I asked this on Amiga.org but am changing it around to see if I can do this under MorphOS since VirtualBox cannot see my CF-->USB adapter.

I have an A500, A508IDE w/8mb ram on its way and already have an Indivision ECS (needs to be flashed also). Is it possible to build a booting CF card with WB 2.1 and plug it into the A508IDE so that when I power it up, "it just works" ?

I have the following CF cards:

1 Hitachi Microdrive 4gb (actually a mini HD..a moving platter..lol) *old...been around*
1 SanDisk UltraII 1gb *used, dont know how much usage*
1 Kingston 8GB *new*

Is it possible to format this under MorphOS using SFS? or FFS? and install Workbench 2.1 on it that way when I plug this into the A508IDE on my Amiga 500 it will boot into Workbench 2.1?

Yes it is possible. Read this for some information about partitioning: http://library.morph.zone/Preparing_an_Amiga_Hard_Drive

Just remember what filesystem limits your Amiga has, and make partitions small enough. If you're unsure, try making small (for example few hundreds of megabytes, but at least under 2GB if using FFS) partition at the very beginning of the HD, and try with that. More about filesystem limits here: http://thomas-rapp.homepage.t-online.de/filesyslimits.html

I have made some WB setups on MorphOS for real Amiga use years ago, but I can't remember now if I did use the installer on MorphOS or in E-UAE.. or did I just do the manual installation by copying the needed files by hand (quite likely). Maybe all options do work.. the only unsure option is what the installers do when ran on MorphOS, maybe they do copy everything to the destination correctly and not mess with any MorphOS files :)

Thanks jPV. I'm going to try partitioning/formatting my CF card under MorphOS and then see if WB2.1 can see the Amiga partitions thru WinUAE since I cant get that working yet thru WinUAE.

Oh...since I'm using FFS with 2.1, max size is 2gb. So my 4gb CF card will only be 1/2 used, correct? Can a stock Amiga 500 with 8mb ram handle PFS3?

[ Edited by TheMagicM 13.01.2016 - 07:45 ]

Quote:

You should be able to use two 2GB partitions filling the whole 4GB, or several smaller if you like. At least PFS3AIO should support 68000 too (can't remember if the original PFS3 did)... so at least it should work there. Just be careful with buffers to not waste too much memory.

When you said I can use 2 2gb partitions.. you mean with FFS or PFS?