CF / SD and large drives FAQ

[lordofchaos]

Well its in the list but the properties are not displaying? Even stranger is that the card works on my Amiga so I know it's not the card itself.

[fgh]

Your card is not on that list. Your adapter is listed as E:, but it says no media.
Did you read the manual and search for drivers for the adapter?

[lordofchaos]

Originally Posted by fgh

Your card is not on that list. Your adapter is listed as E:, but it says no media.
Did you read the manual and search for drivers for the adapter?

Unfortunately not, the adapter I bought was really cheap and did not come with a manual or driver, all I have to go on is what's written on the adapter itself. In the top left corner it reads "All In 1 Mini Card Reader"

[fgh]

It's the adapter

[lordofchaos]

Yep looks like its had alot of bad comments...thanks for the info anyway guys..Time to order a better one me thinks :-)

Update: Ok I seem to have got a little further with this adapter. I opened it up to find some of the pins were bent so I straightened them up. Plugged it back in and windows asked me if I wanted to format the device! And when I run WinUAE and go to add hard drives it is displayed with its file size properties. The problem remains I can't get it to show up on the workbench?

[paulo_becas]

It's the adapter, no doubt about it,
You should buy a decent one, the cheapest always gives a lot of trouble depending on the type of card you're using.
They even damage the cards in some cases, trust me, i know.
I work a long time in the computer bussiness (tecnician) and saw a lot of shit happening because of this cheap card readers.
If you're using an external one, always connect it to the rear ports of your computer and try to choose one that has a removable usb cable and try to get one that has two usb conections for better power or even one with external power.
If you're using an internal one try to buy the best one you can, you should choose one that has all the connectors covered with a metal case.
When inserting cf cards do it with carefull because it's very easy to damage the pins.
To format the cards you should use the HP format utility, i've upload it to the zone, you should format it and then go to the computer management and delete the partition you just formated, then add the card to winuae.
This way you don't get any kind of error when partitioning the card in workbench.
If you need further help please ask.

[lordofchaos]

Thanks Paulo, I have taken your advice and orderd a new and improved one. Hopefully everything will be fine once I follow your instructions. Why I didn't do this years ago is beyond me, ah well. Oh and one question, the card I`m using was already formatted on real Amiga hardware, should I still format using the HP format utility?

Additional: The card I have is 4 gig (Sandisk) in capacity and shows up on the Amiga with the 3.7 GB on the card. Is it neccesary to partition the card?

I am using the Fat95 system on my real Amiga so does the card need to be formatted in a native Amiga disk format?

My primary use is to transfer data back and forth between emulation and the real thing, do you advise I use WinUAE to transfer the files or can I just use windows to drop and drag files on the card?

Sorry for all the questions but this side of Amiga is quite new to me.

[paulo_becas]

Originally Posted by lordofchaos

Oh and one question, the card I`m using was already formatted on real Amiga hardware, should I still format using the HP format utility?

Additional: The card I have is 4 gig (Sandisk) in capacity and shows up on the Amiga with the 3.7 GB on the card. Is it neccesary to partition the card?

If you want to use this card with an operating system on it (workbench) i advice you to do it. The first partition should have at least 512Mb for the system and you can use the rest for games or other stuff

Originally Posted by lordofchaos

I am using the Fat95 system on my real Amiga so does the card need to be formatted in a native Amiga disk format?

My primary use is to transfer data back and forth between emulation and the real thing, do you advise I use WinUAE to transfer the files or can I just use windows to drop and drag files on the card?

In this case, and if the card is working fine you shouldn't do anything.
If you just want to transfer files between the PC and the amiga using the PCMCIA adapter you don't need WinUAE for it, just plug the card to the PC and copy the files you want to it then plug it again to the amiga and use Dopus or other file manager to copy them.

[LePiaf]

I apologize in advance if I missed the thread

I've installed Kingston 4GB (flower pwr ) card using cf adapter with small 2" cable. Card is formatted from WinUAE to have 2x512mb partitions, ClassicWB is installed, and everything works correctly when booted on Amiga 600...

Except that HD led seems to be constantly lit. When OS boots, it changes intensity, even turns off, but when workbench stabilizes, it remains lit and it seems to me it's actually flashing very quickly. CF adapter has its onboard led which does not showing any activity at this time, SnoopDos also doesn't signalize any file access. Noticed that when I click mouse button it stops for that moment, but resumes after. I didn't have hdd on Amiga in those days but it doesn't seem normal to me

any ideas?

thanx,
LePiaf

[prowler]

Hi LePiaf,

Get yourself a hot drink, pull up a chair and have a good look at this thread for the solution to your problem:
How to fix HD LED in cheap CF 44 adapters

[LePiaf]

Originally Posted by prowler

Hi LePiaf,

Get yourself a hot drink, pull up a chair and have a good look at this thread for the solution to your problem:
How to fix HD LED in cheap CF 44 adapters

Thanx very much, I even stumbled upon that thread earlier and misunderstood that it solves led that doesn't work at all

LePiaf

[fishyfish]

I got myself a 32gig cf card and have spent a little time without success trying to prepare the card in winuae. I got as far as setting up the partitions with hdtoolbox and the capacity was accurate (even if it didnt report it accurately, it all added up correctly (7x4gig partitions and 2x1 gig partitions (the card is really only 29.7gig). Trying to save the changes though just gives me an error message (error type27, or error type7 if I recall correctly(cant recall which though)). There is still a master boot record on the card though, could this be the problem?

Im a little out of my element here I must admit, never used a cf card before, nor have I used a drive bigger than 6 gig off the ide port of my a1200 (only ever used larger drives with OS3.9, and that's with both amithlon, and a scsi card/drive connected to a pci card on my old grex1200).

To make matters a little trickier I have no Workbench discs, just adf images, OS3.9 and Amiga Forever 2006 and my a1200's floppy drive is slightly buggered and only reads (doesnt write).

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Toni Wilen]

A1200 also has a PCMCIA bug that required reinserting the card after a reboot.

Possibly not a hardware bug, details here: http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=...&postcount=115

[paulo_becas]

Originally Posted by fishyfish

I got myself a 32gig cf card and have spent a little time without success trying to prepare the card in winuae. I got as far as setting up the partitions with hdtoolbox and the capacity was accurate (even if it didnt report it accurately, it all added up correctly (7x4gig partitions and 2x1 gig partitions (the card is really only 29.7gig). Trying to save the changes though just gives me an error message (error type27, or error type7 if I recall correctly(cant recall which though)). There is still a master boot record on the card though, could this be the problem?

Im a little out of my element here I must admit, never used a cf card before, nor have I used a drive bigger than 6 gig off the ide port of my a1200 (only ever used larger drives with OS3.9, and that's with both amithlon, and a scsi card/drive connected to a pci card on my old grex1200).

To make matters a little trickier I have no Workbench discs, just adf images, OS3.9 and Amiga Forever 2006 and my a1200's floppy drive is slightly buggered and only reads (doesnt write).

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I know exactly what the problem is because i had the same issue.
You can't have a partition mounted on the card when you use it on WinUAE, you need to open a partition manager like Easus Partition Manager and remove it, then try again with WinUAE, if everything's ok the problem should disapear but if, after removing the partition, Workbench doesn't recognize the card, try removing the partition with it mounted on WinUAE while it's running.
But let me advise you on this, i try to install ClassicWB on a 16 Gb CF Card on WinUAE and i was successful and it worked great under UAE but when i put on the Amiga 1200 it just won't boot.
I think the problem has to do with the Card Speed, mine was 166x and i think the amiga can't handle those speeds.

[fgh]

That's interesting Tony, another 'myth' busted . I have updated the post accordingly..

Fishyfish
As Paulo says, you need to remove windows partitions from the card for Windows to allow WinUAE to overwrite its MBR.
So if the message you got was "block zero write attempt but card has active partitions.." that should solve it.
See "WinUAE considerations" above for more info..

For CF cards above 4GB to work you need to do a bit of research to avoid some nasty surprises later on.
This article (and the first replies) has plenty of info on the subject.

Edit: Paulo_Becas
A CF card's speed rating is irrelevant for the amiga, as all CF cards need to support the slower modes as well.
I re-read your posts above about the CF card. It sounds very much like your card is the removable type, and idefix97 hangs your system.
I did present a solution for you earlier (post 8 above), not sure if you read it..

[paulo_becas]

Originally Posted by fgh

A CF card's speed rating is irrelevant for the amiga, as all CF cards need to support the slower modes as well.
I re-read your posts above about the CF card. It sounds very much like your card is the removable type, and idefix97 hangs your system.
I did present a solution for you earlier (post 8 above), not sure if you read it..

I haven't seen your response, now i have, i'll try it like you said.
I read somewhere that this issue was speed related, since you tell me it's not i guess i'll have to try this out, thank's
Like you said, it's a very confusing issue.

[Methanoid]

This is a great post (bookmarked it).

Is it possible to swap CF cards used and formatted etc in IDE-CF adapter and PCMCIA-CF adapter? ie. could I use HDtool on one in a PCMCIA-CF adapter to get it all set up as a HDD and then fit it internally (or vice versa).

Also, are all PCMCIA-CF adapters "equal" or some more equal than others

I'm looking at this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/190679352240 for my A1200 (and forthcoming A600)

[fgh]

Thanks, glad it can be of use to you!
I have not tried what you suggested myself, but it should be possible.
You need to clone and modify CF0 to specify your preferred amiga file system and the drive geometry (size), and change hdtoolbox SCSI_DEVICE_NAME tooltype to compactflash.device.
There is some more info under "CF or SD does not work in PCMCIA adapter" above..

Edit: All pcmcia-cf adapters could and should be identical, as the CF interface is a subset of the pcmcia interface and so the adapters are passive and should make the same connections.
I do know of at least one case of an adapter (looking like this) being confirmed as the cause of some problems, but this might be a fault of that single unit.
The one you link to is a bit cheap for a sandisk, so it might be fake (but still work, probably).
I've used a couple of these without problems.

[paulo_becas]

Originally Posted by fgh

All pcmcia-cf adapters could and should be identical, as the CF interface is a subset of the pcmcia interface and so the adapters are passive and should make the same connections.
I do know of at least one case of an adapter (looking like this) being confirmed as the cause of some problems, but this might be a fault of that single unit.
The one you link to is a bit cheap for a sandisk, so it might be fake (but still work, probably).
I've used a couple of these without problems.

Well, i have a few of both, and i assure you that all work fine, still i have my doubts that you can prepare a CF card on a PCMCIA port to work as a hard drive later on.
Maybe you can manage to make a few working but i think you will only have success if they are below 4gb.
To use a cf card on the PCMCIA slot we usually format them in FAT, that's why there's a lot of talking about the 4Gb being incompatible with Amiga's PCMCIA port. I never tried formating a cf card in FFS or SFS and use it in PCMCIA port.
I think it's much easier to prepare the card on WinUAE and install everything like that to use on a real amiga.

[fgh]

Paulo: Which two of the three adapters mentioned in the quote have you tested?

Like you say, using PCMCIA with amiga file systems is not the common thing to do, but it is possible never the less.
There is no size limit in compactflash.device, as it supports TD64 (= up to 16 exabytes)
FAT95 supports TD64 as well, but if you want an amiga file system for a large card you will need PFS, SFS or a newer version of FFS. [more info]

Regarding 4GB being incompatible with use on amiga pcmcia, you might have read about the kingston card with the flower image that many people have and can only get to work on the ide.
This card is not incompatible due to its size, but something else. (cfd driver, amiga pcmcia hardware implementation, or card firmware not up to standard, still not confirmed).
It also seems like some versions of it even works well. [see thread]