HD only works with WinUAE. PFS3Aio used.

[Retrofan]

Hi:
I have some Cf HD's that I use with my A1200 BPPC; some Transcend, some Sandisk Ultra.

I've bought a new 8Gb Transcend CF, installed PFS3Aio on it, made a copy of a working Sandisk Cf with CWB39 that boots perfectly with the miggy and now it boots on WinUAE, but on the Amiga it doesn't. It just shows the insert disk screen.

I've tried formating again the Cf and copying the files now directly from the other Cf connecting both on WinUAE, instead of what I did first making an lzx and later extracting it on the new Transcend. Nothing.

I'm not sure if in the working Cf I am using PFS3Aio or the older one, also dunno how to know it, but I believe it shoudn't matter.

As I've said the Sandisk Cf works perfectly fine on the miggy with this OS and I also have another Transcend Cf that works fine with CWBAdvSp.

Any idea?

[thomas]

Make sure that the CF card has been cleaned before you use it with WinUAE. We've seen occasions where WinUAE uses a partition on the CF card as harddrive instead of the whole CF card. Of course the real Amiga cannot see the Amiga data if it does not begin in the beginning of the CF card.

Also run HDToolbox on the real Amiga to check if the CF card is actually recognised as a harddrive. There are CF cards which fail to identify themselves to the IDE driver.

[Retrofan]

Originally Posted by thomas

Make sure that the CF card has been cleaned before you use it with WinUAE. We've seen occasions where WinUAE uses a partition on the CF card as harddrive instead of the whole CF card. Of course the real Amiga cannot see the Amiga data if it does not begin in the beginning of the CF card.

Also run HDToolbox on the real Amiga to check if the CF card is actually recognised as a harddrive. There are CF cards which fail to identify themselves to the IDE driver.

I used diskpart, clean, create partition primary, assign, etc. And... it seems I have to buy another floppy drive (I've got 4 and none work right). I'm sorry but actually I can not run HDToolbox but in WinUAE, but this Cf HD doesn't boot either in another A1200 with an ACA 1231/42.

I thought WinUAE was invented for this. Perhaps is there a "safer" configuration to make it? No JIT or no fastest possible or something?

[thomas]

Well, you have one that works and another which does not work. You should consider the non-working card as incompatible, try to get a refund and buy another brand.

[Retrofan]

I guess there must be a difference between both cards, and a way to know, perhaps fix it. I'm almost sure that if I make all the partitions on the real Amiga I woudn't have these problems. Don't know what the problem is with WinUAE running something that shoudn't.


Edit: It wasn't my floppy drives but my floppies. Now I've got a working Install one.... BUT it doesn't dettect any drive with my Transcend.

Nothing I can do then?. I'm going to format again the Cf and try on the Amiga again. Perhaps the usb adapter made something to it on the Pc. Edit: Nope, nothing.

[thomas]

Nothing I can do then?

Yep.

You could try to load IDEfix or an updated scsi.device from floppy, but you would have to do this everytime you switch on the Amiga.

[Retrofan]

This is really interesting:

http://www.fccps.cz/download/adv/frr/cf.html

[thomas]

DMA is irrelevant for the Amiga. There is no IDE controller for the Amiga which supports DMA. The builtin IDE controller does not even support PIO1.

[prowler]

Originally Posted by Retrofan

This is really interesting:

http://www.fccps.cz/download/adv/frr/cf.html

Hey, nice find (nevertheless), Retrofan!

[Retrofan]

You know I only understand a little of that all. But then what are the advantages of an adapter like TrueIde ?
http://www.jschoenfeld.com/home/indexe.htm

And I also have had problems running PIO 5 or PIO 4, perhaps TrueIde could fix them? (Well, or just making the mod of my post).

Edit:

Originally Posted by thomas

DMA is irrelevant for the Amiga. There is no IDE controller for the Amiga which supports DMA. The builtin IDE controller does not even support PIO1.

Well, your answer clearly says "No". But all my problems seem to suggest a missing connection for the Cf.

Edit: Well, my own answer. The Cf uses surely DMA, but the Amiga won't be able to use it no matter what I do.

[thomas]

The benefit of Joerg's TrueIDE is that it reliably switches the CF card into IDE mode and it probably also patches the identify data so that the Amiga does not think it is a CD drive or something else it does not support.

I doubt that there is any benefit speedwise. The description does not say that it checks and possibly corrects every IDE command and response. It only speaks of the removable / fixed flag which is transferred during identification. All other traffic is just passed through.

[Retrofan]

Or I do something wrong or WinUAE 2.6.1 has some problem:

Let's see. I do in the "PC" (my C64 with ITX, Windows7 64bits) with diskpart a "clean" with the Cf, BUT then I can not select the Cf as Hardrive (!!!) , so then I have to make a "create partition primary, assign" and then format it. Then WinUAE accepts it, but when I make the partitions and save the changes it gives me a message of Block zero write attempt but drive has one or more mounted PC partitions, erase the drive or unmount all PC partitions first, or also something about running as adminstrator -I believe I tried also as administrator-.

-Well, you are wondering how I made the partitions the first time; In my laptop with Windows 7 32bits I could save the partitions previously saved with a primary partition, but later I had the problems-

Then I read this thread (old one): http://eab.abime.net/support-hardwar...me-errors.html

and then I've installed WinUAE 2.3.0 (tried with 2.5.1 and had the same problem). Now with 2.3.0 I just make a clean disk with diskpart and it accepts the Cf (running as administrator) without making any assign partition of diskpart.

I've just made the same than before creating the partitions with PFS3Aio and now the Cf works perfectly on the Amiga.... ()

Edit: And... thinking now... My problems with Pio 5 or 4 are always something like "Read attempt outside partition", from a lot of time ago. Perhaps I've found the answer to my problems.

[thomas]

Do not use Assign and Format. Use Clean, Create Partition Primary and Delete Partition. This should leave an empty MBR on the card which can be used by WinUAE. WinUAE does not allow to write to the disk if drive letters are assigned.

[Retrofan]

Thanks. I think my problems started here http://eab.abime.net/support-hardwar...ver-my-cf.html.

Well perhaps they helped me to get to this thread and fix problems from before -a couple of years, so I think this thread has become VERY usefull-.

So this post has to be repeated:

Originally Posted by thomas

Do not use Assign and Format. Use Clean, Create Partition Primary and Delete Partition. This should leave an empty MBR on the card which can be used by WinUAE. WinUAE does not allow to write to the disk if drive letters are assigned.