Will any CF to IDE adapter work in an A4000?

[Starglider 2]

Hi guys, as per my other thread, I'm looking for ways to back up the hard disks is some historically significant A4000s.

Using ddrescue on a PC isn't working as some of the drives are CHS and not supported by USB adapters.

I'm on Mac so WinUAE is also a little more complex, though doable.

My other option is to boot the machines and immediately perform a backup to new IDE drives.

Questions:

1. I assume CompactFlash is the best way to do this. Will any IDE > CF adapter work in an A4000?

2. Can I just use one large CF and partition it to back up all 6 hard drives across the A4000s, or is it better to use a separate CF card for each drive I'm backing up?

3. What's the maximum size CF card and partition size supported by KS 3.1 on A4000? 4GB? (I've read the FAQ, just confirming.)

4. And what backup program would you use to make a nice carbon copy of the drives?

Thanks!

[-Acid-]

If you are connecting it directly to the board then make sure you get a 40 pin adapter else you will need to convert a 44 pin one to a 40 pin with some adapter or cable. The 40 pin version uses a floppy power connector where as the 44 pin ones take it from the IDE port but the A4000 IDE port doesn't have a power line like the A1200 does.

[Starglider 2]

Thanks! Seems a bit confusing. Basically I just want to connect the CF card to the existing IDE cable so it becomes a new drive on the system.

Are you able to point me to a suitable adapter on Amazon ?

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by Starglider 2

Thanks! Seems a bit confusing. Basically I just want to connect the CF card to the existing IDE cable so it becomes a new drive on the system.

Are you able to point me to a suitable adapter on Amazon ?

I have a few of these and they work ok.
https://www.amazon.com/Syba-SD-CF-ID.../dp/B001JTO782


Don't get the one that mounts directly to the connector (obviously).

[Starglider 2]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

I have a few of these and they work ok.
https://www.amazon.com/Syba-SD-CF-ID.../dp/B001JTO782


Don't get the one that mounts directly to the connector (obviously).

Cheers. I see 3 versions:

By cable
By direct
By bracket

I don't actually want to permanently mount this to the A4000 case, so a bracket isn't necessary. Which version would work?

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by Starglider 2

Cheers. I see 3 versions:

By cable
By direct
By bracket

I don't actually want to permanently mount this to the A4000 case, so a bracket isn't necessary. Which version would work?

Cable or Bracket are essentially the same thing. I would recommend the bracket one so you have something to mount it to while you're transferring stuff. I've had enough instances where shoving a CF adapter that doesn't weigh anything migrated due to cables flexing and shorting out and ruining my day to not do that. Since it's going to be copying for probably a long time you'd want to mount it somewhere. If you don't have any other IDE devices the direct one will work too.

[Starglider 2]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

Cable or Bracket are essentially the same thing. I would recommend the bracket one so you have something to mount it to while you're transferring stuff. I've had enough instances where shoving a CF adapter that doesn't weigh anything migrated due to cables flexing and shorting out and ruining my day to not do that. Since it's going to be copying for probably a long time you'd want to mount it somewhere. If you don't have any other IDE devices the direct one will work too.

Ok thanks, good advice.

Someone in Facebook recommended SD instead of CF. Is one better/easier than the other?

Either way, which capacity card should I go for?

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by Starglider 2

Ok thanks, good advice.

Someone in Facebook recommended SD instead of CF. Is one better/easier than the other?

Either way, which capacity card should I go for?

I don't know how big are your drives? SD is generally cheaper than CF but in my experience I've had more trouble with SD cards. If a 32GB CF is not too expensive go with that. I've had good luck with 32GB CF Sandisk Ultra cards.

[Starglider 2]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

I don't know how big are your drives? SD is generally cheaper than CF but in my experience I've had more trouble with SD cards. If a 32GB CF is not too expensive go with that. I've had good luck with 32GB CF Sandisk Ultra cards.

Thanks. The FAQ talks about 4GB or 7GB limits for the A4000. How are you using a 32GB CF? Do you just partition it into 8 x 4GB partitions from Workbench?

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by Starglider 2

Thanks. The FAQ talks about 4GB or 7GB limits for the A4000. How are you using a 32GB CF? Do you just partition it into 8 x 4GB partitions from Workbench?

No, I pretty much do it like this on OS3.9:
Partition1: 0.5GB
Partition2: 1.5GB
Partition3: <Rest of the Space>

Format with PFS3-AIO.

[-Acid-]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

Format with PFS3-AIO.

And use an updated scsi.device ... see my guides if you need to know how


[ Show youtube player ]

[Starglider 2]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

No, I pretty much do it like this on OS3.9:
Partition1: 0.5GB
Partition2: 1.5GB
Partition3: <Rest of the Space>

Format with PFS3-AIO.

Thanks again! I'll be using 3.1.

Where I'm confused now is you're buying 32GB cards but only using 2GB? Or did I misunderstand something?

Is there a way I can back up 6 different drives to one CF card? Or does it need to be one-for-one?

[lesta_smsc]

I'm assuming the remainder becomes part of Partition 3?

[ajk]

With 3.1 and its FastFileSystem your partition size is limited to 4GB (and drive size I believe 8GB?).

Updated device drivers and file systems will get around the limitations, but your boot drive still needs to be small enough and at the beginning of the drive so that the initial startup of the system can happen with the original drivers in the ROM.

I'm not sure what exactly you mean by backing up the drives here. You can copy as many files from as many drives and partitions as you like, for example the contents of each drive to a different directory. But of course you can't have six partitions with the same name or the system will get very confused

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by Starglider 2

Thanks again! I'll be using 3.1.

Where I'm confused now is you're buying 32GB cards but only using 2GB? Or did I misunderstand something?

Is there a way I can back up 6 different drives to one CF card? Or does it need to be one-for-one?

Right, the last partition is 30GB.
Copying drives in AmigaOS is trivial, you could just drag the drive to a folder on the big partition.

Restoring it is as simple as copying the folder to a partition and setting it the first partition as bootable.

What I would do is set up the CF in WinUAE matching the Amiga configuration as closely as possible then just boot from the CF drive in the Amiga. This way you can use OS3.9 or whatever and don't have to touch the old partitions too much.