Formatting Compact Flash as Amiga Drive
 

Has anyone successfully formatted a Compact Flash card using WinUAE?

I have a 1GB card I want to use as a boot drive, but as an Amiga FFS drive. It comes configured with the FAT file system. The drive shows up in WinUAE if I select the option to show all Windows drives, but I cannot format the disk under WinUAE, and it does not show up as an available drive in the Hard Disk installation because it is formatted for FAT.

I cannot delete the partition in Windows because Windows XP does not support deleting partitions using disk manager for removable drives such as Flash disks. The work around appears to be to delete the partition in DOS, but my card reader does not have a DOS driver. Same thing for Linux.

Is there any facility within WinUAE to take a "Windows" drive, delete the partition, and create an RDB so it can be treated as an Amiga disk drive? Or is there some other workaround that people have used?

Thanks,

Jeffrey

Hi JeffreyUS

I'm working from memory here, so apologies if it doesn't work.

Take a look at this page http://www.pscience5.net/CFPartition.htm, which *will* make your CF bootable, and install DOS and a partition manager.

Alter your bios settings to boot from USB device and power down. Pull out your main hard disk power cable. Power up, and boot from the CF drive. You can then delete the existing partitions on the CF. Power down, replace hard disk power cable. Power up change BIOS boot settings back to hard disk. Reboot back into Windows which now won't recognise the drive.

Open WinUAE (add the CF drive), and insert an "Install 3.1" adf. Edit the Icon Information for HDToolbox to make SCSI_DEVICE_NAME=uaehf.device (was scsi.device), and run HDToolbox. The drive should now be found and available for partitioning.

Easy peasy! :lol

Neither of the systems I tried recognized the CF drive using the HP utility. The first one uses an old media device I have, and the second uses a cardbus slot (so it is not registered as a USB device).

I even tried another tool using mkbt from BARTPE, but again, neither of my systems supports booting from USB (or, in the case of the second computer, booting from a cardbus slot).

So, Toni, is there any way you can enable the Amiga under WinUAE to create a RDB for a Windows device, such as a CF drive? Note that the CF drive shows up in disk manager for Windows (without a partition option) but it does not show up in the WinUAE configuration as a drive when using the -disableharddrivesafetycheck option.

Thanks!

If the card is shown as a drive letter in Windows, then it cannot be used with WinUAE without tweaking.

Run WinUAE with the -disableharddrivesafetycheck command line option, then use the "Add Harddrive" button. In WinUAE you have to parttiion the card with HDToolbox or similar. Tell HDToolbox to scan uaehf.device instead of scsi.device, otherwise it will not see the drive.

Do you see your other harddrives in add harddrive dialog? (with -disableharddrivesafetycheck -option)

Also check winuaebootlog.txt for possible error information.

I see the other hard drives in the add harddrive dialog. There are no errors reported about the CF drive in winuaebootlog.txt (however, it does complain about catweasel, but that is a subject for another post). It is not mentioned at all.

Does Windows device manager and disk management show the card? If not, WinUAE can't detect it either.

Yes, they both do, and I read and write to the drive from the Windows side. In fact, if I select the option to automatically add all Windows drives, it show up in Winuae, but I cannot format or partition it (I can read and write to it, through).

"Directory" harddrives can't be formatted or partitioned, they are not real drives. Nothing wrong here.

It needs to be added via "Add Harddrive".

actually I had a similar thing yesterday with WinUAE 1.3.3 and a real 40MB HDD out of an A1200. I have never pulled this 40MB drive out of the A1200 before, but plugged it into my USB 2.5"/3.5" IDE adaptor and Windows detected the HDD and added in 2 new drives (K: and L: in my case) but I could not read/write anything on the new added drives.

When I tried to add a Harddrive to WinUAE it said it couldn't see any unformatted or RDB formatted drive.

Does the drive still work in your A1200?

Looks like some USB adapters have some weird and incompatible extra features because Windows won't add any new drive letters if the drive does not have PC partition table. (What does Windows disk manager say?)

Do you see any identication information (names, model numbers etc..) on the USB adapter?

btw, ALWAYS include winuaebootlog.txt when having "Add Harddrive " problems, thanks.

Heys,

I use a pcmcia adapter on my laptop to setup CF cards as hard drives using winUAE and OS3.1.

I can add and change all i want and then just plumb them into the native amiga adapter and fire it up.. all is smooth and fine.

I have been using this method many times now and have found it a perfect marriage of setting up a basic A1200 under 3.1 and even using OS.3.5

I received a new flashcard reader yesterday, and the problem is solved. Using the -disableharddrivesafetycheck -option, the flash card showed up in the Add Hard Drives list, and I was able to select it and use the HDToolbox to partition it on the Amiga side.

Sorry Toni,

the HDD worked fine on the A1200. I made a HD copy as well as partition copied using TSGUI but I've already formatted the HDD and re-installed WB 3.1 on it. I'll try it again and see if the USB adapter can pick it up now that I've only got the one partition etc. on it.

If I have any problems I'll follow your directions.

Regards,
Gizmomelb