is G1X 1.01a with dual partition support. 2nd partition can be FAT32 or exFat.

The S95 does not currently support exFat for the 2nd partition; but this should also be possible. Let me know which firmware version you have if you want to try a version with this for the S95.

g1x-101a-1.6.0-6107-full-dual-partition.zip (837.76 kB - downloaded 2 times.)

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