🚀 go-pugleaf

I thought i'd pass on my experience with Supra v3.37 and GCR.

Upon getting GCR about 2 weeks ago, i reformatted my Quantum 80S
with Supra 3.37.  According to many sources, including Dave Small
and Supra themselves, Supra will allow you to create partitions
greater than 16 MB (i have TOS 1.0) as long as the larger partition(s)
are not used for GEMDOS.  I proceeded with the following setup 
under the Supra format utility:

C:\ 9
D:\ 9
E:\ 6
F:\ 15
G:\ 4.5
H:\ 10
I:\ 30  (30.19 = remainder)

I planned on using C-F for GEMDOS and G-I for Mac. 
(I know these partition sizes/order may look strange, but the
were set like that for a reason.. obviously)

I watched Supra format the 164,000+ sectors totalling about 84MB.
0 bad sectors.. all looked fine.

I loaded up a few ST utilities.. including Spectre.  Ran the 
SPectre program to set defaults etc.  When i came to the "format"
menu .... i noticed some strange things:  Not only did Spectre
see the above 7 partitions, but there were partitions 8 and 9
of 12MB and 6MB resepectively.  Partition 7 (I:\) still showed
30MB.. as a matter of fact, all the partitions were recognized
by Spectre and formatting the last 5 (including the "suprises")
worked flawlessly.  I must have gone back into GEM desktop to
"show info" on my drives a zillion times..  the GEMDOS drives
added up correctly.  Figuring i was not risking damaging anything...
i proceeded to install Spectre .. load in the Mac System file(s)
etc..  loaded up a few programs.. and so on.  

The Mac OS saw all 5 partitions with sizes of 4.5,10,30,12 and 6
in that order.  I was curious about the last partitions even
existing.. so i wrote to them .. ran programs off them...
i wrote to all five partitions.. in each case, the sizes 
updated correctly.. as i put stuff in and took stuff out.  

I somewhat suspected the 30 MB partition was not for real..
even though both Spectre and the Mac OS "saw" 30 MB in there.

For two weeks, i have used GCR with only a few crashes..  not nearly
as many as I get with GEM/TOS, ironically.   Anyway, this morning,
i tried running Multi-finder.. well.. there were instant problems
recognizing drives and so on..  i didn't know if it was a function
of cache or system allocated memory or what..since i didn't know
much about multi-finder yet...  in any event, i had to turn multi
finder off and work from finder.  Since i don't have that much
mac stuff.. i created a bunch of folders in the 30MB partition
and copied programs and data into it....  

Wouldn't you know it..  i couldn't put anymore than 12 MB inthe
partition..  even though the OS said there were 17MB or so left..

Well.. of course, by this time i realized that the partitons
were identical in size to the ones i had BEFORE i reformatted them
for Spectre/GCR.  

Seems that the Supra format utility didn't do what it said it would
do...  thinking back.. i definitely recall Supra prompting me
at the time of formatting that the 30MB partition could NOT be
used with GEMDOS... i clicked on "OK" or whatever..to say.. 
"go ahead".   Either i "think" i clicked on there and didn't..
maybe i am at fault.. however, how does one explain Spectre's
"seeing" the 30MB... passing that info to the MAC OS and the
MAC OS updating the partiton etc...

Anyway.. this is the 6th time i have reformatted my drive..
not a fun thing to do...  the result is that i continue
to "throw away" lots of ST software.... I figure today.. when
I reformat my drive, I'll make a small C:\ for a few startup 
programs.. another larger partition for NOTATOR.. the
rest of my drive will be mac.

Any hints about the Supra format...?  Do i have a bad version?
I remember going through hell when i first got the Supra
format utility that didn't like my Quantum... even though
it recognized the controller....  Is this another Supra 
surprise?  or another case of USER IDIOCY.. which i admit
i am rather successful at....

Thanks for the insights

-kevin
ramsiri@blake.acs.washington.edu

BTW:  i have written to David Small about this a couple of times,
      but he's been too busy to respond... so anyone out there
      who can tell me what i am doing wrong will be much
      appreciated.