Can I Run Firefly on a Windows 98 machine?

[rpedde]

@Kato wrote:

Ron

It seems that my external hard drive does have a “spin down & stop” utility available from Western Digital. It looks software driven for all Windows platforms.

http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp?cxml=n&pid=11&swid=17

Based on this I’m assuming that I’ll have to try Method 3, using scsi-idle once I get my slug?

Again – anyone successful in spinning down one of these WD800B008 series drives?

Thanks, and sorry for all of the questions. This is very new to me.

Once I get the slug and start preparation I will start a new thread.

Please be nice … 😥

I’ve had okay luck with tool to set hard drive settings while attached to a windows/dos machine, then putting it back in the usb carrier and attaching it. Once they are set on the windows side, the settings persist and work okay on the linux side. Or so my experience with ibm/hitachi drives.

As far as accessing ext3 from XP, typically you leave the drive attached ot the slug and access the files from across the network, which makes the underlying file system invisible to xp.

If you were to disconnect the drive and attach it to XP, you’d find you couldn’t access the file system unless you loaded ext3 drivers. I think there are probably several different drivers poking around on the net.

But I’ve never removed the drive from any of mine — I access all the data remotely.

— Ron

[fizze]

Ok, 80G ext3 sounds fair, and Id also use this drive to store all the data.

If you _must_ _have_ another external drive that has to be accesible from windows PCs, too, then do not format it with NTFS, but use FAT32 instead.
NTFS is really hideous on the slug and causes it to become unstable and constantly crashing.

Fat32 is well supported though, the only caveat is no files >2GB are possible.

[Kato]

@rpedde wrote:

I’ve had okay luck with tool to set hard drive settings while attached to a windows/dos machine, then putting it back in the usb carrier and attaching it. Once they are set on the windows side, the settings persist and work okay on the linux side. Or so my experience with ibm/hitachi drives.

As far as accessing ext3 from XP, typically you leave the drive attached ot the slug and access the files from across the network, which makes the underlying file system invisible to xp.

If you were to disconnect the drive and attach it to XP, you’d find you couldn’t access the file system unless you loaded ext3 drivers. I think there are probably several different drivers poking around on the net.

But I’ve never removed the drive from any of mine — I access all the data remotely.

— Ron

Perhaps I’ll try setting it with the tools and see what happens.

If I decide to just use the HDD in port1 will the spin down function be necessary (or work at all)? Or is it a function of how often firefly will scan the music database?

As far as accessing the files – as long as I can connect over the network with no problems I’ll be fine.

Thanks for the help.

[Kato]

@fizze wrote:

Ok, 80G ext3 sounds fair, and Id also use this drive to store all the data.

If you _must_ _have_ another external drive that has to be accesible from windows PCs, too, then do not format it with NTFS, but use FAT32 instead.
NTFS is really hideous on the slug and causes it to become unstable and constantly crashing.

Fat32 is well supported though, the only caveat is no files >2GB are possible.

Ok .. great!

I found out about the FAT32 thing a couple years back when I was video editing. I had files in the 12GB range and tried to save them to my pre-formatted ACOMDATA external drive. They wouldn’t take. After about half an hour I realized it was FAT32 pre-formatted after some reading. That’s interesting though – the industry must realize these problems with NTFS if they ship their drives FAT32 formatted …

Cheers,
Kato

[fizze]

Yup, network access is, after all, what the NSLU2 has been designed for 🙂

Just be aware that the performance is about 2 – 4 MB / sec.
So if you have to copy lots and lots of data (like the music collection) You either have a lot of time on your hands, or you find a way to attach it to your PC and copy it directly to USB.

I had some troubles with the drivers from fs-drivers.org, so I just bootet my PC from a Ubuntu CD and copied over. worked like a charm. 🙂

[Kato]

@fizze wrote:

Yup, network access is, after all, what the NSLU2 has been designed for 🙂

Just be aware that the performance is about 2 – 4 MB / sec.
So if you have to copy lots and lots of data (like the music collection) You either have a lot of time on your hands, or you find a way to attach it to your PC and copy it directly to USB.

I had some troubles with the drivers from fs-drivers.org, so I just bootet my PC from a Ubuntu CD and copied over. worked like a charm. 🙂

Ubuntu CD? I that a Unix OS of some kind?

[fizze]

Yes, Ubuntu is a very popular Linux distribution. It can run directly from a CD. Its easy to use too.

Check it out here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_%28Linux_distribution%29

[rpedde]

@fizze wrote:

I had some troubles with the drivers from fs-drivers.org, so I just bootet my PC from a Ubuntu CD and copied over. worked like a charm. 🙂

[/quote]

Or if you use debian as your workstation, that works good too. 🙂

Windows. Pshaw.

[Author]

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