Compact Flash on Amiga

[dkovacs]

Hi;

I have seen on a website someone who has installed on his Amiga 600 a Compact Flash IDE adaptor (it basically acts as a harddisk except it takes compact flash cards). Has anyone here used one of these? How well do they work? I am thinking of installing one in my A1200, and using it as a games machine.

Alternatley, I have seen PCMCIA compact flash readers. If I am not mistaken, a PCMCIA card can be either added as system memory or formatted and used like a hard disk using the PrepCard tool in AmigaOS. Has anyone here used one of these? Do they work at all on the Amiga and if so, how much faster would it be than a hard disk?

Thanks,

Dan

[Joe Maroni]

search the aminet for "cfd"...there you will find a solution...

[DopPie]

I have a compact flash adapter for the PCMCIA. It works great with the correct drivers intalled ofcourse. I have a 256MB CF card that I use for transferring files. It is not really fast but it works better than floppy. I prefer the CF over a network connection for transferring files from and to my Amiga.

I would not use it as a harddisk if you intend to write to it often. It is slower and tends to wear the CF down.

[Chuckles]

I've never used CF on the Amiga, but I've added a new card to my Apple IIGS that lets you use either a microdrive or CF card as a hard drive, and it works great for me using a SanDisk 256MB CF card. I don't write to the card a great deal, so I'm not overly concerned about the problem that DopPie mentioned, but it is a real concern. Each block on a CF card is only good for so many writes, though my understanding is that with many CF cards, once a block becomes unusable it will be marked as in use to prevent "disk errors" from trying to use it.

[X-ray]

I've got an IDE to CF adapter on my A4000T. Works great. Just remember that you shouldn't use it as a partition where there is a lot of writing involved, because these CF cards have limited write cycles.
Other than that it works fine. Gets treated just like an ordinary IDE drive.

[EmuChicken]

So are there generic drivers for the pcmcia > CF device?

Would it work with SD cards too?

[DopPie]

Yes there are generic drivers. I it is cfd.lha ftp://de.aminet.net/pub/aminet/disk/misc/cfd.lha

You also need a fat95 driver. That you can find on aminet aswell.

It works fine on my 2MB A600. My A1200 experiences some write problems sometimes. Therefor I always create archives on my harddisk and copy them to the CF to reduce risk of loosing data. If you read the 'readme' you will notice this driver works for numerous card readers for the PCMCIA. I don't know if SD cards will work.

Good luck

[otro]

i installed a compact flash 128mb that works when i install all the cfd & fat95 files. But it only works one time (at the installation), when i reboot and mount the CF0/MS0/MS1 nothing appears (mean the card folder) like the 1st time (i tested on my two amigas and its the same ).
Do i miss something? is there something to add in the startup sequence?

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Chuckles

I've never used CF on the Amiga, but I've added a new card to my Apple IIGS that lets you use either a microdrive or CF card as a hard drive

Hardcore! got any pics of your IIGS setup??

I would use this as a fast boot noiseless system. You could use it as the drive to store your System, apps and other stuff you only read from, thus saving CompactFlash life.

[mr_0rga5m]

Hrm .. Where do you obtain these neat sounding CF Ide's ? .. Anybody got a link ?

I've seen one for C64 before (due out soon) .. And SNES etc.. But not for miggy.

[otro]

arf its workin now, got to push all that in my dos drivers, now i can drive this marvellous magic card D

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by mr_0rga5m

Hrm .. Where do you obtain these neat sounding CF Ide's ? .. Anybody got a link ?

On ebay, this is standard fare for PCs, not an Amiga-specific interface.

[Jope]

Hmm, dos drivers and all...

If I were to do this, I'd just install the cf2ide adapter internally and put an RDB on the card + format it with pfs3..

Then you can boot from it, etc.. The cards can take a million state changes before they stick, and usually they are equipped with some logic that uses the chip's surface in an intelligent manner (ie. the place you're writing might be anywhere, it takes a new byte for each write)

Only if you want to read your camera's CF would you need to install fat drivers, etc.

[Adeptus]

Originally Posted by Akira

I would use this as a fast boot noiseless system. You could use it as the drive to store your System, apps and other stuff you only read from, thus saving CompactFlash life.

I have a 32MB IDE flash disk I bought with this in mind.
was a bit of an impulse buy... I don't have an Amiga to use it in at the moment...
and 32MB is too small for any current PC OS

[DopPie]

@Otro

I have never seen it only work at installation. The Amiga PCMCIA port has some flaws that might cause your problem. Have you tried re-inserting the card? If that solves it I beleive there is something called 'cardreset' or something on aminet. Put that in your startup-sequence. You could also do a hardware patch to solve the PCMCIA reset problem.

[dkovacs]

I ordered a CF to PCMCIA adaptor off e-bay. I am thinking of getting either a 1GB or 512MB card to use with it. I am guessing that since it needs drivers, I cannot boot from it. If that is the case, what I will likely do is make a floppy that will start up, mount the card and then transfer all control over to it. I did this quite successfully a number of years ago with my Iomega Zip 100 that I connected with my SquirrlelSCSI card. Here is the next question: Is it possible to connect an external DVD-ROM drive to the Amiga (via IDE) and use it for DVD-R disks?

[Adeptus]

I believe so... someone was showing off their "A1200DVD" here a while back...
cut a hole in the side of an A1200 & fit a laptop-style slim DVD drive in

i am installing a laptop cd drive internally on my a1200 together with 512mb Compact flash on the ide interface to replace the 10 year old hard drive

does anyone have pics or contact details to fit the laptop drive internally

i already have the adaptor to mate it to conventional ide so it is merely the positioning i am intereseted in

by the way

CF to IDE adaptors work a treat, boots in 2 seconds and no noise !!

available on ebay

these are the ones i bought if it helps anybody, took a week to get here £9 all in including postage from hong kong

CF to IDE = £1.60

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...MEWN%3AIT&rd=1

laptop cd/dvd to IDE = £1.99

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...MEWN%3AIT&rd=1


i then bought one of these laptop cd drives for a fiver

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...e=STRK:MEWN:IT

all the above WORK !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the laptop cd drive works when using my 3.5" 540mb hard drive, able to be read by Dopus and has a nice icon in Classic WB ADV

am in the process of removing the internal 540mb HD and repalcing with the 512MB CF internally

see my other thread posted today, just need guidance on IDE fix software as i think it is trying to park heads that don't exist lol

the CF to IDE takes about 2 to 3 seconds to boot to workbench 3.0 when using 512mb card

Rich

[tomcat666]

I have a CF card connected to a ZX Spectrum. It is VERY nice - you can load snapshots from the card immediately or even simulate the Tape to load virtual TAP files instantly into the spectrum. A really dreamy interface. It also allows to changes of the firmware (8k) and has additional 32k ram. There is also a disk emulator available and more stuff comming. Really neat

Picture :

http://ci5.speccy.cz/files/foto/kapl...kc2004_016.jpg

Hi folks

this is my first post and need some guidance

Firstly, the specification

A1200 3.0 roms
Apollo 68030, 40mhz, 32mb (pcmcia friendly, no scsi)
PCMCIA compact flash adaptor - for 512mb ADF transfers using Dopus 4.12

540mb 3.5" internal hard drive and a 24x slim laptop CD ROM ... yes u read right, although both are external currently whilst sorting this problem out

both the above powered by AT power supply and ide cables as short as they come

IDE Fix 97 (express version with gayle adpator)

Classic WB ADV which looks fantastic and handles all dms, lzx, adf needs

this setup runs beautifully but i have been experimenting on making the miggy boot internally from 512mb compact flash INSTEAD of the heavy chunky 3.5" 540mb HD so i don't have to carry an AT power supply everywhere

i bought a CF to IDE adaptor for £3 on ebay, plugged it straight to the ide fix adaptor, extending the floppy power to power the device, fitted my 512mb CF card, thinking i would go to a 1 or 2gb if it works

seems strange not hearing a hard drive and nearly instant boot !!!! certainly quicker than a hard drive and makes my 3.2Ghz Athlon 64 with XP look slow !!!!!

using Power computing hard drive prep software i was surprised to find that the internal compact flash, when using the adpator WORKED and managed to install workbench 3.0 on it, with Dopus and the ADDITIONAL external 512mb pcmcia compact flash 512mb card for quick and silent ADF transfers

so i thought, no problem, just need to add the cd drive and everything done

as i my goal is to have the classic WB ADV boot from the internal CF card and then remove my 540mb 3.5" drive so that the ide fix adaptor can go inside the normal casing, then fit the laptop cd drive internally

i try to install the CD on the ide fix express adaptor using ide fix 97 (which works when using the 3.5" 540 conventonal drive with all the cables externally.)

there is no problem reading and writing to the compact flash, have repeated the process 3 times

all cabling is spot on, power supply adequate and cable lengths kept to minimum to the ide adaptor

the ide fix software hangs on install when detecting the CD, immediately after the PARK HARD DRIVE SOFTWARE

so.............. i think the ide fix software is shutting down the bootable compact flash when it installs park heads and can't detect a spinning motor !!

once it has done so............. i have to re prep the card

anyone got a stripped down version of ide fix 97 without this option ??

when i abort the installation at that point, it doesn't skip that part but aborts all !!

which is a shame

as soon as it is working i will be making the classic WB ADV boot from compact flash, then fit the CD laptop drive inside the amiga and do away with the AT power supply.

if anyone wishes to email me direct feel free to do so

hope the info is clear and concise, everythnig works until i install the ide fix software to get the cd running when using the compact flash internally

rbrayshaw@hotmail.com