CF / SD and large drives FAQ

[drusso66]

I seem to be having a problem trying to setup 8gb SD cards in Winuae, managed to do it with a 8gb CF card 1st attempt ,I followed fitsteve's youtube video. But tried 3 different SD cards using same procedure and all give the same problem, when I try to define the unknown drive in HdToobox I just get error unit is not a disk (type 32). I have cleaned the SD cards using the Diskpart from my PC command prompt, and when I add a hard drive from within Winuae they show up as (UNK) 7.4gb RW Generic storage device.
Any advice or link to a tutorial would be appreciated.

[fgh]

'UNK' is ok, it just means there is no MBR (Windows) or RDB (Amiga) on it afaik.

The type 32 problem is not very common. Not sure, but I would try a different card reader if you have the same problem with 3 cards.

[paulo_becas]

Do a low level format on those cards using HDD Low Level Format Tool from HDDGuru, you can download it from here http://hddguru.com/software/HDD-LLF-...l-Format-Tool/

I always do this before installing workbench with winuae and don't forget to start winuae as admin.

For the file system use PFS3 All in one.

[fgh]

No need to do a full format. It will also reduce the life span of your card. (see first post)
A 'low level format' was something old HDD's could do, it's not possible on CF/SD cards.

[drusso66]

Originally Posted by fgh

'UNK' is ok, it just means there is no MBR (Windows) or RDB (Amiga) on it afaik.

The type 32 problem is not very common. Not sure, but I would try a different card reader if you have the same problem with 3 cards.

Thanks for quick reply have tried with 3 different card readers as well the 3 different SD cards, tonight I have just tried with a 8gb micro sd and exactly the same thing, it is really frustrating especially when I managed to do the CF card 1st attempt and I am doing everything exactly the same way.
Would a different version of Winuae make any difference?

[paulo_becas]

Originally Posted by fgh

No need to do a full format. It will also reduce the life span of your card. (see first post)
A 'low level format' was something old HDD's could do, it's not possible on CF/SD cards.

It is possible, it's the only way i can be sure that everything is erased as it should so i don't have any problem later on. I do this every time, you should try it.

[fgh]

Originally Posted by drusso66

Thanks for quick reply have tried with 3 different card readers as well the 3 different SD cards, tonight I have just tried with a 8gb micro sd and exactly the same thing, it is really frustrating especially when I managed to do the CF card 1st attempt and I am doing everything exactly the same way.
Would a different version of Winuae make any difference?

I don't know then, sorry.
Different UAE version shouldn't usually matter unless you have some very old one.

But hey, if you want you can just enter the values manually instead.
It doesn't really matter as long as it's not above the real size of the card.

Fill in (make up) manufacturer, drive name and revision yourself.
These values will define your card as ~7400MB which should be less than its real capacity, but close enough:

Cylinders = 15000
Heads = 16
Blocks per track = 63
Blocks per Cylinder = 1008
Park head at cylinder = 15000

The total size displayed on that page will be wrong, but that's always wrong for large drives so just ignore that.

(If you happen to know the total number of blocks, just make sure Cylinders * Heads * Blocks per Track is less than the total number of blocks)

Edit: The 'read configuration' feature queries your device for its size and other information, but it fails some times when it receives unexpected replies, like when using certain SCSI-IDE adapters and probably also some CF or SD adapters.
Usually it's just this querying that fails though, and normal use is 100%. So give it a try - there are no heads on a SD card anyway, so it's not much less fake than what would be returned anyway

[fgh]

Originally Posted by paulo_becas

It is possible, it's the only way i can be sure that everything is erased as it should so i don't have any problem later on. I do this every time, you should try it.

Well. What used to be called low level format in the amiga days is not possible on a CF / SD card, or even modern HDDs. Just look it up.

Formatting tools such as the one you mention, confusingly refer to filling the drive with zeroes as a 'low level format'.
This is not needed in order to use a drive or card on an amiga, and (again) it's not a smart thing to do to flash media.

Yes. filling a SD card With zeroes will overwrite the MBR of the card, so in that regard it will 'work' in that it allows WinUAE to format it, but you're better off using diskpart or dd like the rest of us

[drusso66]

Originally Posted by fgh

I don't know then, sorry.
Different UAE version shouldn't usually matter unless you have some very old one.

But hey, if you want you can just enter the values manually instead.
It doesn't really matter as long as it's not above the real size of the card.

Fill in (make up) manufacturer, drive name and revision yourself.
These values will define your card as ~7400MB which should be less than its real capacity, but close enough:

Cylinders = 15000
Heads = 16
Blocks per track = 63
Blocks per Cylinder = 1008
Park head at cylinder = 15000

The total size displayed on that page will be wrong, but just ignore that.

(If you happen to know the total number of blocks, just make sure Cylinders * Heads * Blocks per Track is less than the total number of blocks)

Edit: The 'read configuration' feature tries to read the size data from your drive but it fails some times with unexpected drive types, like when using certain SCSI-IDE adapters and probably also some CF or SD adapters.
Usually it's just this information querying that fails though, and normal use is 100%. So give it a try - there are no heads on a SD card anyway, so it's not much less fake than what would be returned anyway

Thanks for advice, going to try and add the settings in manually see what happens.

[drusso66]

Originally Posted by fgh

I don't know then, sorry.
Different UAE version shouldn't usually matter unless you have some very old one.

But hey, if you want you can just enter the values manually instead.
It doesn't really matter as long as it's not above the real size of the card.

Fill in (make up) manufacturer, drive name and revision yourself.
These values will define your card as ~7400MB which should be less than its real capacity, but close enough:

Cylinders = 15000
Heads = 16
Blocks per track = 63
Blocks per Cylinder = 1008
Park head at cylinder = 15000

The total size displayed on that page will be wrong, but that's always wrong for large drives so just ignore that.

(If you happen to know the total number of blocks, just make sure Cylinders * Heads * Blocks per Track is less than the total number of blocks)

Edit: The 'read configuration' feature queries your device for its size and other information, but it fails some times when it receives unexpected replies, like when using certain SCSI-IDE adapters and probably also some CF or SD adapters.
Usually it's just this querying that fails though, and normal use is 100%. So give it a try - there are no heads on a SD card anyway, so it's not much less fake than what would be returned anyway

Managed to get a little furtherthis time, typed all the drive info in manually then selected my 3 partitions and changed the file system to PSF3 for each partition then when i try to save the drive chages i just get a "error 29 on write" I think i have given up for tonight it is nearly 1.00am, will give it another go tomorrow.

[demolition]

Try to create an image of the empty card e.g. using DiskImager:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/

This will give you an image the correct size for your card. Mount this image in WinUAE, and hopefully you should be able to partition and format everything as you like on this image. If you need to transfer a bunch of files like WHDLoad installations, then this is also much faster when using an image. When all is done, write the image back to the card using the same tool.

[paulo_becas]

Originally Posted by fgh

Well. What used to be called low level format in the amiga days is not possible on a CF / SD card, or even modern HDDs. Just look it up.

Formatting tools such as the one you mention, confusingly refer to filling the drive with zeroes as a 'low level format'.
This is not needed in order to use a drive or card on an amiga, and (again) it's not a smart thing to do to flash media.

Yes. filling a SD card With zeroes will overwrite the MBR of the card, so in that regard it will 'work' in that it allows WinUAE to format it, but you're better off using diskpart or dd like the rest of us

Didn't knew that
I've heard a lot of things regarding this issue and i understand that it can reduce the cf cards life but it was the only way that i was sure that everything get erased.
Using diskpart has brought me some problems like not fully erasing the cf card and i was having a lot of trouble with it. Since i started to do the, so called, low level format, those problems disapeared.
I'm not using this method like crazy, i've formatted, maybe, four or five times the same card and use the PFS3_aio on it.
Since i got the hang of it, i just do it once on new cards and didn't need to do it again since.
Recently i bought one 8gb kingston cf card, equal to a few i already own but i can't get it to work on the amiga. It work fine on PC though, i guess it's just a new batch that's causing this issue. Doean anyone have this problem with recent purchased cards?
This is the card i'm talking about.

[demolition]

Originally Posted by paulo_becas

Using diskpart has brought me some problems like not fully erasing the cf card and i was having a lot of trouble with it. Since i started to do the, so called, low level format, those problems disapeared.

I've experienced similar problems and it seems to depend on the card reader. You don't actually need to do a full low level format / zero fill of the card though. Just start it and cancel it after ~1% and you should be good. Then you won't wear the card very much and it will look like a blank card to Windows.

[idrougge]

Or just use a Mac. Or even an Amiga.

[demolition]

I've been testing out some different adapters and some of them have weird issues. For example I tried using an SD-IDE adapter. In HDToolBox it showed up as unknown device (as expected) - I read the device information and got some sane values. I could then partition the card and click the write changes button like normally. The problem was that after a reboot the partitions were not there and the card still appeared as unknown as if it could not write the RDB. I then moved the card to the PC and set it up through WinUAE instead. After moving the card back to the Amiga, the partitions were there, I could boot from it and move files back and forth. Could the SD-IDE adapter somehow be blocking or modifying writes to the first bytes of the card somehow?

I have the same issue with an adapter I have for a ZIF SSD that I wanted to use with the Amiga. Other adapters like CF-IDE does not exhibit this problem.

[fgh]

Originally Posted by drusso66

Managed to get a little furtherthis time, typed all the drive info in manually then selected my 3 partitions and changed the file system to PSF3 for each partition then when i try to save the drive chages i just get a "error 29 on write" I think i have given up for tonight it is nearly 1.00am, will give it another go tomorrow.

Did you forget to move the write protect switch on the card, or to select read/write when you added the card to WinUAE?

I would then try setting it up in HDToolbox on the Amiga directly.

[paulo_becas]

Originally Posted by demolition

I've been testing out some different adapters and some of them have weird issues. For example I tried using an SD-IDE adapter. In HDToolBox it showed up as unknown device (as expected) - I read the device information and got some sane values. I could then partition the card and click the write changes button like normally. The problem was that after a reboot the partitions were not there and the card still appeared as unknown as if it could not write the RDB. I then moved the card to the PC and set it up through WinUAE instead. After moving the card back to the Amiga, the partitions were there, I could boot from it and move files back and forth. Could the SD-IDE adapter somehow be blocking or modifying writes to the first bytes of the card somehow?

I have the same issue with an adapter I have for a ZIF SSD that I wanted to use with the Amiga. Other adapters like CF-IDE does not exhibit this problem.

That's exactly what happens but i already tried with three diferent computers and with three diferente card readers but another thing happened, i was able to install everything 2 or 3 times and it booted well on amiga but after a few file transfers the card became unusable again.
Very strange.

[drusso66]

Originally Posted by fgh

Did you forget to move the write protect switch on the card, or to select read/write when you added the card to WinUAE?

I would then try setting it up in HDToolbox on the Amiga directly.

I checked the protect switch was not on and selected read /write in winuae,
think i a gonna try on my older PC (win7) as the one i am trying on is win 10.
Then if still no joy might have to partition on tmy Amiga, then setup in winuae after.

[Pat the Cat]

Bear in mind, HDToolbox will try to write a copy of drive definitions to the disk it is run from. Copying the HDToolbox icon to the RAM disk and running from there is a good work around (Thank you... think it was IDrougge?)

Also, you will ALWAYS get the "device is not a disk" message when trying to read drive definitions from an SD card. That's because they're honest. So you have to calculate manually.

I cheat and use Linux for the rough partitioning and to give me a list of start and end sectors for each partition. Then I manually enter them into HDToolbox.

I have to, WinUAE is a dog on my crappy laptop. So far, anyway.

[fgh]

The unit is not a disk (Type 7) message appears for all drives reporting as removable, as described in detail in the FAQ.
Some SD adapters (not cards!) say they are removable, others do not. (the black SDXC one that is all over ebay does not)
The type 7 message is just a nuicance, and the correct geometry is still fetched from the device.

Drusso66 is getting a 'Type 32' message though, which is something else, and not very common.
I haven't found out what it means. I'm sure someone on here knows though..

Where you store drive definitions is not not a part of the problem and completely up to you