CF / SD and large drives FAQ

[drusso66]

Just a quick update, I finally managed to partition and format a micro sd card, not the original standard full size Sd card, which I still cannot partition or format.What I did was use an 8GB Micro Sd card placed into a USB thumb stick type card reader, and it worked straight away after I used diskpart etc etc.....
So the problem seems to be with 3 different card readers not working with Winuae properly, but the cheaper USB thumb stick style adapter works. I cannot use my SD cards, which I have loads of sprare ones, but can use micro sd, unless I buy yet another card reader
(4th one) and give it another go.
Is there any known card reader compatibility list for Winuae use.

[fgh]

Ok. Do those readers work ok except in WinUAE?
Are you using a USB hub perhaps?
No such list exists I'm afraid.

[demolition]

Try running WinUAE as administrator if you haven't already. It can solve many of these kinds of problems. Otherwise you could probably use something like Win32DiskImager to create an image of your card, mount that in WinUAE and when you're done write it back.

I use one of these card readers:

If I insert my SDXC card directly in the MicroSD slot, it won't work for some reason, however if I use the MicroSD-2-SD adapter that came with the card and insert it using the SD slot then it works perfectly, although I'm not sure what the difference is..

[Toni Wilen]

"Unit is not a disk (type xx)", xx = whatever SCSI INQUIRY command returns in first byte (SCSI device type, 0 = normal HD). 32 probably means winuae failed to access the drive (permission error) and returned 32 = "removable drive not present". (SCSI emulation sees it as removed removable drive, even if real reason is something else)

Always check the log for drive mounting details! WinUAE uses standad Windows API to access the disk, there is nothing special. Admin privileges are usually required.

[drusso66]

I have always used Winuae as admin, and the 3 card readers all work well outside of Winuae in general everyday usage. I will be trying some more micro sd cards and sd cards in my other PC (windows 7) and with same Winuae setup and see what results I get. Will also try them in my Amiga 1200 to see any differences.
Thanks to all the info and advice to everyone, hopefully my mistakes and results will be useful to anyone having similar issues.

[Toni Wilen]

"Normal" use is quite different because it does not need partition table access.

Try latest 3.4.1 beta and tick new "lock" checkbox in add harddrive dialog. Does it help?

[drusso66]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

"Normal" use is quite different because it does not need partition table access.

Try latest 3.4.1 beta and tick new "lock" checkbox in add harddrive dialog. Does it help?

Thanks for advice will give it ago later

[drusso66]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

"Normal" use is quite different because it does not need partition table access.

Try latest 3.4.1 beta and tick new "lock" checkbox in add harddrive dialog. Does it help?

Yes finally working, tried with winuae beta 3.41 used the lock option and managed to partition and format the 8GB SD card that was given me all this trouble.
Thanks Toni really appreciate it, i can easily format either SD, Micro SD and CF cards via Winuae.

[blatboy]

Ooookay! I'm almost there. I feel I've done a lot of research to get me to this point, but I'm still missing something.

Here's what I have:

A3000 w/SCSI2SD v6 running 3.9 bb4

Setting up SD in WinUAE. (SCSI2SD card hooked via USB to PC) Hardware params in UAE match my 3000 exactly. (040 w 2MB chip and 256MB Z3 Fast)

32GB SD split into 2 drives. DH1:2GB and DH2:24GB (will add more drives if I get this working)
Workbench/Work partitions on DH1 and booting fine.
scsi.device is 43.45 (using the file a3000.scsi.device.43.45 and yes I changed the name)
added to startup sequence: C:AddBuffers >NIL: DH2 8192
pfs/03 file system using Pfs3aio
maxtransfer: 0x0001FE0
Check4GB claims everything ok for 24GB DH2:

Problem: When copying WHDLoad packs onto DH2 using Dopus5, once I get close to the feared 4GB limit, I'll get a pfs error (missing bitmap or something -- I didn't write it down sorry... it takes HOURS to get to the point where the error comes up**) Pfs doctor locks up if I try to fix it. Once I reset the machine, the drive is showing as "uninitialized."

One clue I have: When doing a PFSDoctor check on the 24GB DH2 right after a clean format, I still get the message "PFS Doctor failed to access the disk above the 4G boundary after attempting both direct SCSI and td64. Continuing can be dangerous"

Yes, I could just keep the limit at 4GB, as the SD has more than ample room for many 4GB drives (8 of them to be exact) but I'd love to be able to put the mother lode on one drive.

Any suggestions would be wonderful. I've tried 3 times and it takes all night for the games to copy over... **though I'm happy to do it again if nothing else to write down the exact error that happens, if that is key to finding the solution, which I admit is a pretty big piece of info to leave out.

[blatboy]

For the record, I'm copying the games over again and will tell you the exact error when it happens in a few hours...

[blatboy]

The error is "Wrong Bitmap block ID"

This time, I got the mouse pointer going crazy bug, so I wasn't able to hit "OK" which would give me more errors in the past... and lock up if I tried to fix it with PFSdoctor



with the mouse pointer going everywhere, it took me a long time to finally get the screen to show enough of the destination window (lister) to see that it says 3K in use 0% full... which makes me think it "rolled over" after 4G. I don't understand why this is happening. I thought I set up everything correctly?



Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

[fgh]

Not sure. I don't know the SCSI2SD but from what I've understood, you need to configure it with card size etc in the scsi2sd software for it to work at all, so it might be doing other unusual things as well. I'd ask the author for support.

Other than that, afaik the A3000 scsi should work fine with direct scsi, and so should pfs3aio, so there should not be a 4gb limit any more. (drive size, not partition size btw)
You are sure it's the aio version in use, and not regular pfs3?
(in that case use the pds dostype)
You mention a scsi.device patch, which is more important on a600/1200/4000 ide.
IIRC setpatch for 3.9 should add NSD support, but if you really want to patch it, make sure you are using the a3000 version, and verify that it's loaded with 'version scsi.device' afterwards.

/ Frode, ex Trombone player

[demolition]

Originally Posted by blatboy

pfs/03 file system using Pfs3aio
maxtransfer: 0x0001FE0

I don't know if that was a typo, but normally one would use 0x1fe00 for maxtransfer, although using a smaller value should not cause any rw-errors (might hurt performance though I guess if you use very small values).

Also, as file system identifier I normally use PDS\03 which tells PFS3 to use Direct SCSI, although I think pfs3aio automatically detects which method the system supports, no matter what identifier you use. But with the regular PFS3, it makes a difference, so I just always use PDS\03.

[Toni Wilen]

A3000 ROM scsi.device does not need any updates if direct scsi filesystem is in use. Try without patches and make sure dos type is PDS3 (or PDS<whatever>) to force PFS3aio to use directscsi, without it TD64 and NSD is attempted first.

Another easy test is to create partition at the end of the drive (small partition) using A3000, format it, then mount it in WinUAE. If partition fails to mount: something is wrong, possibly with scsi2sd.

(also repeating again and again: max transfer is only needed with A600/A1200/A4000 IDE.)

[demolition]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

(also repeating again and again: max transfer is only needed with A600/A1200/A4000 IDE.)

But wouldn't it also be fine to use a MaxTransfer value of 0x1fe00 with other controllers or would it hurt performance? I guess it would be easier for people to just use one value for all machines, instead of having to remember which machines needs it to be lowered. It would also make it possible to move a drive from one machine to another if the lowest common denominator is used.

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by demolition

But wouldn't it also be fine to use a MaxTransfer value of 0x1fe00 with other controllers or would it hurt performance? I guess it would be easier for people to just use one value for all machines, instead of having to remember which machines needs it to be lowered. It would also make it possible to move a drive from one machine to another if the lowest common denominator is used.

Yes, thats true but as long as max transfer myth exists, I'll refuse to stop!

Technically it may affect performance if program does lots of big reads or writes but it probably isn't noticeable.

[blatboy]

Thanks! I'm boarding a plane. I'll try your suggestions... esp changing pfs/03 to pds/03 and reinstating the original scsi.device from 3.9. Will try the small partition at the end of the drive too.

I'm pretty sure I've set up the scsi2sd card correctly. I've been using it for a while and otherwise seems to work ok. That said, anything is possible.

I'll get back to you in a day or two. Thanks so much for the suggestions!!!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Jope]

What I noticed with the scsi2sd is, that it stores its configuration to the last two blocks of the SD card. As a result I didn't dare give those two blocks to the virtual device I configured in there, even though it would have allowed me to do it.. I couldn't quickly find any documentation on that either.

[blatboy]

Ok... did more testing.

replaced original scsi.device
changed pfs/03 to pds/03
changed max transfer 0x1fe00 just because I'm superstitious
added a 260mb partition at the end of DH2 -- seems to mount ok

there was a change... an odd one.
check4gb now reports *NT on the two DH2 partitions, but not on the DH1 partitions. I'm assuming *NT means not terminated?
The SCSI2SD card is set to be terminated, and I get an ok from check4gb on the 2GB DH1
This is odd as both DH1 and DH2 are on the same SD card, yes?
doing a check with pfs doctor gives me the same "PFS Doctor failed to access the disk above the 4G boundary after attempting both direct SCSI and td64. Continuing can be dangerous" warning as before


Just for the record, the global options on the SCSI2SD card are:

Enable SCSI terminator (checked)
Startup delay (seconds) 0
SCSI Selection Delay (ms, 255=auto) 255

and all these are NOT checked:

• Enable Parity
• Enable Unit Attention
• Enable SCSI2 Mode (the a3000 is SCSI2, isn't it?)
• Enable disk cache (experimental)
• Enable SCSI Disconnect
• Respond to short SCSI selection pulses
• Map LUNS to SCSI IDs

I have to run to work... will do more testing tonight and/or tomorrow if I can.

[blatboy]

Originally Posted by Jope

What I noticed with the scsi2sd is, that it stores its configuration to the last two blocks of the SD card. As a result I didn't dare give those two blocks to the virtual device I configured in there, even though it would have allowed me to do it.. I couldn't quickly find any documentation on that either.

Good to know. Thanks!

As of now, I have about 6GB free at the end of the card, but I'll be sure to leave space at the end if/when I add more drives to the card.