External PCMCIA CD-Rom on Amiga 1200 Teac CD-224PE

Hello all together,

I am trying to connect an external PCMCIA Teac CD-224PE CD-Rom drive to my Amiga 1200 using the PCMCIA-slot. The CD-Rom uses a PC Card PCMCIA Type II Plug & Play (or like I memorise it Plug & Pray) from Teac. The hardware connection goes well without any problems. But I do not have any drivers for a PCMCIA Drive for use with an Amiga and also I do not know how to make Worbench use that drive. Is it possible at all to use such an PC-CD-Rom on an Amiga 1200 or should I let go of it ?

My Amiga 1200 just works fine with the Archos Overdrive external CD-Rom, but I would prefer the Teac PCMCIA-Drive.

Pictures of the Teac CD-224PE CD-Rom

[thomas]

But I do not have any drivers for a PCMCIA Drive for use with an Amiga and also I do not know how to make Worbench use that drive.

You have to write drivers yourself. There are none yet.

Originally Posted by thomas

You have to write drivers yourself. There are none yet.

There is not any chance to use alternate drivers instead ? On PC DOS I could also use any Mitsumi driver for most PC Cd-Roms. I had the hope, that on Amiga I could also use third party drivers or a gerneric driver.

Grüße aus Norddeutschland / Greetings from NorthGermany

Edit: On your german homepage you write in chapter "Frage 16: Wie bekomme ich ein CD-ROM-Laufwerk im Amiga zum laufen ?", that you have to use a driver for the internal ide channel. Can´t I cheat my Amiga with an general PCMCIA-CD-Rom driver (if anything like that does exist) ?

BTW. Nice homepage you have there

[rkauer]

Originally Posted by Raging Rabbit

There is not any chance to use alternate drivers instead ? On PC DOS I could also use any Mitsumi driver for most PC Cd-Roms. I had the hope, that on Amiga I could also use third party drivers or a gerneric driver.

Grüße aus Norddeutschland / Greetings from NorthGermany

Edit: On your german homepage you write in chapter "Frage 16: Wie bekomme ich ein CD-ROM-Laufwerk im Amiga zum laufen ?", that you have to use a driver for the internal ide channel. Can´t I cheat my Amiga with an general PCMCIA-CD-Rom driver (if anything like that does exist) ?

BTW. Nice homepage you have there

There are some PCMCIA drivers on "Installer's heaven", but I suppose there not a single one for IDE through PCMCIA (but the Archos Overdrive).

Try to find another one in:
http://www.l8r.net/install/index.html

[Zetr0]

@Raging Rabit

Hello there,

Welcome to the EAB, theres always something mischievious to get up to around here , so when you get a break, kick back and releax with the chocolate coated retr0-ness that this fair board provides.

Now an interesting quandary you have.

as you know there are no known drivers for the Amiga that can work with the hardware that you have. Alas all of the hardwares that use the PCMCIA i know of are proprietary.

I believe Thomas is correct in pointing out that you may have to write a driver for the amiga to get it to work, from this i would suggest looking at a Linux driver for the hardware and back-tracking from there.

BUT there may well be another way.

I am assuming you want an external cdrom, well, with a little hardware hackery I think we may well be able to pull it off, have it look REALLY nice, AND keep your PCMCIA port free.

Interested ?

still reading eh? (thoughts so.... a knew member after my own heart)

I have been experimenting with IDE to SATA and SATA back to IDE so one could use external sata ports (as there nice. neat and better looking than a flat ugly cable) however my tests dont show encouraging results i am afraid, but i am working on it.

Using an EIDE99 (from my m8 yorkie)

EIDE -> SATA/IDE converter <TO> SATA/IDE converter -> 2GB IDE drive = FAIL DRIVE NOT FOUND (BOOT DRIVE)

EIDE -> SATA/IDE converter <TO> SATA/IDE converter -> 1GB IDE drive = FAIL! DRIVE NOT FOUND (BOOT DRIVE)

EIDE -> SATA/IDE converter <TO> SATA/IDE converter -> 512MB CF IDE drive = FAIL! DRIVE NOT FOUND (BOOT DRIVE)


as you can see theres a lot of "Kludges" for the wont of a better word that adapt on top of adapters, the IDE drives are VERY old, yet work perfectly using the standard 40pin cable.

I have tried both internal power (modified 120wat psu) as well as external (400watt) for the Devices.

-----------------
Things left to try,

Booting normally via internal flat cable and using EDIE softer to search for non-bootable drives (connected by SATA/IDE converter via IDE)

[primary]EIDE99 -> SATA/IDE converter <<TO>> SATA HDD (BOOT)
[seconday]EIDE99 -> SATA/IDE converter <<TO>> SATA HDD (NON-BOOT)
[secondary] EIDE99 -> SATA/IDE converter <<TO>> SATA/IDE converter OPTICAL

IDEFix97 -> SATA/IDE converter <<TO>> SATA/IDE converter -> IDE HDD (BOOT)
IDEFix97 -> SATA/IDE converter <<TO>> SATA/IDE converter -> IDE HDD (SECONDARY)
IDEFix97 -> SATA/IDE converter <<TO>> SATA/IDE converter -> IDE OPTICAL

----------

these are the SATA/IDE converters that I am using

Connected to IDE DRIVE


Connected to EIDE99
#

My initial conclusions lead me to beleive that although one can change the IDE device to SATA, the IDE HOST cannot be converted to SATA.

[again i would like to thank yorkie for his EIDE99 and r0jaws for use of his close to hand a1200]

................my experiments continue............

[rkauer]

Since you have a laptop TEAC224, other possible way is take it out from the PCMCIA and use a regular IDE splitter to the CD. Yes, that flat cable hanging out the Amiga is ugly-ass, but works like a charm. Even no need to use an EIDE nor IDE-Express.

IDE>SATA--cable--SATA>IDE is a no-no, as Zetr0 mentioned. IDE to SATA (one single adaptor) works OK, but just for HD.

At first : Thanks to everyone for your quick replies I know to appreciate your efforts

Originally Posted by rkauer

There are some PCMCIA drivers on "Installer's heaven", but I suppose there not a single one for IDE through PCMCIA (but the Archos Overdrive).

Try to find another one in:
http://www.l8r.net/install/index.html

I already tried to use that Zappo PCMCIA-CD-Rom-driver, but I guess the architecture is too different.

Originally Posted by Zetr0

@Raging Rabit

Hello there,

Welcome to the EAB, theres always something mischievious to get up to around here , so when you get a break, kick back and releax with the chocolate coated retr0-ness that this fair board provides.

Now an interesting quandary you have.

as you know there are no known drivers for the Amiga that can work with the hardware that you have. Alas all of the hardwares that use the PCMCIA i know of are proprietary.

I believe Thomas is correct in pointing out that you may have to write a driver for the amiga to get it to work, from this i would suggest looking at a Linux driver for the hardware and back-tracking from there.

BUT there may well be another way.

I am assuming you want an external cdrom, well, with a little hardware hackery I think we may well be able to pull it off, have it look REALLY nice, AND keep your PCMCIA port free.

Interested ?

still reading eh? (thoughts so.... a knew member after my own heart)

Thanks for the warm welcome But I have to admit that my hardware knowledge and "build abilities" are limited to standard Gamers use. In other words everything that is above connecting cables and some screwdriverwork is beyond my horizon I already condemned my old Commodore 128D to a tragically death due to mixing up the + and - cables (may he rest in peace). Also I remember the work and time exposure I had in building an 2,5 inch to 3,5 ide cable for my Amiga 1200HD to use my old PC harddisk.
But I wish you further best of luck in your experiment

Originally Posted by rkauer

Since you have a laptop TEAC224, other possible way is take it out from the PCMCIA and use a regular IDE splitter to the CD. Yes, that flat cable hanging out the Amiga is ugly-ass, but works like a charm. Even no need to use an EIDE nor IDE-Express.

IDE>SATA--cable--SATA>IDE is a no-no, as Zetr0 mentioned. IDE to SATA (one single adaptor) works OK, but just for HD.

That sounds interesting. That way there would be no problems with the missing drivers (Linux driver are not available for that CD-Rom) and also the PCMICA/IDE connection.
I guess a big problem would be, that I could not find a new connection cable for that CD-Rom so far. Refering to Teac the CD-Rom has a ATAPI-connection, but I have to admit that I haven´t seen such a cable before. i know the standard IDE-cables from PC, but this one looks quite different. I guess the connection type would be notebook typical. Does anyone know, where to get such "notebook-typical-ide to standard ide"cable ?

[Arnie]

Just a thought, would the "squirrel" pcmcia to scsi drivers work?.

[Zetr0]

@Arnie

alas my friend, i fear that the SCSI logic and IDE logic would be incompatible

[rkauer]

Originally Posted by Raging Rabbit

At first : Thanks to everyone for your quick replies I know to appreciate your efforts

No need to thanks. We all had to start learning from a-day. Hope someday you help someone too.

I already tried to use that Zappo PCMCIA-CD-Rom-driver, but I guess the architecture is too different.

Probably.

That sounds interesting. That way there would be no problems with the missing drivers (Linux driver are not available for that CD-Rom) and also the PCMCIA/IDE connection. I guess a big problem would be, that I could not find a new connection cable for that CD-Rom so far. Refering to Teac the CD-Rom has a ATAPI-connection, but I have to admit that I haven´t seen such a cable before. i know the standard IDE-cables from PC, but this one looks quite different. I guess the connection type would be notebook typical. Does anyone know, where to get such "notebook-typical-ide to standard ide"cable ?

That's the way:

You need:

1- one dual-devices IDE splitter (3x 44pin IDE cable). You can buy it from Amigakit (UK) or Vesalia (Germany);

2- one JAE adaptor: convert that funny CD connector to standard mini-IDE, plus it allows selecting the device as master or slave (set the unit as slave, your HD is da master, here! );

3- IDEfix97 (download it from Aminet).

How-to:

- Install the JAE adaptor in the CD unit;

- Open your Amiga and swap da old IDE cable with your new two-devices/three connectors cable;

- Route the longer part of the cable to outside the Amiga (or modify your Amiga's to put the CD unit internally)

- connect the IDE cable to the JAE.

- boot your Amiga, install the IDEfix software, allowing it to find your CD (in ATAPI, NOT SCSI!). Reboot and enjoy your CD.

BTW: no magic smoke! It's a hard job for stoned persons!

[alexh]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

My initial conclusions lead me to beleive that although one can change the IDE device to SATA, the IDE HOST cannot be converted to SATA.

They can if you use the right bridge hardware. You have almost certainly got two SATA2PATA bridges there! You need a StarTech PATA2SATA bridge (Hunt around you can get them for about £14)

But you are right, converting PATA devices into SATA ones is the most common bridge. Almost all SATA ATAPI drives are infact PATA ones with a bridge inside.

[Zetr0]

@Alexh

you sir are a star and have saved a tricky little project Thanks Muchly!


how does something like this sound ? (removing plastics obviously)


if so, i shall get a couple of them, and have 4 sata ports of yummyness (2 internal and 2 external) for an Amiga

(okay no speed gain but none of that ugly-ass 40pin cable)

[Jope]

http://imgs.inkfrog.com/pix/ebuy909/RIMG0105__22.JPG is a piece of shit.

I have two, neither of them works properly.

Don't know what's wrong with them, the drives detect fine in the beginning and sometimes I can transfer up to a gigabyte of stuff before the converter hangs. On most times the drive gets detected and then it hangs after a few bytes have been read.

Steer clear.

[alexh]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

how does something like this sound ? (removing plastics obviously)

Dunno, I'd have to see what chips were on it... it looks good though cos it's got two SATA ports indicating it is probably a PATA2SATA bridge. However the description is confusing.

[amigakit.com]

On the point of SATA: I have successfully connected a brand new 500GB SATA drive to my Amiga 1200 with FastATA by using a SATA to IDE Bridge.

HDToolbox from OS 3.9 BB2 would not prep the hard disk (shows a busy pointer then fails to install the RDB), but I had success with HDInstTools.

[Zetr0]

@Jope

well my fingers are crossed that I have better luck. I will let you know.

Originally Posted by alexh

Dunno, I'd have to see what chips were on it... it looks good though cos it's got two SATA ports indicating it is probably a PATA2SATA bridge. However the description is confusing.

Indeed, but for £7 i can take a chance.... when the wifie gives me some pocket money! LOL

Originally Posted by amigakit.com

On the point of SATA: I have successfully connected a brand new 500GB SATA drive to my Amiga 1200 with FastATA by using a SATA to IDE Bridge.

HDToolbox from OS 3.9 BB2 would not prep the hard disk (shows a busy pointer then fails to install the RDB), but I had success with HDInstTools.

WOW.... 500GB on an Amiga A1200........ AK, thats Awesome!... totaly crazy but awesome!

thanks for the info on prepping it up btw, that will be handy!

(i can see a blue-ray device coming next LOL)

anyone got ideas on how to build a fire wire port?!

[cane]

Zetr0 maybe this is something that you are looking for.

[Zetr0]

@cane

!!!!YES!!!!

THANK YOU!!!!!

whoot!!!!

[Zetr0]

@cane

!!!!ORDERED!!!!

Again A big THANK YOU!!! for your help

now its a 3 week waiting game

[alexh]

I cannot quite tell from the photo but I think that has a chip that I worked on.