Using a Compact Flash card on a600/a1200 PCMCIA

[merlinkv]

Transcend of 4, 8, 16 & 32GB 133x are working for me without issues on my A1200 as HDD (PFS3AIO) and on PCMCIA port (FAT32).

[Malakie]

How do we actually format or setup a PCMCIA card on the A1200?

HDToolbox does not work for that port that I can find and Prepcard just gives me an error no matter which CF card I try.

Is there another tool we use to set these up?

[Jope]

Which filesystem do you plan to use to access the CF card?

[Malakie]

Originally Posted by Jope

Which filesystem do you plan to use to access the CF card?

For the moment, just the standard FFS. I have the thing working but how do I setup the CF card size and such without having to go to a PC, format it there to the FAT or FAT32 then reformat it with the Workbench format command?

Basically isn't there some tool to manage CF cards, their size, partitions etc?

[Daedalus]

If you're using FFS, you need to define the geometry of the card in the card's mountlist. Unlike Fat95 (which is used for FAT32 formatted devices), FFS can't determine the geometry automatically.

HDToolbox is for hard drives, not removable drives. PrepCard is for SRAM cards, not CF cards. It's possible to use HDToolbox with PCMCIA-attached cards, but you still need the mountlist to match the partition geometry to be able to read it.

A tool like GiggleDisk should be able to help you determine the geometry of an attached card.

[Malakie]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

If you're using FFS, you need to define the geometry of the card in the card's mountlist. Unlike Fat95 (which is used for FAT32 formatted devices), FFS can't determine the geometry automatically.

HDToolbox is for hard drives, not removable drives. PrepCard is for SRAM cards, not CF cards. It's possible to use HDToolbox with PCMCIA-attached cards, but you still need the mountlist to match the partition geometry to be able to read it.

A tool like GiggleDisk should be able to help you determine the geometry of an attached card.

Yea, I am using two CF cards for a boot drive and also a data drive. So have that all running perfectly fine.

But have never played with the PCMCIA side of that and did not realize the lack of support it truly is missing. Also surprised someone over the years did not make an actual supporting tool for people to use.. Something to manage PCMCIA CF storage type things.

Also running into a problem I see many others report... I can buy 10 of the same exact CF card size, brand etc. Half of them work fine, the other half won't work at all.. Which is what led me to the original question. Makes no sense at all that half the cards work but the other half do not..

[Daedalus]

It was not a feature that was considered when it was designed. The PCMCIA port is primarily intended for SRAM cards, not CF cards, and the support for SRAM cards is excellent. But 3rd party support for I/O devices like network cards and CF cards is still pretty decent. The support tools exist - a DOSDriver mountlist is pretty standard for mounting most devices, and using compactflash.device and Fat95 generally just works. As a removable drive, people generally tend to use it for transferring data between platforms, and it works very well for that purpose. Using FFS is a pretty unusual requirement and isn't well suited to being used like that - is there a reason you want to use that instead of Fat95?

There are compatibility issues with some cards unfortunately, but if you have issues, you can help by sending some debug data to the compactflash.device developer. Changing the allocation size (on a Windows or Linux machine) can sometimes help to get stubborn cards to work too, but ultimately it's trying to use the port for something it wasn't intended for so compatibility can never be guaranteed.

[Malakie]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

It was not a feature that was considered when it was designed. The PCMCIA port is primarily intended for SRAM cards, not CF cards, and the support for SRAM cards is excellent. But 3rd party support for I/O devices like network cards and CF cards is still pretty decent. The support tools exist - a DOSDriver mountlist is pretty standard for mounting most devices, and using compactflash.device and Fat95 generally just works. As a removable drive, people generally tend to use it for transferring data between platforms, and it works very well for that purpose. Using FFS is a pretty unusual requirement and isn't well suited to being used like that - is there a reason you want to use that instead of Fat95?

There are compatibility issues with some cards unfortunately, but if you have issues, you can help by sending some debug data to the compactflash.device developer. Changing the allocation size (on a Windows or Linux machine) can sometimes help to get stubborn cards to work too, but ultimately it's trying to use the port for something it wasn't intended for so compatibility can never be guaranteed.

No reason to us FFS other than just trying to figure out everything basic first then upgrade from there. I am also having an issue with Fat95 and my SDBox on the A1200 so wanted to get one thing resolved before I tried the next option.

As for the compatibility.. Tried changing the allocation size, block size etc via windows disk manager but nothing worked. Just odd that the same cards all identical, some work, some do not. They are literally from the same package.

Do you have or is there a good example mountlist for PCMCIA mountlists for CF cards I can use as a template?

[Daedalus]

Fat95 is a recommended starting point for using PCMCIA stuff, using FFS only complicates it as it's not intended for that sort of use. The mountlist included with compactflash.device is already set up for Fat95 use, no adjustments are typically needed.

[Malakie]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Fat95 is a recommended starting point for using PCMCIA stuff, using FFS only complicates it as it's not intended for that sort of use. The mountlist included with compactflash.device is already set up for Fat95 use, no adjustments are typically needed.

Ok will give that a go..

Now trying to find a key that works with IDEFix97 ... Tried the power computing key.. does not work, looked on my multiple copies of cloanto Amiga Forever, can't find anything about a key on any of those. gah...

[SPOD]

So i'm trying to get a CF card working via the PCMCIA slot of my 1200 with a Blizzard IV 64mb ram & Workbench 3.0

Followed the Guide here https://sites.google.com/one-n.co.uk...h.6u12dyqj8vq6

and installed all the files where they should go. The only confusing part was;

-----
The Startup-Sequence file needs to be updated to include the following commands before LoadWB:

C:CardPatch

Run >NIL: C:CardReset TICKS 50
-----

Is that to be run in Shell as shown? Not sure what to do there.

Anyway, Formatted the card FAT32 but the card isn't showing up. When I plug it in, it's shwoing CF Card Version 4.1 IN PrepCard, but not showing up as a drive.

I'm pretty green with Amigas, but keen to get this going.

Thanks!

[solarmon]

@SPOD

You need to edit the startup-sequence file in the S: directory.

Some CF cards just won't work. Try a different brand and size CF card. These are the CF cards I have tested, some work, some don't:

https://my.rowshare.com/t/57dd233fd3...efd7bfb32fbd1a

[Daedalus]

Yeah, sometimes a card simply isn't compatible. Also, sometimes the geometry of the formatting makes a difference. I've changed the allocation size and reformatted cards before, and that's been enough to get them working in a PCMCIA adaptor.

Cardreset generally isn't needed for these adaptors - it's mainly used for cards that are left attached during reset cycles, e.g. network cards. Hot-plugging the cards avoids this scenario.

[SPOD]

Originally Posted by solarmon

@SPOD

You need to edit the startup-sequence file in the S: directory.

Some CF cards just won't work. Try a different brand and size CF card. These are the CF cards I have tested, some work, some don't:

https://my.rowshare.com/t/57dd233fd3...efd7bfb32fbd1a

Ok, definitely haven't done that, will try.

Also, does the whole FAT95 folder go into the L folder, or just one file?

[Jope]

Originally Posted by SPOD

Also, does the whole FAT95 folder go into the L folder, or just one file?

Only the filesystem handler is needed in L.

Extract fat95.lha to RAM:, then go to ram:fat95/english and run install_fat95 and it will put the correct file in the correct place for you.

[SPOD]

Originally Posted by Jope

Only the filesystem handler is needed in L.

Extract fat95.lha to RAM:, then go to ram:fat95/english and run install_fat95 and it will put the correct file in the correct place for you.

Thank you!

[SPOD]

Still not working, but is there a way to test if the PCMCIA card itself is working in the amiga to rule that out as a problem?

[Jope]

cfd.lha comes with a tool called pcmciacheck and cfddebug.. Perhaps those can give some info.

Like it says in the readme: cfddebug ram:cfdlog

Then you can run: type ram:cfdlog opt h

To see whether there is anything in the debug file.

[DJ Gruby]

I have been trying to access a FAT-formatted CF card in a PCMCIA slot of my Amiga 600 for a couple of days now without much luck. As I am feeling like hitting my head against the wall, I have decided to seek out help here before totally damaging my brain. So the situation is this:

The CF card is definitely working, I've tested it just a minute ago on my PC. Partition table type is set as "msdos".
It also used to work fine with my Amiga 600 a while ago, however I can't really tell what's changed in the meantime, as it's been such a long time since I've used it for the last time.
I have got all the needed software in the latest versions downloaded from Aminet and installed as prescribed:
- Copied cfd/devs/compactflash.device to DEVS:
- Have fat95 driver installed on my system in L:
- Added those extra bits with CardPatch and CardReset to my startup-sequence
- Installed CF0 description file into DEVSOSDrivers
- Mounted the drive by typing mount CF0:

And all of it for nothing. The CF card remains unrecognised by the system. It is reported as "Not a valid DOS disk", and the icon shows as CF0:NDOS.
It is also not possible to format such CF card on the Amiga side. First, "format" tool reports weird sizes (sometimes ~300 MB, sometimes ~450 MB, sometimes ~960 MB - even though the card actually is FAT-formatted as 1 GB). Then formatting breaks with the usual "Not a valid DOS disk" error message (the whole partition table gets totally broken by then).

Any ideas what and how could I debug the issue from here? Please note that the aforementioned "cfddebug" and "pcmciacheck" tools do not produce any human-readable output. They do produce some binary data that doesn't make any sense to me (looks like sometimes random, sometimes repeated byte sequences).

Any help would be highly appreciated!

[fgh]

When it says NDOS, quick formatting it on the amiga usually works.

Edit: I replied before reading the whole post, sorry. I see you tried formatting on the amiga.
You say the card worked on the amiga before. Was that via PCMCIA or IDE?