General Category > LisaList2
Max ESProfile Image (volume) Size?
sigma7:
--- Quote from: bmwcyclist on September 26, 2025, 05:00:05 pm ---Blu could see "something" (I didn't take a screenshot sorry) but would not low level format. It gave me an error along the lines of this is not a 5 or10 meg profile..
--- End quote ---
Ok, that makes sense. The "Low Level Format" function is hardware specific, so won't be useful for anything other than a real ProFile or Widget, and is not the same thing as the "initialize" step that the MW installer needs to do.
--- Quote ---How the heck do people make their formatted blank .image files if they don't download an already made one?
--- End quote ---
Try this (found at random via google):
https://pinetools.com/random-file-generator
Since a raw ProFile image block is 532 bytes long (to make a logical sector size at the Mac System level of 512 bytes), I suggest the file length should be a multiple of 532 bytes.
Further, I'd choose a multiple of 256 blocks to make the block count a 'round' number, but this probably doesn't matter.
eg. say you want a 100 MB drive = a logical size about 100,000,000.
Dividing by 512, that makes 195312.5 logical sectors.
Dividing by 256 (to make a 'round' number) that's 762.9395 groups of 256 blocks. Rounding up to 763 groups of 256 we have 195328 blocks.
Multiplying by 532 bytes per block makes the raw file size 103914496 bytes
If that doesn't work, I can make some empty files for you; what size(s) would you like?
edit: To clarify, that only gives you a file of the desired size for the image. It still needs to be "initialized" by the operating system (eg. using the MacWorks Plus II Installer), but it does not need to be "low level formatted".
bmwcyclist:
--- Quote from: sigma7 on September 26, 2025, 05:22:46 pm ---
Ok, that makes sense. The "Low Level Format" function is hardware specific, so won't be useful for anything other than a real ProFile or Widget, and is not the same thing as the "initialize" step that the MW installer needs to do.
edit: To clarify, that only gives you a file of the desired size for the image. It still needs to be "initialized" by the operating system (eg. using the MacWorks Plus II Installer), but it does not need to be "low level formatted".
--- End quote ---
Thanks, yes, the BLU use was just a last resort since nothing else seemed to be working as described. I don't think I have low-level formatted a drive since the Novell 2x days, but I did not see much likelihood of harm.
--- Quote from: sigma7 on September 26, 2025, 05:22:46 pm ---
Try this (found at random via google):
https://pinetools.com/random-file-generator
Since a raw ProFile image block is 532 bytes long (to make a logical sector size at the Mac System level of 512 bytes), I suggest the file length should be a multiple of 532 bytes.
Further, I'd choose a multiple of 256 blocks to make the block count a 'round' number, but this probably doesn't matter.
--- End quote ---
This is GOLDEN, thank you!
Where is the documentation on this? I was using a phone most of the day, so it's easy to miss stuff.
I looked at the GitHub for ESProfile and the PocketBeagle and selector, and if there was a guide to making profile images, I missed it!
--- Quote from: sigma7 on September 26, 2025, 05:22:46 pm ---
If that doesn't work, I can make some empty files for you; what size(s) would you like?
--- End quote ---
Thank you for the offer! Hopefully, tomorrow, your additional information will work for me, and I will be able to make them on my own.
I think it would be nice to have a downloadable selection of these, though, that was publicly accessible. I know LisaList2 wants to conserve storage, but maybe on one of the other hosts?
If this works, I will take a shot at creating a walk-through for beginners and hope it gets indexed by the search engines.
bmwcyclist:
Ok!
That worked (mostly).
Issue 1, the online random file generator won't make a 200meg file but did work for a 100mb one.
Is 207,828,992 bytes the correct size for a 200meg file?
200,000,000 / 512 = 390625 (sectors)
390625 / 256 = 1,525.87890625 (groups of 256 blocks)
1526 × 256 =390,656 (round up to 1526, 390,656 blocks)
390656 × 532 = 207,828,992 (Multiplying by 532 bytes per block makes the raw file size 207,828,992 bytes)
If we double the size of the 100meg file that worked, we get the same number.
The windows CLI command for making a file is this:
C:\Users\Tim>fsutil file createnew f:\profile.image 207828992
File f:\profile.image is created
Trying that now...
Issue 2, I had to boot the Lisa with an already formatted profile.image file, run the MacWorksII+ utility for the MacWorksII+ program to see the external ESProfile. I then swapped SD cards, hit the reset on the ESProfile and started the format.
sigma7:
--- Quote ---it would be nice to have a downloadable selection of these
...
the online random file generator won't make a 200meg file but did work for a 100mb one.
--- End quote ---
I should have pointed out that a large file full of zeros will compress (zip) to a small file, whereas the random filled file will not. We can easily host a selection of sizes of compressed zero filled files.
However, it appears fsutil on Windows and dd on Mac/*nix may be sufficient.
--- Quote ---Is 207,828,992 bytes the correct size for a 200meg file?
--- End quote ---
Yes, I think your calculations are correct.
--- Quote ---The windows CLI command for making a file is this:
--- Code: ---fsutil file createnew f:\profile.image 207828992
--- End code ---
--- End quote ---
Super!
--- Quote ---I had to boot the Lisa with an already formatted profile.image file, run the MacWorksII+ utility for the MacWorksII+ program to see the external ESProfile. I then swapped SD cards, hit the reset on the ESProfile and started the format.
--- End quote ---
So this technique may not work, or rather, won't work in some situations. Swapping a connected hard drive with another one while the OS is running is likely to result in a corrupted drive, as the OS usually has some details of the drive stored in memory.
For example, in the case described, the OS will have a list of files that it opened on the drive. When it goes to close them, it could write related stuff to the drive, but it isn't the same drive, so it will be writing that information to the newly formatted drive. Now the new drive is not 'clean' and the original drive that was removed still has files marked as open.
But it may mostly work in this particular case, assuming that the installer re-reads the size of the drive after you swapped SD cards, and expecting it to crash after it is done, since it cannot read the System, Finder, etc. files.
Or perhaps it is the case that no files were opened from the SD card because the System was booted from your SCSI drive. If that's the case, then there is a mystery why the external parallel drive did not show up with the newly created file (requiring you to boot with another SD card installed). Perhaps the ESProFile documentation mentions required specifics regarding file attributes or something like that, or perhaps there is a newer version of its firmware?
sigma7:
--- Quote from: ried on September 26, 2025, 02:59:52 pm ---On macOS ... you can use dd to create a blank image in whatever size you'd like.
--- Code: ---dd if=/dev/zero of=HD200.img bs=1M count=200
--- End code ---
--- End quote ---
IIRC, on quite old versions of *nix, /dev/zero does not exist, but it does go back to quite old versions of OSX, including Tiger.
To implement my suggestion of multiples of 532 bytes, and multiples of 256 blocks:
536 * 256 = 137216 bytes of raw image file per 256 blocks
So one could use:
--- Code: ---dd if=/dev/zero of=HD.rawimage bs=137216 count=X
--- End code ---
Where X is the desired logical size in bytes divided by 128k, since 256 blocks is 128k of logical space in the emulated hard disk.
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