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#1 |
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CF / SD and large drives FAQ
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Introduction This is not meant to be a step-by-step guide to set up a large SD or CF card as an amiga system drive, but it will help you identify many of the common issues. Maximum drive capacity The 4GiB limit Description: Max HDD or card capacity 4GiB (total drive size).The 7,87GiB limit Description: Max HDD or card capacity 7,87GiB (total drive size).The 128GiB limit Description: Max HDD capacity 128GiB (total drive size). Recommendations for IDE 4GB cards: You can use original scsi.device and FFS if you want, but I recommend using a modern file system (SFS/PFS3), as it's faster, safer and more elegant (no endless validation, etc). Recommendations for SCSI The 4GiB limit applies to SCSI as well. (The 7,87 and 128GiB limits do not) Overview, IDE drivers and file systems
Direct SCSI, NSD and TD64? All amiga .device drivers use the commands CMD_READ and CMD_WRITE that are limited to 32bit addresses and therefore a 4GiB drive size. Other problems > 4GiB As mentioned above, some parts of Workbench also have issues with devices above 4GiB.. Size of boot partition A bootable partition can be of any size as long as the entire partition is accessible before any scsi.device patches. OS 3.9 Boing Bag 2 issue Scsi.device v43.43 from OS 3.9 Boing Bag 2 attempts to support 48bit LBA addressing required for IDE/ATA drives/cards larger than 128GiB. (No problem for SCSI drives) Smart ATA devices with correct (but 'illegal') CHS values The 7,87GB limit is due to a limitation given by the ATA specification that ATA devices should never report more than 7,87GB capability when asked for the 'CHS' geometry - size as defined by cylinders, heads and sectors. The CHS drive size issue Problem: If, on a system limited to CHS addressing, you access a drive that was initialized and partitioned on an LBA capable system, you will get in trouble if the last partition of the device is extended to the very end of the drive. Capacity limits other than a600/1200/4000 IDE
General information WinUAE considerations If you want to access a physical amiga drive/card in WinUAE, you need to run the program as administrator (except in WinXP). Max transfer and mask
FAQ continues in next post! After hitting the maximum post length, the remainder has been moved to the next post below... Last edited by fgh; 09 March 2018 at 21:17. Reason: Added some SCSI info |
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#2 |
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Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Eksjö / Sweden
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![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() I mostly stay out of trouble by buying known brand makes that are max 2GB and split them into 2 x <1 GB partitions, the second starting before 1GB. All of them have worked interchangably on A500/kick 1.3 (via misc. interfaces) and up to A1200-060 so far. But it's good to have more info. BBOAH or similar should really link to a web page like this (maybe they do already, haven't looked!) |
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#3 | ||
WinUAE developer
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Hämeenlinna/Finland
Age: 49
Posts: 26,611
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Really nice FAQ. Finally there is Amiga IDE related information that isn't filled with weird myths
![]() Quote:
ATA IDENTIFY DEVICE data is 99% generated under emulation. Only size comes from real drive. Quote:
No one still hasn't explained why some CF cards and IDE drives don't work at all when connected to Amiga IDE port. (No drive gets detected) I had ~2G 2.5" drive that didn't work, but it worked fine on a PC. I assume it is some hardware timing issue that can't be fixed in software. |
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#4 |
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Thanks guys. And thanks to whoever made it sticky
![]() Tony: I have changed the text based on your comments. Edit: After hitting the maximum post length, I've moved the second half into this post: General info, continued... Removable vs fixed flash media (short version) Original scsi.device IDE drivers works well with both fixed and removable type CF cards. HDinstTool vs HDToolbox Never use HDinstTool with a drive that was partitioned using HDToolbox if you want to keep any data on it. About wear levelling Due to the concept of 'wear levelling' on flash media, it is smart to avoid block-by-block writing, like a normal format, or writing back an image file over the entire card. Removable media troubleshooting My CF or SD works in WinUAE but not in my real Amiga This is often caused by a WinUAE configuration that does not match the real hardware. (amiga model, kickstart versions, ram, etc), so certain software would work in WinUAE but not on real hw. Hdtoolbox says 'Unit is not a disk (Type 7)' Don't worry, nothing is wrong. Your removable type card is mistaken for an optical removable media (CDR, etc) by hdtoolbox. Rare issue: Drive shows up as 'no disk in drive' after partitioning? You have partitioned the drive normally, then after a reboot, instead of showing up as NDOS / not a dos disk, some or all FFS partitions don't appear on workbench at all, and C:Info lists all missing partitions with "no disk in drive" state. (HDToolbox still shows all partitions correctly.) Booting with Boing Bag 2 freezes system If your OS3.9 Boing Bag 2 system manages to get to the setpatch reboot, but freeze immediately after the reboot, you may have fallen victim to scsi.device 43.43's LBA48 bug. CF or SD does not work in PCMCIA adapter First - you need to install compactflash.device (pcmcia CF driver) and Fat95 (file system). SDHC card does not work in PCMCIA SD- or multi-adapter So far I have not found a single PCMCIA adapter that supports SDHC cards (4-32GB). Only my first FAT partition partition shows up FAT95 does not automatically mount multiple partitions. Reasons for incompatibility Background The ATA standard supports lots of different types of media, both fixed and removable types. The problem with certain amiga IDE drivers and 'removable' media As mentioned above, original scsi.device IDE drivers have no problem with removable type CF cards or SD cards. Regarding PCMCIA operation and incompatibility Compact Flash storage devices operate in three modes: Regarding SD cards SD cards are not ATA devices and have less complex controllers than CF cards. Relevance of PCMCIA / CF card voltage ratings? The PCMCIA specification allows 3,3 or 5 volt devices, and the amiga pcmcia implementation only works with 5v devices. That’s it for now, well done if you are still reading! There certainly are incompatible cards, but I hope some will find their card is compatible after all with this little guide. Additions and suggestions are welcome! Thanks ![]() Last edited by fgh; 07 June 2016 at 02:58. |
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#5 |
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Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Porto, Portugal
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Now that's what a call a really good explanation...
![]() I was going to start a thread regarding my transcend 16Gb CF Card that a can't get it to boot on my 1200. I prep the card in winuae and copied over my backup OS to it and it works great under WinUAE but when i try to boot my amiga with it it just goes black screen. I formated it with SFS. Made on 1 partition with 512Mb and the other with the rest. ![]() This is the card i have. As soon i get home i'm gonna try to fix this using your faq. Let's see what happens. |
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#6 |
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Hi Paulo, I'm glad the post can be of use to you.
Are you using the standard a1200 IDE or another IDE controller? With a >8GB drive I guess you use a modern scsi.device or idefix driver? As you will see above, idefix driver does not support removable type CF cards, and the symptoms are (iirc) a system hang with black screen like you describe. So if you use idefix, this is the first thing I would check. Good luck! |
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#7 | |
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Quote:
My other card is an 8gb CF card that works flawlessly til this date. Do you think if i tried it without idefix and connecting it directly to the ide port it would solve the problem? Sorry if this seems dumb questions but i'm in a learning experience. |
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#8 |
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I understand that you're using IDEFix Express or some other buffered IDE interface, and idefix software..
I cannot guarantee that your problem is related to this, but unless you are certain that the card reports as a fixed ATA device, it's worth a try. If you're unable to apply Doobrey's patches from the instructions, you can still check whether IDEfix is causing the problem by connecting the card directly on the IDE port. However If your CF card is removable (which is tricky to find out) you still need to disable the IDEfix driver from your startup-sequence. (add ; before the relevant lines) And since this is a 16G card, once you disable IDEfix, you need to apply another scsi.device patch for the system to see the whole card. There are plenty of guides for patching scsi.device, but here is a short version: If your system is based on classicWB, just drop a modern scsi.device in devs: and it will run when you reboot. If not on classicWB you need to download and manually patch the newer scsi.device with the loadmodule command in the beginning of your startup-sequence. ('c:loadmodule devs:scsi.device') So, to summarize.. 1: In WinUAE, disable IDEfix from startup-sequence and setup a modern scsi.device patch. 2: Plug card directly onto a1200 IDE and try again. Edit: Your questions are not dumb in any way, this stuff is very confusing, far far away from 'plug and play' ... You'll find some more info on amiga large HDD support here and here. Last edited by fgh; 02 February 2012 at 15:28. |
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#9 |
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#10 |
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I don't know your problems, but in any case, using 'UAE' IDE driver in WinUAE should not cause any trouble. It's just easier to use IDE0, so people do not have to change their hdtoolbox tooltypes.
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#11 |
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I am having those "line 1111 Emulator"issues with WHDLoad, exceptions, and other things, but mostly Line 1111 errors.
I had teh wrong MAxTransfer and I changed it, and now I copied everything fresh, but I am afraid I need to format again, maybe? Because those errors are just way annoying. No otehr tool crashes but that could be because I don't save big data. Then again, I have some 500KB MODs in Protracker that work just fine. Only WHDLoad is giving me problems. |
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#12 |
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Ok, I don't know WHDload extremely well, other than using it successfully for my games.
A couple of searches gives plenty of topics to review though. At least you were correct to reinstall everything if the maxtransfer setting was wrong in prolonged use, as files would be corrupted. Off the top of my head, if you don't know if it is hardware, your wb setup, or your whdload setup that is to blame, you could always run checks with a plain 3.1 install, other whdload versions, the same setup in winuae, on other amiga hardware, etc.. |
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#13 |
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Yeah I gotta check the card in WinUAE, it's just that I hate opening up the machine to do this sort of check. At this moment I am working with it so I cant but I will try in a couple of weeks.
I thank you for your in-depth research on this matter. |
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#14 |
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#15 |
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No, I don't like messing around with the case, however I don't feel safe having a non-hot-swappable thing like my internal CF to be exposed outside. It's just trouble for me.
I just had a great idea to check if it is a problem with teh drive: I will copy the games that are giving me the problem to the PCMCIA SD card and then run them from there. If they run fine, it should be a problem with the IDE CF, otehrwise it's something else. |
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#16 |
TinkerTailorContentMaker
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Bedfordshire
Age: 46
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Hi,
I`m trying to get a 4 gig compact flash (sandisk ultra) card to work in WINUAE. I have a cheap "all in one mini card reader" that outputs usb to the pc. I plug the flash card into this adpater and then connect it via usb to the pc. Windows only reads the device as "Removeable disk E:" and there doesnt appear to any drive attributes showing up and if i try to open it, windows says "please insert a disk into removable disk e: ". Anyways when I startup WinUAE and attach it using add hard drives, WinUAE lists it as " [NO MEDIA] [N/A,RW] Usb mass storage". When booting to my workbench in WinUAE the device does not show up. What am I missing, any help? Also enclosed is a picture of the adpater. Also would like to add that I can access the Flash card on my real amiga when its plugged into PCMCIA slot. |
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#17 |
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My similar adapter assigns a different windows drive (E: F: G: etc) to each media type/slot.
I think this is common, to allow access to several cards simultaneously. If yours only assigns E:, perhaps you need to install the drivers? |
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#18 |
TinkerTailorContentMaker
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Bedfordshire
Age: 46
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Mmmm? As far as I know there are no drivers for this adapter..Also I know it works as I've plugged a SDHC Card into and was able to access it.
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#19 |
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Location: Norway
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If drivers do not exist for it and windows cannot see CF cards in it, you either have a faulty unit, some conflicting software or unsupported windows version.
WinUAE can not see the card if Windows does not. |
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#20 |
WinUAE developer
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Hämeenlinna/Finland
Age: 49
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Check Windows Disk Management. It is hardware problem if it does not appear in disk list (with correct size information).
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