CF won't boot

[JonnoB]

I just bought a CF reader for my A1200. I have installed WB3.1 on a 256mb CF card through WinUAE, following the usual configuration steps of setting the maxTransfer to 0x1fe00.

Workbench boots fine through WinUAE using the bog-standard A1200 configuration. However, when I plug the CF card into my A1200, it recognises the drives properly in my boot options (HD0 (Workbench), HD1(Data)), but during booting a window pops up stating that HD0 is not a DOS disk. Any ideas what could be the cause of this problem?

Thanks.

[Mark sealey]

Originally Posted by JonnoB

I just bought a CF reader for my A1200. I have installed WB1.3 on a 256mb CF card through WinUAE, following the usual configuration steps of setting the maxTransfer to 0x1fe00.

Workbench boots fine through WinUAE using the bog-standard A1200 configuration. However, when I plug the CF card into my A1200, it recognises the drives properly in my boot options (HD0 (Workbench), HD1(Data)), but during booting a window pops up stating that HD0 is not a DOS disk. Any ideas what could be the cause of this problem?

Thanks.

why did you use WB1.3...?

what file system did you use...?

im guessing your a1200 has 3.0/3.1 roms in...?

[JonnoB]

Originally Posted by Mark sealey

why did you use WB1.3...?

what file system did you use...?

im guessing your a1200 has 3.0/3.1 roms in...?

Whoops, I meant 3.1.


I used SFS (FFS) as the file system.



Yes, my A1200 has 3.1 ROMs.

[JonnoB]

Here is the adapter I'm using https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Commodore...72.m2749.l2649

[supaduper]

It can be a Bad CF card , what make is it?, also best to use PFS3 aio filyesystem as its much safer and hardly corrupts

[Hedeon]

Did you install the filesystem in the RDB of the CF? That is, I think you use SFS? or FFS? Bit unclear from the OP.

[JonnoB]

Originally Posted by supaduper

It can be a Bad CF card , what make is it?, also best to use PFS3 aio filyesystem as its much safer and hardly corrupts

It is a pretty old one to be fair. It's a Lexar, that looks exactly like this one.

[JonnoB]

Originally Posted by Hedeon

Did you install the filesystem in the RDB of the CF? That is, I think you use SFS? or FFS? Bit unclear from the OP.

I did, yes. The card boots fine through WinUAE. And my actual A1200 shows exactly the same boot options as WinUAE, even down the the correct device names, so it's definitely detected that it's a drive with two partitions, one HD0, and one HD1. But as soon as my A1200 starts the booting process it pops up a System Request window stating 'Not a DOS disk in device HD0'.

Also I did go through the whole setup process again to see if there was any mistake I'd made along the way, and when it came to choosing the file system I only had the option of SFS with FFS ticked or not. I chose to have FFS.

Could it be that the CF reader and CF card just aren't compatible with each other?

[Mark sealey]

Originally Posted by JonnoB

I did, yes. The card boots fine through WinUAE. And my actual A1200 shows exactly the same boot options as WinUAE, even down the the correct device names, so it's definitely detected that it's a drive with two partitions, one HD0, and one HD1. But as soon as my A1200 starts the booting process it pops up a System Request window stating 'Not a DOS disk in device HD0'.

Also I did go through the whole setup process again to see if there was any mistake I'd made along the way, and when it came to choosing the file system I only had the option of SFS with FFS ticked or not. I chose to have FFS.

Could it be that the CF reader and CF card just aren't compatible with each other?

Forgive me if I'm wrong but the old ffs uses a lot of ram to validate partitions ?

I use pfs3 or os314 ffs

[Toni Wilen]

Did you mount the CF using IDE emulation in WinUAE? (make also sure ATA2+ strict HD mode is selected)

UAE HD controller has all modern features implemented, KS built-in ROM IDE driver isn't that capable without updates and patches.

[JonnoB]

Originally Posted by Mark sealey

Forgive me if I'm wrong but the old ffs uses a lot of ram to validate partitions ?

I use pfs3 or os314 ffs

The only options I'm given in HDToolBox is SFS with or without FFS

[JonnoB]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Did you mount the CF using IDE emulation in WinUAE? (make also sure ATA2+ strict HD mode is selected)

UAE HD controller has all modern features implemented, KS built-in ROM IDE driver isn't that capable without updates and patches.

It was set on ATA2+. I've now reset it to ATA2+ Strict. Still boots up fine in WinUAE. Should I try reinstalling everything with ATA2+ Strict on?

[JonnoB]

Also, I've noticed something that seems odd when adding the CF through WinUAE. Before clicking Add hard drive, the geometry is different to when I've clicked it and gone back into the settings. Is this simply because the geometry is not yet set until Add hard drive is clicked, or is something wrong with that?

Before:



After:

[Toni Wilen]

WinUAE can't read CF identity block (512 bytes) that includes geometry data because so far there is no known CF readers that support IDE passthrough.

But it shouldn't affect compatibility. IDE geometry is only virtual.

Do you have exact same config in WinUAE? (including amount of RAM, too large buffers can easily use all the available memory)

Boot without startup-sequence and check available memory ("avail" command).

Does it work if you use early boot menu to disable second partition?

[JonnoB]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

WinUAE can't read CF identity block (512 bytes) that includes geometry data because so far there is no known CF readers that support IDE passthrough.

But it shouldn't affect compatibility. IDE geometry is only virtual.

Do you have exact same config in WinUAE? (including amount of RAM, too large buffers can easily use all the available memory)

Boot without startup-sequence and check available memory ("avail" command).

Does it work if you use early boot menu to disable second partition?

I've tried disabling everything apart from HD0, and even booting with no startup-sequence returns the same error.

And yeah, I've got the exact same configuration in WinUAE as my A1200. Bog standard 2mb, no fast ram, 020 processor. No expansions. Even using the exact same kickrom (3.1 40.68)

[Toni Wilen]

Run HDDReport (from https://thomas-rapp.homepage.t-online.de/download.html) both on your real Amiga (use floppies if HD does not mount) and WinUAE and attach output.

It should have some differences. If it does not, it probably is some kind of hardware incompatibility.

[JonnoB]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Run HDDReport (from https://thomas-rapp.homepage.t-online.de/download.html) both on your real Amiga (use floppies if HD does not mount) and WinUAE and attach output.

It should have some differences. If it does not, it probably is some kind of hardware incompatibility.

Unfortunately my floppy drive doesn't read disks any more so that's not a viable option at the moment.

[Toni Wilen]

WinUAE hddreport output should also help. Or mount the CF using UAE HD controller option, enable logging (misc panel logging option), boot normally, quite, attach winuaelog.txt (not winuaebootlog.txt)

[JonnoB]

Ok I've attached the WinUAE hddreport.txt here.

[Toni Wilen]

Report looks fine.

Do you have another CF card?

You can also try removing fastfilesystem from RDB. It shouldn't change anything but I am running out of ideas