Real A4000 reading CF but Winuae won't

[IvanEBC]

Hi Guys.

Needed to increase my 8gb to 16gb card, so i created the card following these instructions
https://16bitdust.wordpress.com/2015...nuae-and-pfs3/
had a little back and forth but mostly had issues with DH1, i know i followed everything but the 14gb dh1 wouldn't appear and trying to install the scsi.device would cause a reboot loop, but that's not the issue.

I moved the CF card to my real Amiga 4000 and found DH1: was there and working... surprised! Moving it back to WINUAE to copy files, i can't get DH1 to appear.

Now my theory is the same as the A590 CF setup that i need to tell winuae to use the A590 controller so the card works in my real A590, and that the A4000 is using a IDE to CF adaptor. So i currently tell winuae to use A600/A1200/A4000 IDE... but the A4000 isn't the default IDE with the adaptor from Amikit. Would i be on the right track? and if so.. under expansions/IDE controllers, what would i choose to get this a close match in hardware that WINUAE can duplicate the A4000.

Thank you.

SIDE NOTE: on the 4000, i let it use the standard scsi.device somewhere around v40.xx from the original WB3.1 Floppy Install - if i try to use the suggested 44.20, i get a crash and no longer booting workbench.... kinda opposite as suggested on that page.

[thomas]

Without an upgraded scsi.device you aren't able to access 14 GB, you can only access the first 4GB of the card. You also need an upgraded file system. Without an upgrade FFS will allow you to mount a 14 GB partition, but it does not cover the space you reserved for DH1. In fact it shares the first 4 GB with DH0 and wraps around at the 4GB border several times, causing corruptions of all kinds.

To use more than 4 GB on the internal IDE bus you have to install an upgraded scsi.device and an upgraded file system. If you don't, you permanently live with the risk of complete data loss.

44.20 sounds unfamiliar and is probably a bad thing. The latest scsi.device for OS 3.1 is 43.24 and FFS 43.20.

You can use this program to check if everything is installed correctly: http://thomas-rapp.homepage.t-online.../hddreport.lha
Do this before you copy any files because if you need to change partitions you loose everything you did before.

[IvanEBC]

Thanks Thomas
I'd copied DH0: of course as i don't mind losing everything and this is an upgrade to an 8GB which stands untouched.

I actually run your tool from A4000 and UAE so you can see the different results and wasn't quite sure which you wanted.
Interesting the A4000 seems happy..... curious on your thoughts.

From Amiga 4000 with Amigakit CF Card Reader
http://users.on.net/~ivanw/hddreportREAL.txt

WinUAE - using my 8gb card config but with the same 16card in disucssion
http://users.on.net/~ivanw/hddreportUAE.txt

Thanks.

[thomas]

Seems like you've got one of the very rare CF cards which report their real size in CHS mode, although it's outside of the ATA specs. ATA limit is C=16384, H=16, S=63 which results in a max. capacity of 8064 MB. Larger drives normally can only be accessed in LBA mode.

I guess that WinUAE doesn't know the CHS values reported by the card but only sees what Windows sees as capacity. Therefore it has no choice and has to emulate proper ATA limits.

The easy way to exchange data with your CF card is to connect it to uaehf.device (UAE controller) rather than to scsi.device (IDE controller).

On the real Amiga all looks ok. You might not have as much luck with other large CF cards, though.

[IvanEBC]

Well i ordered one of those PC to Amiga cables to use Amiga explorer, if you're saying the card is fine in the Real Amiga, then i reckon i might do that, use it in a real Amiga only and when i need to update anything, use Amiga Explorer.

This Rare card is a Sandisk "Ultra" 16gb 50MB/s with a pretty much silver label.

Thank you.

[thomas]

Well, the card is fine in WinUAE, too, if you change your config to use UAE as controller. This is the default anyway and it is faster than IDE because it can access the card directly without IDE hardware emulation.

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by IvanEBC

This Rare card is a Sandisk "Ultra" 16gb 50MB/s with a pretty much silver label.

Interesting if this is true.

I am going to get 32G version of same type (silver sandisk ultra 50MB/s) next week.

[IvanEBC]

Let's keep notes... i'll get my PC <-> Amiga cable next week, i guess my first test could be the copy more than 8gb and see if data overwrites itself, will i know via some error requestor ?

[IvanEBC]

Originally Posted by thomas

Well, the card is fine in WinUAE, too, if you change your config to use UAE as controller. This is the default anyway and it is faster than IDE because it can access the card directly without IDE hardware emulation.

That was tested before this post and again right now, no, this isn't the case unfortunately. If i use UAE as a controller, it boots to a prompt, no commands work except ENDCLI, i can't dir, or loadwb... its like an empty disk

[thomas]

Originally Posted by IvanEBC

Let's keep notes... i'll get my PC <-> Amiga cable next week, i guess my first test could be the copy more than 8gb and see if data overwrites itself, will i know via some error requestor ?

No error will appear during write. Errors might appear on next reboot like checksum errors, disappearing partitions, non-executable programs etc.

In the worst case you won't notice anything until you try to use some files which have been corrupted.

Originally Posted by IvanEBC

That was tested before this post and again right now, no, this isn't the case unfortunately. If i use UAE as a controller, it boots to a prompt, no commands work except ENDCLI, i can't dir, or loadwb... its like an empty disk

This empty drive is not your CF card, it's one of your directory harddrives. Check the boot priorities of the directories or uncheck their "bootable" option altogether. The boot priority of your CF card can be checked with HDToolbox.

The drive with the highest priority (highest value) will be the boot drive. If there are multiple drives with the same priority, the one which comes first in the list will boot.

[IvanEBC]

This empty drive is not your CF card, it's one of your directory harddrives. Check the boot priorities of the directories or uncheck their "bootable" option altogether. The boot priority of your CF card can be checked with HDToolbox.

The drive with the highest priority (highest value) will be the boot drive. If there are multiple drives with the same priority, the one which comes first in the list will boot.[/QUOTE]

Was all prepared to say that i think you was wrong .. how dare i ... i checked and they both had a pri of 0 and to test, i just removed the "PC" drive and it booted, DH1: appeared.

So at least for now, i can still use WinUAE for transfers and setup.

As for the file corruption, you won't believe it'll happen anyways, so i might go along with that premise as well cause damn it Thomas, you've been correct with everything else not just in this thread but many others i've asked for help in. I thank you for taking the time here again.

Ivan

[IvanEBC]

One question.

Since the Amiga doesn't correctly report free space, when DH1 was clean it said 1.3gb free (actually 14gb) so i copied, once it reached 0 it flipped to 3gb free, once that was filled, it started again (somewhere around 3gb). I know over time i'm going to lose count of the actual free space .. unknown if this next ZERO is going to the the real "out of room" or if it will flip over to a fresh number again.

Any ideas?