Hi guys,

I installed 3.20 on my Mac mini. It is running fine. DH0 is my Boot partition using HFS, DH1 is SYSTEM using SFS, and DH2 is WORK, also using SFS.

Now, I would like to change the format of DH2 to SFS2. But I am unsuccessful. I tried HDConfig. I clicked on DH2, then on EDIT PARTITION, then changed the file system from SFS to SFS2, then clicked on OK, then clicked on SAVE.

Then rebooted - and voila, my DH2 is SFS and mounted. The changes I make are simply not accepted, it seems.

I then tried via terminal - using FORMAT DEVICE=DH2; NAME="WORK" SFS2 QUICK

Also does not work, I get an error message.

What am I missing here? Can someone help?

If you used that specific command it should be DH2: not DH2;. Also format command has no option called SFS2, so passing that will make the argument parsing fail. See
https://library.morph.zone/Shell_Commands/Format

You can also use Tools/Format if you wish to use graphical user interface. See
https://library.morph.zone/Tools/Format

Hi Piru - sorry, just a typo here. I typed it correctly when using it on MorphOS. But since there is no way to tell DH2 to format with SFS2, this approach does not work anyway. Or is there a command I am unaware of?

As to the tool you recommended, it does not allow me to change the file system. It shows DH2 as SFS. If I click Quick Format or even Format, it will format DH2 - with SFS. There is no way to switch to SFS2.

When I go to HDConfig, I can click on DH2 and change the filesystem from SFS to SFS2. But when I then click on SAVE to save my change, nothing happens. It just hops back to SFS.

Is there no way to reformat that partition??

Quote:

Well, yea, the problem starts here already. I don't recall that anything "hops back" in HDConfig when clicking save. Do you close HDConfig and reopen for that ? What type of partition table do you use, RDB or MAC as I don't recall if we ever supported MBR to format SFS/SFS2 ... You can check the type when you open the context menu when you are on top of the drive icon left from the partition bar.

Quote:

Yea, change the DOSType to SFS2 in HDConfig, save and format. If it is not stored to the RDB/MAC partition table, you can't use the partition in the modified format really.

From there on, you can simply use "Format" in the Ambient context menu or "Format Disk" from the utilities menu. It should show the correct DOSType right away and format accordingly.

Quote:

Well he has the issue on a MacMini, so it kinda has to be MAC ;)

Did a quick test and it is a bit odd that the format tool displays "SFS" in a non editable text field.
Going over to HDConfig I changed my unused Work_NVME partition to SFS2, saved and after a reboot info lists it as SFS2 with the content still accessible (guess it is backwards compatible...).

Edit:
I have been informed that this more like a fallback mode and I won't get any SFS2 benefits unless i do a reformat.

And yeah I did totally skip/ignore SFS2 during betatesting, shame on me....

[ Edited by Kronos 06.09.2026 - 03:35 ]

If Smart File System 2 is so much better than the original, why is it not the default option when formatting the disk upon first installation? Instead, the original SFS is selected.

Quote:
To clarify what SFS/S option in Format command does: It enables SFS/SFS2 file system specific options to take effect: SHOWRECYCLED and CASESENSITIVE. As these options are identical for both SFS and SFS2 there's little point in adding new SFS2 option for this.

The type of the filesystem itself should be set during partitioning as discussed in other comments already.

From new user point of view this is not very obvious. As always documentation could definitely be improved around these topics.

So I should redo the complete installation to ensure that DH2 becomes an SFS2 partition? There is no way to reformat it once the setup is done?

If that is correct, then I will of course do so - the machine is still fairly empty, I can save stuff on my file server and copy it back.

Just seems weird that no attempt to unmount and reformat the partition seems to work.

No, a complete installation shouldn't be needed. I tried to create a new SFS partition and formatted it, and then changed it to SFS2 and reformatted it, and everything seems to indicate it's SFS2 then...

But if it doesn't change on you for some reason, have you tried to change the filesystem so that all existing SFS data is lost for sure? Change the filesystem to something else than SFS, format it, and then change it to SFS2 and format it again? Or remove/resize the partition (just the one that has the issue) and then recreate & format it? Take notes about partition options before deleting it to remeber what blocksize/buffers etc you had on it.

[ Edited by jPV 10.09.2026 - 11:21 ]

That is a great idea!!

I will try to reformat the partition to FAT, then reformat it back into SFS2. I am currently traveling, but should be able to try this next week. I will let you know if that works.

OK, so here is what did work:

When I go to MOUNTER and unmount DH2, then re-mount it while setting the file type to FAT, then go to UTILITIES -> QUICK FORMAT (in the upper bar), then I indeed get FAT.

However, then trying the same workflow with SFS2 does not work. It will tell me that the DETECTED TYPE is SFS2, but the FILE TYPE is actually still SFS/0. It seems impossible to format a partition on a Mac mini running 3.20 - unless you completely reinstall.

Using HDConfig does not work - you can edit the partition in any way you like. But once you click SAVE, it always just bounces back to your old settings. Whether the partition is mounted or not does not make any difference.

Using Format does not work - you can only format using the file type already allocated to the partition. You cannot change it, then format. Whether the partition is mounted or not does not make any difference.

Using Mounter AND Format works - once you unmounted and re-mounted using a different file type in MOUNTER, then FORMAT will allow you to format the partition using that file type - provided it is NOT SFS2. If it is SFS2, then using this workflow will give you SFS.

I am using a Mac mini with 3.20. If you guys want, I can record my attempts and show you. My next step will most likely be to simply reinstall the whole operating system and choose SFS2 from the very beginning. Let's see if that works.

Short update. I now used HDConfig to delete the partition. According to HDConfig, the partition is gone. I have 27GB free.

When I check in Mounter, there is no DH2. There is no partition.

BUT when I go to Format, there is DH2, it is SFS and it is formatted. And on my Desktop, I have an icon called Work. It is a partition with 27GB.

I don't understand....

Delete the partition and Reboot, try after the reboot.