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Multi partition support A590 IS

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Re: Multi partition support A590 IS
« Reply #10 on: 21 / January / 2009, 02:33:22 »
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Here is how to make MacOS X to be able to create dual partitions that work:
After creating new partition layout in MacOS X diskutil, run this sequence of commands:
1. unmount both partition in diskutil
2. fdisk -e /dev/diskX
3. setpid 1 (then enter 1 when prompted for new partition id)
4. write
5. exit
After this point on continue with usual unmounting and making 1st partition bootable as usual.

Can anyone explain this a little further. How do you use fdisk with Mac OS X? Is it with Terminal?

Earlier today I used Disk Utility to create 2 partitions. First, FAT-16(32mb), then a FAT-32(~8gb). I then made the first partition bootable through a hexedit technique. Then, I copied the DISKBOOT.BIN. It booted off of my camera but it only recognized the first FAT-16 partition and put pictures there. So I just need a little more detailed description of what procedure verygreen described. If anyone could do that, it would be great.

Thanks in advance.

Re: Multi partition support A590 IS
« Reply #11 on: 21 / January / 2009, 12:26:19 »
Can anyone explain this a little further. How do you use fdisk with Mac OS X? Is it with Terminal?
Yes. Just open a terminal, find out what your disk device is (right after you formatted with disk util, before unmounting, type "df" in the terminal. You will see something like:
/dev/disk2s1     1.0Gi  691Mi  333Mi    68%    /Volumes/UNTITLED1

that means you need to run
fdisk -e /dev/disk2 (again in the terminal, after you unmounted both volumes in the disk util, notice - not ejected - unmounted)
and then follow prompts and type in commands that I gave in the previous post.
« Last Edit: 21 / January / 2009, 12:29:40 by verygreen »

Re: Multi partition support A590 IS
« Reply #12 on: 05 / February / 2009, 18:13:03 »
Here is how to make MacOS X to be able to create dual partitions that work:
After creating new partition layout in MacOS X diskutil, run this sequence of commands:
1. unmount both partition in diskutil
2. fdisk -e /dev/diskX
3. setpid 1 (then enter 1 when prompted for new partition id)
4. write
5. exit

After this point on continue with usual unmounting and making 1st partition bootable as usual.

Thanks everyone for your diligence. I was having problems and this thread solved it quick.

I am confirming that the above was successful for me, A590IS 101b. Other users, please note that it will not work if you include a volume name "disk1s1" instead of just "disk1" when using fdisk. If you don't read instructions carefully, as I didn't, you will go in circles for a while, as I did.

Out of curiosity, does anyone know technically what is happening here. Are we setting all partition ids on the disk to match?

Also, this worked for me in fixing a card I had already formatted, made bootable via 0xED and loaded CHDK onto. There appears to be no need to repartition and hexedit if that has previously been done.

Cheers.

Re: Multi partition support A590 IS
« Reply #13 on: 07 / February / 2009, 05:19:18 »
Out of curiosity, does anyone know technically what is happening here. Are we setting all partition ids on the disk to match?
I have not looked into chdk code to verify it, but it seems chdk only looks for 1st fat32 partition id and uses it if found.
MacOS X disk util stupidly assigns fat32 partition id to all fat partitions (2 in our case), even though one of them is only fat16 or fat12 because of the size.
We fix the partition id to fat12 with fdisk and now chdk no longer considers first small partition as the "big one".
Ideally chdk should have checked the volume size of all partitions and chose the biggest one as the one for the pictures, but actually I am not complaining. It is a miracle as it is already.
« Last Edit: 07 / February / 2009, 16:17:08 by verygreen »

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Offline ftm

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Re: Multi partition support A590 IS
« Reply #14 on: 12 / February / 2009, 19:57:45 »
This method works very well. Thank you.

Here is how to make MacOS X to be able to create dual partitions that work:
After creating new partition layout in MacOS X diskutil, run this sequence of commands:
1. unmount both partition in diskutil
2. fdisk -e /dev/diskX
3. setpid 1 (then enter 1 when prompted for new partition id)
4. write
5. exit
After this point on continue with usual unmounting and making 1st partition bootable as usual.

Re: Multi partition support A590 IS
« Reply #15 on: 22 / March / 2009, 19:42:44 »
I would like to revive this thread, specifically with respect to Windows XP, and get help with something I still don't understand.

For the A590IS, if I were able to set up an 8GB SDHC card with two partitions as has been described in several places, I'm still not sure where this would leave me when trying to read the card on my computer.  I've seen the "fixed disk" hack that I could install on my computer, but as I understand it, that only works for my computer, not for a friend's computer or any other which hasn't had the hack installed.

Other than using that hack, is there any way to make the second larger partition viewable in Windows Explorer?  If both partitions can't be viewed, is there a way to switch the partition that's viewable by the computer, and then switch back so CHDK will boot again on the camera?


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Offline fe50

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Re: Multi partition support A590 IS
« Reply #16 on: 22 / March / 2009, 20:16:16 »
1.) You can use the "Swap partitions" function from the CHDK Misc menu (maybe this is not available on all camera models)

2.) You can use the SDM installer, available from the SDM Homepage, included in the "Common_Files.zip" download package, the documentation is here: SDM Quick Start

3.) You could also switch the partitions manually with system tools (disk partition editors) like beeblebrox (http://students.cs.byu.edu/~codyb/) & aefdisk32 (a guide can be found here) - but it's dangerous & not very comfortable  ;)
« Last Edit: 22 / March / 2009, 20:17:51 by fe50 »

Re: Multi partition support A590 IS
« Reply #17 on: 23 / March / 2009, 18:09:55 »
I don't see the Swap Partitions option on my camera.  But even if it were there, I don't see how that would work.  As I understand it, my camera can only get into CHDK via autoboot, not with the "firmware" option.  So even if I could use Swap Partitions, once I do that and shut down the camera to remove the SD, CHDK will no longer boot because it would be the wrong partition.

Thanks for the other links.  I'll check them out.

Re: Multi partition support A590 IS
« Reply #18 on: 23 / March / 2009, 18:25:58 »
Is there any plan to make CHDK locate and boot from a FAT16 partition, no matter where on the card that partition is, and then automatically switch to the other partition if it exists?  Or possibly just boot from a FAT32 partition in the first place?

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Offline fe50

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Re: Multi partition support A590 IS
« Reply #19 on: 23 / March / 2009, 18:47:37 »
All cameras from the official Download page (http://mighty-hoernsche.de/) can be started with the manual method
("Firmware Update" menu item in the Canon menu).
This method works from FAT12, FAT16 and also from FAT32 partitions.

The A590 don't support SD-card multipartitioning yet.

 

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