ACA1221EC + Large HDD/CF

[ItsTheSmell]

I recently bought an 8GB CF and formatted it with pfs3aio and used scsi.device 43.45 but it wouldnt boot, I got it down to the scsi.device and the aca1221ec' maprom feature not being compatible with my board (1D.4). Ive recently found that there is scsi.device 44.20 and my question is: is there another file format that is compatible with large hdd's and the 1221ec? I want to install a 20gb hdd Ive just bought online for £1 and would prefer to use that because Ive heard CF cards wear out quite fast.

[-Acid-]

I've never heard of a CF card wearing out, especially not when used by an Amiga which barely writes to them.

[ItsTheSmell]

John Hertell said it in the FB group but im not on there anymore. He seems to know his onions regarding Amiga's. But thats good to know, Thanks.

[kaneelschep]

Why not try sfs? or idefix instead of the other scsi.device.
But I have no idea if that works with the 1221ec.

sort of prefer harddisks too. But thats just nostalgia

[ItsTheSmell]

whats the correct way to fasten the hard drive to the bracket? only 1 screw hole aligns and the screw needed is too fat for the brackets hole. Does the hdd go into something first and if so have you got a photo or a link?

[ajk]

The A1200 bracket only matches some very old drives (think sub 100MB ). You could drill new holes, or use some strong double sided tape (the thicker type with foam as the middle layer works best in my experience).

[ItsTheSmell]

ok thanks for the tips.

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by ItsTheSmell

John Hertell said it in the FB group but im not on there anymore. He seems to know his onions regarding Amiga's.

Indeed he does. Flash does wear out eventually, though unless you're buying very cheap brands of compact flash, by the time you do enough writing to cause that sort of failure, you'd probably have had a mechanical hard drive die of natural causes (especially one as old as a 20GB one!) The vast majority of the time the Amiga doesn't write to the hard drive - there's no virtual memory or automatic saving of settings or anything, and therefore no wear most of the time.

whats the correct way to fasten the hard drive to the bracket? only 1 screw hole aligns and the screw needed is too fat for the brackets hole.

As ajk says, those holes are for super old hard drives. However, I've found that in some cases using the holes on the side of the drive with some screws with large heads lets you secure newer drives in the bracket by tightening them against the edges of the two uprights.

You could drill new holes, or use some strong double sided tape (the thicker type with foam as the middle layer works best in my experience).

Yep, both will work fine. If you're drilling though, just make sure you remove any burrs or shavings so that you don't get a short against the drive's PCB.

In my old job we had some very old custom machines to deal with (dual 386-based beasts), and they were fitted with laptop hard drives. When the time came to replace dead drives, they came up with a lovely, neat solution - a 6mm metal plate with countersunk holes for fixing to the bottom of a new drive, and threaded holes for fitting the old bracket. I "liberated" a couple of them for use on my Amigas

[ItsTheSmell]

Thanks dood. the cf Im using I bought from ebay and when it arrived it was open, I got 2/3rds of the money refunded, so Im not sure how old the drive is and new ones were going for way too much money. So I dont know if it will fail or not.

Regarding my 20gb drive which I got for £2, I also bought one which is 4gb! that was £15 Im gonna fit it into the 1200 with KS3.0 roms and the 20gb in the 3.1rom machine if I can get it to boot.