A1200 taking forever to boot from HDD

[Amiga1992]

So I know there's a ~40sec wait on boot, Kick 3.1, if you have no HDD connected to an A1200. But I just installed a CD-IDE and a card, and it's still taking that long before it boots.
I have a DF0: terminator, so that's not it, unless that got burned.

The CF-IDE adapter is one of those that has the activity light stuck and needs fixing. Could that be the problem?
Could it be the way the CF has been prepared?

I'm really scratching my head hard with this computer, going a bit mad

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Boing-Ball

CF adapter shouldn’t have a full LED. Usually SD adapters have that issue.

That's not right, some do totally have this problem, there's a whole thread about this here and I have one that looks exactly like one of the ones shown there:
https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=35893
I don't have spare adapters or cards to try at this moment and unsure i want to buy anymore, at least not now. What I will try next is putting this card on my other Amiga and see if this stil happens, to discard card issues.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Akira

What I will try next is putting this card on my other Amiga and see if this stil happens, to discard card issues.

I made this test and also tried that other Amiga's adapter on the 1200 and the computer booted fast as hell.

So the problem is the CF-IDE adapter. I'm sending it back. But how the hell to know what to get, without paying extortion prices from anyone that sells it as "for Amiga" and as such charges at least double?
This is so weird though, the adapter seems to work fine in any other way.

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by Boing-Ball

CF adapter shouldn’t have a full LED. Usually SD adapters have that issue.

It can happen on both. The issue is that the Amiga design for the activity indication doesn't follow the standard spec for a logic signal and therefore gets confused by low voltage devices. Many SD card adaptors cause it due to their 3.3V nature. The difference with CF card adaptors is that it's usually up to the CF card, not the adaptor, to deal with this signal, so you might find that some CF cards keep the LED on and others don't.

Originally Posted by Akira

So the problem is the CF-IDE adapter. I'm sending it back. But how the hell to know what to get, without paying extortion prices from anyone that sells it as "for Amiga" and as such charges at least double?

Could be a dud - usually CF card adaptors have very little in the way of actual electronics. But is it really extortion, or is it paying someone for the extra effort they've gone to to make sure it's compatible with the Amiga? It's also highly likely that Amiga-specific sales are from more local places, and therefore the seller may have already paid duties etc. on it when importing it from China. Double the cost of a very cheap device is still a very cheap device.

[Snoopy1234]

Buffered IDE adapters are all the rage lately. The ones I've seen are over the top with 3 or 4 slots though.

[fitzsteve]

Originally Posted by Akira

So the problem is the CF-IDE adapter. I'm sending it back. But how the hell to know what to get, without paying extortion prices from anyone that sells it as "for Amiga" and as such charges at least double?

Hi, I can send you one, I have a few spares. Are you back in South America now? Not a problem it will just take a little while to arrive.

[lilwshu]

I have had several CF-IDE adapters now that have had badly soldered pins resulting in odd/random issues. It might be worth giving each pin a nudge with a small pick to see if any are loose.

[Jope]

Originally Posted by lilwshu

I have had several CF-IDE adapters now that have had badly soldered pins resulting in odd/random issues. It might be worth giving each pin a nudge with a small pick to see if any are loose.

I've noticed the same. The quality varies a lot. :-)

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

But is it really extortion, or is it paying someone for the extra effort they've gone to to make sure it's compatible with the Amiga? It's also highly likely that Amiga-specific sales are from more local places, and therefore the seller may have already paid duties etc. on it when importing it from China. Double the cost of a very cheap device is still a very cheap device.

Fair, I hyperboled a lot, but sadly, there doesn't seem to be anyone local to me selling an Amiga-tested kit. Don't really want to import this from elsewhere and incur in unnecessary costs, but I will if I have to.

I never really had this problem before, at worst it was the "stuck LED" problem.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Boing-Ball

Might also worth giving Amiga on the Lake a shout to see when they are getting some.

They are the first ones they checked and they didn't even have a "sold out" item on their shop so I assumed they don't have them ever.

Ordering from Canada is about the same as ordering from anywhere else.

[edit] lol I am not spending $45+ on a CF-IDE adapter. That 's a very nice and feature-packed adapter but I don't need that for this project.

[Amiga1992]

Final update on this, I went ahead and chanced on another adapter, and it worked great! Looks like this:



CAVEAT: it did NOT come with a populated master/slave jumper as you can see on the top left corner, a jumper which these NEED to work properly, at least on Amiga. I soldered one in and set it to master, and I got a VERY speedy boot on my CF card, plus the HDD LED works just as expected!

[Jope]

Good that you got it working!

About the jumper, it looks like the pins were already shorted by a trace on the circuit board?

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Jope

About the jumper, it looks like the pins were already shorted by a trace on the circuit board?

Where can you see that? I tried to look at something like that but couldn't.
I soldered the headers and put a jumper anyway before I even tried it, so no idea if it was jumpered to begin with.
You mean that tiny line between the two pins? Hmm. I'll do a quick test next time I open the computer up.

[Jope]

Yes, the tiny line.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Jope

Yes, the tiny line.

WOOPS well I guess I went thru all that trouble for nothing :P