Using a Compact Flash card on a600/a1200 IDE

[Zetr0]

@toni

I can only inform what I have tried here.

Sandisk extreme III and IV didn't work on either my A1200 setups or my A600 setup - it did work under SCSI via SCSI-IDE bridge.

Sadly my tests are in contrary to your statement about removable media.

I have about 10 various CF cards of various size and ages ranging from 256MB to 8GB and all of these are not compatible with the Amiga via its native IDE, I will also point out that they are not compatible with the Buddha series of interfaces as well.

While some of these devices can be setup with WinUAE (some cannot) - they still wont work on the native IDE of the A1200 / A600

I would be happy to bundle them up and post them to you for your tests, perhaps you could better explain why they do not work and or find a way for them to do so.

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

Sandisk extreme III and IV didn't work on either my A1200 setups or my A600 setup - it did work under SCSI via SCSI-IDE bridge.

Maybe they don't have identical internals? I have always assumed that any kind of CF compatibility list is useless because internal hardware can change even when label stays the same.

I have been doing some AROS IDE driver tests with CF cards and it seems those non-working cards that don't work also don't respond to any IDE register access at all which seems to point to hardware timing incompatibility.

I also had one 2.5" IDE HD that didn't work at all, unfortunately I don't have it anymore.

I would be happy to bundle them up and post them to you for your tests, perhaps you could better explain why they do not work and or find a way for them to do so.

This would be great. I can test using debug version of aros m68k ide driver that exactly tells if drive responds to any IDE register read or write and also do some scope and logic analyzer tests (scope/la not guaranteed, it gets boring really quickly..)

Perhaps it is possible to create some kind of Amiga IDE test program that detects compatibility problems

[Zetr0]

That is an excellent IDEA!, with luck we can get to the bottom and find some answers

Please PM me your address details and I will send these out tomorrow.

[fgh]

Yup, removable media is a problem with drivers from elaborate bytes (idefix and Individual computers products) but not with any original scsi.device.
Your maxtransfer number has two zeroes too much, here and in lots of other threads.

Sandisk seems to be a common recommendation, but I think the tool they used to provide for changing cf-cards to fixed type only worked with very old cards.

Edit: crap, I missed several replies there..

[thgill]

Or, you could use an IDE to SDHC card adapter and then you can use any SD card up to 32GB in it and not worry about any problems that have plagued CF cards on IDE. I.E not being recognized at all, not wanting to boot with an ACA accelerator installed, somehow blocking the PCMCIA port from working and etc.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/300531812037...84.m1438.l2649

I have bought several of these exact units (same seller too!) and they have worked flawlessly with SDHC cards, both 16 and 32GB. Minor speed hit (10% or so) for better compatibility. Seems a worthwhile trade off.

[fgh]

Zetro: These quotes are from the threads you linked to:

Originally Posted by Zetr0

The only real tricky bit is setting up the MAXTRANSFER setting, 0x1fe0000 (you may need to pad an extra zero or two depending on what version of HDInstTool or HDToolsBox you are using.
A possible pit fall is if the circuitry of the CF card does not allow for ATA mode, this will cause an issue with the Amiga IDE as it will be seen as a removable device, I believe you can use the latest HDInstallTools to get around this.

Originally Posted by Zetr0

All my ide devices go through an ide buffered device

First of all - if you are using idefix (with or without your buffered IDE interface) this explains the incompatibility with removable type CF cards.
It's a bug/outdated design by elaborate bytes in idefix and all the drivers they made for Individual computers.

I also have to point out again that the maxtransfer value that you keep providing is wrong, the correct value is 0x1fe00.
Wrong figures with three and four zeroes are mentioned too many times on EAB, and lots of them come from you. You would help many people if you went back and removed some of them

You mention 'ATA mode' in the quote above and 'ATA mode 0' on the previous page. I think you might be mixing ATA modes with a device's identification as removable vs fixed.
I was bloody confused, and I did some research and made this long post with more info if you want to look more into it.

Have a good day!

[Zetr0]

@fgh

when you get a moment have a look at the maxtransfers $ size on HDTools under Workbench 3.0 and then look at it under 3.1 you will then see the difference =)

you are right of course, I should point out that there are less Zero's for anything using 3.1 HDTools or higher - however the extra zero is truncated upon pressing return.

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

@fgh

when you get a moment have a look at the maxtransfers $ size on HDTools under Workbench 3.0 and then look at it under 3.1 you will then see the difference =)

you are right of course, I should point out that there are less Zero's for anything using 3.1 HDTools or higher - however the extra zero is truncated upon pressing return.

What?

Any value less than 0x201ff should work. Anything bigger will trigger the problem. (If drive does not support old ATA-1 spec)

0X1FE0000 is 256 times larger then 0X1FE00! Program you used is simply broken if value gets "converted" to 0x1fe00.

I also don't see anything different in max transfer (not maxtransferS) between 3.0 and 3.1 HDToolBox versions.

[Methanoid]

Any issues with Kingston 4Gb cards http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/260700373141
Or Hama 8Gb (same price virtually) http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/110724249621

[fgh]

The kingston card doesn't work in amiga pcmcia for some reason. (works on amiga IDE and in pc over pcmcia). Hama I don't know.
But why not buy a sandisk card like everyone seem to recommend?

[fgh]

Ok to be polite I have now had a look at the maxtransfer field in HDToolbox 3.0 and 3.1.

Both versions seem to behave in exactly the same way.
A number with 8 digits (0x12345678) is stored successfully.
If I enter a number with 9 digits (0x123456789) first digit is lost (becomes 0x23456789).
If I enter anything other than a hex value it reverts to previous value when pressing enter.

The maxtransfer value is just a hex number, nothing magical about it. The 0x part just means 'hex number follows'.
Extra zeroes before the value (0x01fe00) would not matter.
Extra zeroes after the value (0x1fe000) matters, just like adding a zero after most other numbers matter

[Magno Boots]

There appears to be confusion here between HDTools and HDToolbox?

But let's be fair; this thread is six years old and the first guys posting here were learning and posting their findings for the future benefit of hundreds of miggy users. Now every Tom Dick has a CFHD thanks to those findings.

Anyways, to anyone reading, I've been using the following CF-SD adapter for approx 5 years without any problems (using SD & SDHC cards)


BTW, my A1200 CFHD / DVD-Rom combo works fine with IDEfix97 splitter and installation software.

[fgh]

Didn't sound like he was talking about HDInstTools to me, but it might be..
My posts are in relation to Zetr0's comments in this thread the last three days, not six years.

I don't mean to be disrespectful or take the role of the annoying besserwisser.
Just think it's time to have some of those myths squashed after all these years.

Zetr0 is doing all kinds of cool hacking projects (and other things like the nice little ag-launch!) and probably knows a lot more about amiga stuff than I ever will.
I'm just pointing out the role of idefix with his removable cards, and the small misunderstanding with maxtransfer, to reduce general confusion. That's all. No harm intended

[spanner]

I have a problem with my CF card,it has a cheacksum error on disk block on it and I have tried to format it twice now and its still there..?

i can highly recommend transcend industrial cf150 cf cards!
these card are fixed (trueIDE) by default and working very fine with or without idefix express etc.
there are also no problems with aca accelerator cards (aca 1231/42) so far

[rkupka]

I just installed CF adapter from AMIKIT (thank u for your great service) but with 16GB CF SanDisk Ultra 16GB card...

Partitioned using HDInstTools into 5 partitions, all with PFS3.

Also Scandoubler Indy AGA MkII, great product. Can't wait for the new FW and Config tool.
Everything works like charm

[fgh]

Have fun, and remember those Maxtransfer values, unless you use PFS3-AiO

[JonSick]

I just ordered one of these guys for my little project (I intend to youtube progress when I get started)

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1409178781...84.m1497.l2648

Just to ask though, I'd like this internal, but also intend to get a PCMCIA/CF adapter to bring data across as needed. However, I've noted on some auctions that apparently if you have a CF/IDE hard disk, the PCMCIA/CF won't work.

True? Utter rubbish? Advice?

[fitzsteve]

Originally Posted by JonSick

I just ordered one of these guys for my little project (I intend to youtube progress when I get started)

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1409178781...84.m1497.l2648

Just to ask though, I'd like this internal, but also intend to get a PCMCIA/CF adapter to bring data across as needed. However, I've noted on some auctions that apparently if you have a CF/IDE hard disk, the PCMCIA/CF won't work.

True? Utter rubbish? Advice?

Some CF cards just don't work with Amiga, it doesn't matter if you have a CF on the IDE or not.

My advice is stick with smaller CF's in PCMCIA <2gb and you should be fine.

That adapter works very well, I use them all the time as I got a job lot from China a while back!

[JonSick]

Is there any limit on the IDE channel? (KS 3.1 ROMs and Workbench 3.1)

Is 4gb my limit, or would an 8 or 16 work just fine?