Using a Compact Flash card on a600/a1200 PCMCIA

[fgh]

Sure, it's Neil79 having a weird issue. Older versions work fine in most cases.
Compactflash.device has no size limitations, and it has the pcmcia reset fix built in.

[Neil79]

Sorry for the late reply fgh, ended up busy with other things and the PCMCIA got side tracked!

Did not get around to trying 2 as I needed to be able to use the emulators in workbench, not through start up. So mounting in start up would not have helped really?

4 might've been a good idea, however I need the expansion in, to be able to run my classicwb versions and the whdload games. Even if it did work with out the exp, I couldn't do anything else with it as I'd need that ram.

5 did not get around to doing it.

I guess I just felt, if it's working some times and not others, then that was enough to copy over the needed spectrum games or new whdload updates. I won't be playing all the spectrum games anyway. It is a fussy thing though, makes me wonder more if it's the CF or the PCMCIA at fault, but it does work about 10% of the time

I'm really grateful for the help though!

[fgh]

Ok, if you're ever looking at it again, my suggstions were given for troubleshooting, (identifying the source of the problem), not as a solution or workaround.

#2 would tell you if any software is conflicting, so you could look into startup-sequence and try to isolate the source.
#4 would tell you if your ACA1232 is part of the problem
#5 would tell you if it has to do with the format of the CF card

[Neil79]

Cheers, when I next get the time I'll do #5 on the Amiga

[delshay]

Originally Posted by fgh

Sure, it's Neil79 having a weird issue. Older versions work fine in most cases.
Compactflash.device has no size limitations, and it has the pcmcia reset fix built in.

Its not just there for CF cards,its applies to all cards that use the PCMCIA slot ie network cards also need the reset fix.

[fgh]

That's true, I just meant to point out that the pcmcia reset issue was no factor in Neil79's problem.

[Neil79]

Having problems formatting it in AmiKIT, says it can't find the device.

Tried HDTOOLBOX and it freezes up with the CF inserted!

Starting to wonder if it's an iffy CF card, how do I go about formatting it in classicWB-ADVSP?


EDIT : Just did a diskpart - clean and now it's showing up as CF0:NDOS in ClassicWB, with no freeze ups!

EDIT 2: Just doing MyFormat - Quick on the CF0: through classicWB

EDIT 3: Tried on two seperate reboots, thought it was all fixed... gave it two mins, rebooted the system and it's causing the system to crawl again

I give up, it wasn't the MBR either

[delshay]

Is it possible to have OS4.x specific driver for compact flash?

Here I have network and CF driver installed so when switching card from network to compact flash the card will always work without a soft reset,but I have being saying for some while now OS4.x should support the PCMCIA A1200 out of the box.

NOTE: I am using 68k driver with OS4.x

[Kenan]

Bought Transcend 133x, 2GB. After quick format (FAT32, 512 bites allocation size), works like a charm in my PCMCIA slot.

[fitzsteve]

Originally Posted by Kenan

Bought Transcend 133x, 2GB. After quick format (FAT32, 512 bites allocation size), works like a charm in my PCMCIA slot.

Glad to hear it

[Neil79]

Originally Posted by Kenan

Bought Transcend 133x, 2GB. After quick format (FAT32, 512 bites allocation size), works like a charm in my PCMCIA slot.

Lucky you

[Kenan]

^^Well, to be honest, most of the search results for compatible CF PCMCIA stated Transcend @ 2GB and 133x should be fine. Or are there actually folks who had different outcome?

Mind you, mine didn't work out of the box untill I re-formatted it.

[rams]

So I got this SanDisk pcmcia adapter and I am trying to get it to work with my 1200 and 16 mb Canon cf card. I have fat95 and CFD installed. When I insert the pcmcia card I can see cf0 but it is ndos. I have tried formatting the card to fat16 and fat32 but it does not help. Do I have to modify the values in the cf0 file or is the card incompatible?

[fgh]

Make sure you are running v1.27 of compactflash.device.
Type 'version compactflash.device' in dos/shell to see which version is loaded. Also type 'version L:fat95' to check that it is a recent version ( 3.17/3.18 ).

Also,whenever you get CF0:NDOS, do a quick format on the amiga! FAT95 is more picky on MBR/FAT variants than Windows.

[rams]

Originally Posted by fgh

Make sure you are running v1.27 of compactflash.device.
Type 'version compactflash.device' in dos/shell to see which version is loaded. Also type 'version L:fat95' to check that it is a recent version ( 3.17/3.18 ).

Also,whenever you get CF0:NDOS, do a quick format on the amiga! FAT95 is more picky on MBR/FAT variants than Windows.

Doing the quick format on the Amiga side did the trick! Thank you very much!

I had checked the versions earlier. Fat95 was in correct version but I need to check compactflash once more as I think it gave 1.26 or some such. I installed from Aminet (and the readme claimed it to be 1.27).

Thanks again!

Edit FYI: the aminet cfd claims to be 1.27, but running the 'version' command on it returns 1.25.

[CloakedAlien]

Just wanted to state that I've got 2 or 3 different Lexar CF-cards, none of them works any good in the PCMCIA slot. It seems to work but data gets corrupted instantly when copying it to it.

I used a Lexar 4GB card as a system disk for a short while. That gave me a lot of grief before I realised that the card was the problem =S

None of my Kingston 4GB cards works in the PCMCIA adapter, at all, but I think that's been properly established already =P

[fgh]

Originally Posted by CloakedAlien

Just wanted to state that I've got 2 or 3 different Lexar CF-cards, none of them works any good in the PCMCIA slot. It seems to work but data gets corrupted instantly when copying it to it.

I used a Lexar 4GB card as a system disk for a short while. That gave me a lot of grief before I realised that the card was the problem =S

None of my Kingston 4GB cards works in the PCMCIA adapter, at all, but I think that's been properly established already =P

Interesting, could you elaborate a bit?
Data corruption is not a common problem over pcmcia afaik...

Was the card formatted on a PC or amiga?
What version of CFD and FAT95 are you using?
What model and size were the cards?
What kind of problems were there with the Lexar cards over IDE, and do they work in a PC or a camera?
Do you have other cards that are prepared in the same way and working reliably?

[CloakedAlien]

I'll try to boil it down.

Bought an extra CF-card to use for testing a new install on my miggy. Just happend to be a Lexar 4GB x133 card.

I had LOADS of issues with it in my cf-adapter, it even got so far I considered hardware failure before I figured there might even be some problems with the CF card itself.

Switched back to my trusty old Kingston. Fiddled around some more and tried using the Lexar card in the PCMCIA slot as well. Prett much the same problem.

Even tried a smaller Lexar card (512 megs or so I think).

Card(s) were formatted on a PC, both FAT and FAT32. Problems I had were random read errors. It dawned on me once I tried copying my WHDLoad games from my Kingston to my Lexar using DOpus on the miggy. Copied games had missing icons and stuff like that, all random.

Masks and MaxTransfer and the likes were all correctly set.

[nobrainer]

Hey everyone.. I have a problem with my PCMCIA card adapter as well.. I've bought it on Amigakit.. plugged it in and connected my Amiga 1200D to the internet via Miami DX (although I cannot find the working keys to have it registered, how do you solve that?!) and it was working fine for a long time, until yesterday. I did not use it to transfer files from PC to Amiga, just used it for wired Internet connection.

Now I have this problem it won't work anymore. As far as I can remember, it stopped working yesterday, when trying to install some files from Aminet, to enable my floppy drive, because it was not working on this 4GB CF card I am using as a hard drive, BUT floppy IS working when I use another CF card I've got as a hard drive, so floppy is working properly, so hardware failure is not an issue, so must be something I've messed up when installing FAT95 or CFD drivers.. I messed with them yesterday and now, Amiga won't even boot if the PCMCIA adapter with an ethernet plugged in, is inserted into the PCMCIA drive.. all I get is a green power led on and nothing else.. but the moment I remove the PCMCIA card from its slot, it starts booting and it boots successfully and everything else is working properly, but the moment I plug in the ethernet card or the transfer CF card into the PCMCIA slot (after the Amiga has already booted), it restarts automatically and hangs with only the green power led light on and that's it.

So now I am stuck with internet not working, PCMCIA slot not working while booted and floppy not working either.. so should I say $%#W$%$%#Q?!

If anyone can understand what is going on or how could I resolve this, I would really appreciate it, thank you very much.

[supaduper]

Hi have you tried another power adapter? just to eliminate its not that, and open her up and check all connections are good ie the floppy and IDE ones, and its a pain but try a fresh install, good luck keep us posted