Using a Compact Flash card on a600/a1200 IDE

[clueless]

Hi peeps, so WHDload games dont work on real amiga and its a variety of errors I get, illegal instructions, dos error, incorrect roms, but work fine on winuae when i use my CF HDD. After trawling through a multitude of threads, it seems people have this problem when their CF cards maxtansfer data is set wrong.
Do i have to reformat to change the maxtransfer or can i do it without wiping everything?

[ipod_sock]

Guys, apologies if answered before (did have a snout around) but just wondering if my 4gbCF setup will work with my bog standard A600 if I use one of those 2g SRAM PCMCIA cards???

[Jope]

Originally Posted by ipod_sock

Guys, apologies if answered before (did have a snout around) but just wondering if my 4gbCF setup will work with my bog standard A600 if I use one of those 2g SRAM PCMCIA cards???

Makes no difference either way regarding the SRAM card, it'll work.

Unless I'm missing something.

[rkauer]

Originally Posted by clueless

Hi peeps, so WHDload games dont work on real amiga and its a variety of errors I get, illegal instructions, dos error, incorrect roms, but work fine on winuae when i use my CF HDD. After trawling through a multitude of threads, it seems people have this problem when their CF cards maxtansfer data is set wrong.
Do i have to reformat to change the maxtransfer or can i do it without wiping everything?

Try just modifying the max transfer value in HDtoolbox. It may work without reformatting.

[clueless]

Indeed it did thanks. I have bought two kingston cards as it seems that people have had success with them, however I'm not. They dont get recognised by the amiga. but more confusingly, not by the PC either, the system just hangs till I take it out. Any thoughts?

[Allen1]

Originally Posted by clueless

Indeed it did thanks. I have bought two kingston cards as it seems that people have had success with them, however I'm not. They dont get recognised by the amiga. but more confusingly, not by the PC either, the system just hangs till I take it out. Any thoughts?

Hi there Craig,

My Kingston CF card (2GB elite pro) is a 3.3V device. I used it in an old compaq laptop and installed windows 98 on it and it worked a treat, I later tried it in an old Panasonic CF-41 and it just locked up. My card is now kaput, it does the same as yours, it seems that like the Amiga My Panasonic is strictly 5V only for devices, some CF cards are both 3.3 and 5V compatible, mine wasn't one of them though and maybe that goes for your cards

I have a 1200, this subject has been covered I guess, but I have a CF card that won't work..

it's already prepared for me, works fine in WinUAE.. BUT no joy on a real machine.. I have 2 adapters.. 1 adapter v.b1 and the other a v.h0 neither will boot up. the cf is a sandisk ultra II -4gb partitioned etc

the LED's are supposed to light on the adapter? neither do, the amiga HD light shows, but it either locks or reverts to the floppy screen.

I have tested the 1200 with a laptop HD from my a500 and that works fine.. I dunno what else to try, under emulation (winuae) it looks nice.. real machine.. nada , diddly squat

would the rom version have anything to do with it? I don't know what else to try..

thanks in advance for any advice.. never have this problem with 1541's

[whiteb]

Originally Posted by c64user

I have a 1200, this subject has been covered I guess, but I have a CF card that won't work..

it's already prepared for me, works fine in WinUAE.. BUT no joy on a real machine.. I have 2 adapters.. 1 adapter v.b1 and the other a v.h0 neither will boot up. the cf is a sandisk ultra II -4gb partitioned etc

the LED's are supposed to light on the adapter? neither do, the amiga HD light shows, but it either locks or reverts to the floppy screen.

I have tested the 1200 with a laptop HD from my a500 and that works fine.. I dunno what else to try, under emulation (winuae) it looks nice.. real machine.. nada , diddly squat

would the rom version have anything to do with it? I don't know what else to try..

thanks in advance for any advice.. never have this problem with 1541's

Rom version should not matter, either its got SCSI.device in ROM, or it has not. For what it is worth, I have a Sandisk Ultra 4GB in my A1200, using

This Adapter

The only thing I can suggest, have you made sure that the card is set to NON REMOVABLE ? You cannot boot off of drives set as "Removable". (I am sure Winuae does not care, as it supports Removable drives, through the Windows API).

Alternately, are you 100% sure you have not got a Sandisk FAKE ?, I got my cards from an Ebay seller here in Australia, who as it happens is the *ONLY* ebay recognized Sandisk Genuine seller (As far as i know).

[FOL]

Originally Posted by c64user

I have a 1200, this subject has been covered I guess, but I have a CF card that won't work..

it's already prepared for me, works fine in WinUAE.. BUT no joy on a real machine.. I have 2 adapters.. 1 adapter v.b1 and the other a v.h0 neither will boot up. the cf is a sandisk ultra II -4gb partitioned etc

the LED's are supposed to light on the adapter? neither do, the amiga HD light shows, but it either locks or reverts to the floppy screen.

I have tested the 1200 with a laptop HD from my a500 and that works fine.. I dunno what else to try, under emulation (winuae) it looks nice.. real machine.. nada , diddly squat

would the rom version have anything to do with it? I don't know what else to try..

thanks in advance for any advice.. never have this problem with 1541's

What happens if you do a soft reset? after first switching on to a kickstart screen.

it just hangs on the grey screen if I do a soft reset. only if I totally remove the whole unit does it go back to the floppy inserting anim.. yet in winuae boots fine in a 1200 mode.

thing is , as I said already with the a500 hard drive I tested.. plugged in..zoom.. worked.. so the 1200 itself is fine

it "should" be straight forward, and just plug it in.. it's far from that.

on the CF adapter there was a LED that would light up if no card was in and it was set to slave.. but now it doesn't even do that... it's either the card or interface thats the issue..

it should show up if I put a work bench disk in? it's not.. dunno if that helps..

[thanius]

Originally Posted by whiteb

Rom version should not matter, either its got SCSI.device in ROM, or it has not. For what it is worth, I have a Sandisk Ultra 4GB in my A1200, using

This Adapter

The only thing I can suggest, have you made sure that the card is set to NON REMOVABLE ? You cannot boot off of drives set as "Removable". (I am sure Winuae does not care, as it supports Removable drives, through the Windows API).

Alternately, are you 100% sure you have not got a Sandisk FAKE ?, I got my cards from an Ebay seller here in Australia, who as it happens is the *ONLY* ebay recognized Sandisk Genuine seller (As far as i know).

I got one of these adapters off eBay just now, plugged it in my A600 and a card I've prepped through WinUAE and nothing. Not even the kickstart-image, just black. I tried without the card, I tried changing the jumpers, but the image stays black until I remove the adapter - so I guess it's not the card being faulty configured. With jumpers on MASTER, the LED shows red so it seems to work.
Anyone got this adapter to work?

[fitzsteve]

Originally Posted by thanius

I got one of these adapters off eBay just now, plugged it in my A600 and a card I've prepped through WinUAE and nothing. Not even the kickstart-image, just black. I tried without the card, I tried changing the jumpers, but the image stays black until I remove the adapter - so I guess it's not the card being faulty configured. With jumpers on MASTER, the LED shows red so it seems to work.
Anyone got this adapter to work?

If the LED is on constant you've probably plugged it in the wrong way round, double check that pin 1 on the mobo and CF adapter both connect to the side of the cable with the red stripe.

[Allen1]

That version of the adapter is the good one, it sounds like you may have plugged the cable into only one row of pins instead of both on either the card or the motherboard. The pin/row spacing is very small and I have done that a couple of times and have to really check when I plug the cable in either end. Around the middle of the card adapter, the GND is connected to a few pins and that may be the reason the Amiga stayed black ie shorting the wrong connections.

You may have also got a duff adapter but those ones are usually great.

[thanius]

I'll have to check the connections then. I just plugged it in the same as the HD was installed, with the GND-wire to the left (having the Amiga-ports on the right), I presume that was correct?

[Allen1]

Originally Posted by thanius

I'll have to check the connections then. I just plugged it in the same as the HD was installed, with the GND-wire to the left (having the Amiga-ports on the right), I presume that was correct?

The cable itself is sometimes awkward in so much as if you are not quite spot on when you try to connect it, it will actually slide a little and you end up with one row of pins in the connector and the other row on the outside of the connector altogether. If the walls of the connector were thicker then that wouldn't happen, when it does go wrong, it isn't that easy to notice and it feels like it should when you connected it. The best thing to do is always take a close look at the connection every time you remove a drive and connect one etc, its also easy to miss 2 pins and connect to the next ones without even noticing (I've done that as well), my excuse is my eyesight isn't what it used to be

With the pins facing away from you, the red wire goes to the left on the adapter and indicates pin 1 ie :-


RED-|||||||||||||||||||||| I can only draw 1 row of pins but that's basically it

[thanius]

Well, I've tried connecting the adapter the last hour without success - except for once the screen was white instead of black (and I was like, YEAH... noooo) and the LED keeps showing red (when jumped to MASTER). I'm grabbing a new one, with 2 bucks a piece I can afford it.

[Allen1]

Originally Posted by thanius

Well, I've tried connecting the adapter the last hour without success - except for once the screen was white instead of black (and I was like, YEAH... noooo) and the LED keeps showing red (when jumped to MASTER). I'm grabbing a new one, with 2 bucks a piece I can afford it.

I wonder if your CF card is a 3.3v only one? other than what I mentioned earlier and a possible solder bridge on the adapter or a duff cable, that is about all that can go wrong. The adapter should be set to master and the LED should only be on when the card is being accessed, it does sound like the cable is not fitted right though, the way it is connected to the Amiga is :-


Back of Amiga

= =
= =
= =
= =
= =
= =
= =
= =
= =
= =
= =
= =
= =
= = Amiga IDE header
= =
= =
= =
= =
= =
= =
= =
= =
= =
= = <--- Red stripe (pin1) on Amiga to Pin 1 on adapter
...1

Front of Amiga

[FOL]

Originally Posted by thanius

Well, I've tried connecting the adapter the last hour without success - except for once the screen was white instead of black (and I was like, YEAH... noooo) and the LED keeps showing red (when jumped to MASTER). I'm grabbing a new one, with 2 bucks a piece I can afford it.

Sounds faulty, come across a few like this.
Changed the adapter and bang, it all worked instantly.

[agent_jdh]

Hi,

Really need to go through this thread, but am planning on putting a CF card in my A1200 as I feel the 4gb hdd in it is about to die (it suffers from stiction).

Is this http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Compact-Flash-...item3ca2c2368b what I should be looking to get? Looks like the one.

I've got a few CF cards to try with it. Sandisk still the ones to go for?

TIA

[prowler]

Originally Posted by agent_jdh

Is this http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Compact-Flash-...item3ca2c2368b what I should be looking to get? Looks like the one.

I've got a few CF cards to try with it. Sandisk still the ones to go for?

Yep, that looks like it should do the job, but please bear in mind that these are available in so many different variations that there's no way to guarantee that each will work until it has been tried in your machine.

Using a SanDisk card will increase your chances of getting it working to the maximum.