HDLoader format? What partitios does it create?

[stratotak]

I just popped my Maxtor 120 gig drive in and HDLoader formatted it. I hooked iy up to PC and launched WinHiip and it shows its 114gig's. What does HDloader use 4-6 gigs for? Some sort of Swap space?

[Pacolin]

For what you've set it to Just before formating a drive into PS2 format - WinHIIP asks you for the amount of space for some "system" partitions:
__mbr/
__boot/
__system/
__network/
HDLoader Settings
...etc

It's safe to set all to 0MB except mbr & hdl settings.

[loki7777]

@Pacolini you are wrong Drive itself is 120(on paper) but it is in fact 112(this is the size of whole drive shown in winhiip). This is because they use 1000kb not 1024.
For example

you have 200GB, by seagate(and all the rest
200(bytes) * 1000(kilos) * 1000(mega) * 1000(giga) will give you 200000000000
but real you have
200000000000 (bajts) / 1024 / 1024 / 1024 what will give you ~ 186 GB

same situations with other drives You will never get the size that you are buying

So 112gb is fine and ok, formating doesnt take anything from it.
But you have few partitions as you write (but the drive itself is still 112gb

Real size is counting like this :
(size by producer * 10^9)/1024^3

[SP193]

There's something I'll like to know about the format HDLoader uses (But I can't find out because I don't have a NA for my PS2):

How does it store the games on it's partition ("HDLoader Settings" right?)?
I somehow have the impression that it stores games on that partition much like USBExtreme does, but withour splitting it into 1GB parts.

Does it have a game listing file like USBExtreme (e.g. ul.cfg for USBExtreme)?

I want to know these because I am building an internal-HDD build of PS2ESDL... and cannot proceed when I have no idea how the target system works.

[spud42]

dlanor can explain in more detail but a PS2 does not store files/games like a PC/MAC/linux machine. on a PS2 each installed game IS a partition made up of 128Mb parts.

you can use Winhiip to format the drive as PS2 and install a few games to see what the drive structure is like. you can install the drive internally to your PC or use an external housing.

[Pacolin]

@Pacolini you are wrong Drive itself is 120(on paper) but it is in fact 112(this is the size of whole drive shown in winhiip). This is because they use 1000kb not 1024.
For example

same situations with other drives You will never get the size that you are buying

So 112gb is fine and ok, formating doesnt take anything from it.
But you have few partitions as you write (but the drive itself is still 112gb

Real size is counting like this :
(size by producer * 10^9)/1024^3

I know that and had written about it in an other thread but I don't know why I thought he was asking about the partitions which WinHIIP made It doesn't matter anymore - I think that everything what he was asking for is now here

[SP193]

dlanor can explain in more detail but a PS2 does not store files/games like a PC/MAC/linux machine. on a PS2 each installed game IS a partition made up of 128Mb parts.

Hmm... thanks. I'll see if I can ask him via PMs so I don't clog up this thread.

you can use Winhiip to format the drive as PS2 and install a few games to see what the drive structure is like. you can install the drive internally to your PC or use an external housing.

OK... I didn't know that WINHIIP could access USB drives (Thought that it was to access the PS2's HDD through a network connection).

I am aware that the PS2 doesn't store partitions like a PC (Or how most other computers use drives), nor does it use any known partition format (But a proprietary format known as the "Playstation FileSystem" or "PFS").

I had only gotten my SCPH-39006 PS2 (Bought a SCPH-77006 in 2007) so I didn't really bother to find out about the HDL stuff until recently.

Will try this though, if I can find a reliable spare drive to "sacrifice" for this experiment (Without losing data).