what format for cf card in pcmcia to work in amiga

[paul3100]

I got a pcmcia card with a 4 gig cf card and formatted it to fat 95 after doing some research online but when i power the amiga on after the WB has loaded the pointer just shows the clock symbol and having left it for 10 minutes or so nothing changes.

Id originally got the card pre installed with workbench 3.1 and when id placed the card in the amiga then it came up as ??? can't remember but the same as when place a non readable floppy.

So not sure what to do now, i want to use the pcmcia for extra storage for games and such

So really looking to see what the cf card should have been formatted to and what programs to do it with

thanks in advance . paul3100

[caver99]

if you format it on the pc with winuae as an rdb drive and see if that works in you amiga, if it does get fat95 off of aminet and copy it to the cf using winuae and install it on your amiga then you can try a fat formatted cf as it my be trying to chech the cf at boot or something.

[paul3100]

Originally Posted by caver99

if you format it on the pc with winuae as an rdb drive and see if that works in you amiga, if it does get fat95 off of aminet and copy it to the cf using winuae and install it on your amiga then you can try a fat formatted cf as it my be trying to chech the cf at boot or something.

how do i go about formatting it in winuae? i mounted the cf card as hard disk but cant find any options to format it

paul

[caver99]

make hdd booting directory or hard file and build a workbench system and mount under that like a real amiga, then use the toolbox to partition the drive and the tools(i think) menu to get the format option.
What kickstart you running on your amiga?
This is just from memory, if you can get an os3.9 system up and running on winuae it has better toolbox and format for the bigger drives.

[tomse]

to get a fat formatted CF card/pcmcia to work in your amiga 600/1200
you'll need cfd.lha and fat95.lha from aminet
extract and install these 2 and you can now access the CF card..
you might need a reboot if it doesn't work right away.

one of the packages needs to be installed by hand afair

[paul3100]

Originally Posted by caver99

make hdd booting directory or hard file and build a workbench system and mount under that like a real amiga, then use the toolbox to partition the drive and the tools(i think) menu to get the format option.
What kickstart you running on your amiga?
This is just from memory, if you can get an os3.9 system up and running on winuae it has better toolbox and format for the bigger drives.

couldn't manage to do that did try everything! but thanks for the suggestion

Originally Posted by tomse

to get a fat formatted CF card/pcmcia to work in your amiga 600/1200
you'll need cfd.lha and fat95.lha from aminet
extract and install these 2 and you can now access the CF card..
you might need a reboot if it doesn't work right away.

Ill give that a go, downloaded those 2 files but how do install them?
I put them as a directory on the HD so they would show up but nt ure what to do with them.

sorry for being such a noob

[Arnie]

Depends on the make of the card to use with PCMCIA fat95.

I have found that Sandisk cards work well for PCMCIA where as Kingston cards have never worked for me.

[paul3100]

its a transcent 4gigs and worked as a bootable HD

[tomse]

first you need to check if you have lha installed.

just start a CLI and enter lha <enter>
if it complains the file doesn't exist, find lha.run on aminet
this is a self extracting archive..

I made a video some time ago it should help you :-)
[ Show youtube player ]

[Arnie]

Check to see if CF0: is mounted by typing 'info' in a shell window.

If it's not mounted then the card wont show up on Workbench.

[alexh]

You need the PCMCIA driver installed (cfd.lha) and fat95 on your primary boot media (i.e. internal Hard drive or boot floppy).

You will also need LHA to unarchive them first and possibly an update to Workbench installer.

A CF card formatted FAT32 in Windows should mount and work without any extra config.

[paul3100]

Originally Posted by Arnie

Check to see if CF0: is mounted by typing 'info' in a shell window.

If it's not mounted then the card wont show up on Workbench.

I did that and its not showing up

Originally Posted by alexh

You need the PCMCIA driver installed (cfd.lha) and fat95 on your primary boot media (i.e. internal Hard drive or boot floppy).

You will also need LHA to unarchive them first and possibly an update to Workbench installer.

A CF card formatted FAT32 in Windows should mount and work without any extra config.

you would think so but thats what i did formatted using widows 8.1 and to fat32 , the card worked before or at least showed up but still couldn't use it

[Arnie]

Where is the CF0 mountlist stored? It should be in Devs:DosDrivers along with CF0.info. If it is there try double clicking on it to see if it mounts.If it's already mounted you will get an error message stating that CF0: is already mounted. If you get that error then you need to make sure these files are in the correct directories;

L:fat95
Devs:compactflash.device

[paul3100]

The CFO file is in the dos driver folder as you said and i tried to mount it to get the message it already installed, i couldn't see the CFO.info file tho even after putting "show everything!

Not sure where its mounted, i have it in a usb stick and put it as a harddrive along with a harddrive image of my working workbench set up, is that the wrong place to mount the CF card?

[FOL]

Originally Posted by paul3100

The CFO file is in the dos driver folder as you said and i tried to mount it to get the message it already installed, i couldn't see the CFO.info file tho even after putting "show everything!

Not sure where its mounted, i have it in a usb stick and put it as a harddrive along with a harddrive image of my working workbench set up, is that the wrong place to mount the CF card?

Id say its not compatible with PCMCIA slot. Although its fine as HDD.
PCMCIA slot is very picky on cards, Having A1200 fixes can also give the reverse effect, cards that didn't work work and cards that worked don't.

[fgh]

Before anyone can jump to such conclusions Paul3100 needs to confirm that he has L:fat95 and devs:compactflash.device on his system drive, like Tomse, Alexh and Arnie has said before (!).

If the files are there, the next thing to check are versions:
Type 'version compactflash.device' and 'version L:fat95' in dos to check. (Latest: CFD 1.32 and FAT95 3.18)
Notably, CFD v1.21 would freeze the machine with some cards like you describe.

Other things I have seen causing pcmcia problem are conflicting pcmcia dosdrivers (multiple copies of CF0 mountfile?) and modified CF0 files with wrong settings, filesystems etc.

Good luck

Originally Posted by caver99

if you format it on the pc with winuae as an rdb drive and see if that works in you amiga...

And forget about this for now. To use a card in the pcmcia with anything other than FAT95 requires that you create a proper mountfile with descriptions of card size, the appropriate file system, etc.