How do you convert ADF files to a real floppy disks?

[c0dehunter]

Hello,
I am about to purchase an A1000, and since I have been using WinUAE, I have collected a fair number of games and demos in .ADF format. Now, how can I convert these virtual floppies back to real floppies, so that I can used them on my shiny new A1000?

Thanks a million in advance!

[ajk]

If you have another Amiga, you can easily transfer the .adf onto a floppy using that. Otherwise you need a special floppy drive controller such as a Catweasel or Kryoflux (although I'm not sure if the latter yet has the software support for writing, it's been promised to happen soon) to do the job.

If the A1000 is the only Amiga you will have, in principle you are able to transfer the .adfs over a serial cable or PC formatted floppy to the A1000 and then write them as Amiga disks. This however depends on what software you already have available, and generally speaking the A1000 is ill equipped to handle this RAM- and OS-wise

[c0dehunter]

I also happen to have an A600HD! How can I achieve transforming my ADF files to my A1000? (without a need for special hardware that is)

Thanks!

[ajk]

Ah nice, then it's easy enough, just transfer the .adfs onto the A600HD and then use something like adf2disk to write them onto floppies

[Jope]

For transfering: CF card + PCMCIA adapter (cfd.lha + fat95.lha) or crossdos and a pile of floppies.

[c0dehunter]

Originally Posted by Jope

For transfering: CF card + PCMCIA adapter (cfd.lha + fat95.lha) or crossdos and a pile of floppies.

Is this something that I can build myself?

Is this what I need?

http://www.microcenter.com/single_pr...uct_id=0328797

Can I use Amiga Explorer to transfer ADF files from PC to A600HD? (and then convert them to floppies?)

http://www.amigaforever.com/ae/

Thanks!

[Jope]

Originally Posted by c0dehunter

Is this something that I can build myself?

Even though anything is doable given the time and funds, I'll say no.

Is this what I need?

http://www.microcenter.com/single_pr...uct_id=0328797

Precisely. You can find them even cheaper if you hunt around.

Then you still need a card reader for your PC (if you don't have a laptop with a PCMCIA slot to write the data with) and a compact flash card.

Can I use Amiga Explorer to transfer ADF files from PC to A600HD? (and then convert them to floppies?)

You can, in that case you need a null modem cable from the A600's serial port to your PC's serial port.

The PCMCIA method is faster if you're transferring a lot of floppy images, but if it's only like 5-10 at a time, then you might as well sit around waiting for the data to make its way down the serial cable.

[c0dehunter]

Thanks for your replies. OK, I have couple of IBM ThinkPad T22 Laptops, which feature both Serial connectors in the back and PCMCIA card readers on the side!

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Serial_Port

So, the 2 options would be PCMCIA CF adpater OR Serial Cable.

PCMCIA:

I should get a PCMCIA CF Card adapter and a CF card (which I have!), and transfer ADF files from PC to CF Card (by using the PCMCIA Adaptor)

Then insert the PCMCIA Adaptor into A600HD and transfer ADF files into its Hdd. Then use adf2disk to convert them to real Amiga floppy disks.

Is this correct?

2nd option would be to:
Use serial cable, connect it to my ThinkPad T22 and other end to A600HD Serial port, and using Amiga Explorer (which I own) transfer files between PC and Amiga.

The questions that I have:

1) When I insert the PCMCIA CF Adapter into my A600HD, how do I navigate to its contents? Does it show up as an icon Workbench?

2) How do I use adf2disk? I transfer its file from PC (using the PCMCIA Adapter) and use it on my A600Hd? Is it an executable program?

3) What type of floppy disks do I need?

Thanks a million again!

[ppill]

Have a look at Hombre (link in my signature).

[ajk]

Originally Posted by c0dehunter

1) When I insert the PCMCIA CF Adapter into my A600HD, how do I navigate to its contents? Does it show up as an icon Workbench?

Yes, as an icon, assuming you have the necessary filesystems. etc set up on the A600 (see Jope's post).

2) How do I use adf2disk? I transfer its file from PC (using the PCMCIA Adapter) and use it on my A600Hd? Is it an executable program?

Yes, it is a program that you run. Everything should be in the readme of the package.

3) What type of floppy disks do I need?

Optimally dual density (DS/DD) floppies, but as they are getting harder to find, high density PC ones will do too.

One further option is to connect your A600's hard drive to the PC, mount it in WinUAE, and transfer the files that way. Just need a suitable cable and of course IDE ports on the PC, which newer motherboards may lack.

[Jope]

Remember, that the pcmcia adapter requires you to install the driver and the filesystem so that the amiga will read the card.

cfd.lha and fat95.lha can be found with aminet search.

It may be that you will have to use amiga explorer to move them over if you don't have any method of reading PC floppies with the Amiga.

You didn't mention what OS you have, so I'm assuming 2.05 that shipped with the A600. This doesn't yet have crossdos included.

[gehtjanx]

First, install drivers as written. you can findthem on aminet.net. You can format an DD floppy in DOS/Windows (some windows only in console) with 720 KB. Then depack the drivers on PC (Izarc) or Amiga (they are LHA files). Remember you need CrossDOS and Kick2.0 to do this. And note you have to "mount pc0:" device.

Also possible: Connect hdd to PC and use Winuae (remember: disableharddisksafetycheck)

install drivers as in readme to HDD or floppy disc (copy) of WB.

Then you are ready to go. Insert an PCMCIA CF-Adapter (remember: 16 bit PCMCIA Type II not 32 Bit PC Card. The cheaper the better as its really just an adapter and with no interal logic it will function on amiga with higher chance) and a FAT formatted CF card and the icon will appear. You can change the icon by adding a disk.icon (is that the name? Long time made ago, oh well)

Not that much complicated if you know how to do. Maybe someone can help you sending the files on a floppy (they are freeware). Then you could manually install it to your (legally owned) Workbench.

gehtjanx

[c0dehunter]

OK, I got a serial cable AND a CF Adapter and CF card. I will try your suggestions! I will see which one is going to work for me best! Wish me luck!

Update:

I finally got my A600HD to communicated with my IBM ThinkPad T22 using a null-MODEM serial cable and AmigaExplorer program. As expected, it is very slow, so I went out and bought a CF Adapter and a 4GB CF card as well. I went to aminet and downloaded cfd and fat95. Now according to the cfd readme file, I need to transfer cfd/devs/compactflash.device to DEVS: , which I did.

1) Then what? (what is the next step)

also 2) How do I transfer fat95 (and where to)? Do I need to restart my AMIGA to make it work?

3) Another issues that I have is that I wanted to convert my ADF file to a floppy. I don't have a DD Amiga floppy. Can I simply use an IBM formatted floppy diskette instead?

Why do I get a "not a valid DOS disk" error message?

Thanks!

[c0dehunter]

Thanks for your responses. I managed to connect my A600HD to my IBM ThinkPad T22 using a null-MODEM serial cable and AmigaExplorer. As expected, the transfer rate is painfully slow, so I went ahead and bought a CF Adapter, as well as 4GB CF card. I have already downloaded the cfd.lha and fat95.lha, but I am not sure what to do after that.

When do I need to insert the CF Adapter? Does it show up as an icon on my Workbench Desktop? do I need to "mount" anything?

Thanks!

[c0dehunter]

Does this PCMCIA adapter do the job?

http://ppa-usa.com/1134-cf-adapter-pcmcia.html

I am using a 4GB Kingston with it as well.

The problem is, my A600HD does not detect it, even though I have installed all the necessary files, covered in this thread:

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?...5+installation

I transferred the CFRun file, extracted it, launched it and everything went smoothly. I even rebooted the Amiga as a precaution. When I insert my PCMCIA adapter into A600HD slot, nothing happens...

Any ideas why? Could it be the CF media? Could it be the adapter?

Thanks for your help.

[ajk]

Did you install that stuff yet? Quoting the cfd.lha readme:

Copy cfd/devs/compactflash.device to DEVS:
Have fat95 installed on your system.
Mount the drive by double-clicking cfd/devs/CF0.

Edit: I see you just posted again at the same time Not sure why it wouldn't show up. Did you try booting with it the card already inserted?

[c0dehunter]

Let me try that!

Did you try booting with it the card already inserted?

Did that, but no show... Could it be my CF card? Or the CF Adapter? Did you get a chance to take it look at the specification of the CF Adapter that I provided in the previous link?

Thanks again.

p.s. Oh, also can you tell me the correct way to format my CF on my Windows XP system? I have been using the format f: /FS:FAT command (<f:> being my CF drive letter). May that is the problem, and I am not formatting it correctly.

Thanks!

[ajk]

I don't know if it's really possible to tell these things by the specs, I certainly can't... in principle they should all work but there seem to be some little compatibility differences. Perhaps someone else can chime in if they have used that particular model?

Also, I had imagined that even if the card was formatted somehow wrong, you'd still get some kind of icon (sort of like the DF0:NDOS you get with a floppy), but again I'm not really sure, it worked fine for me the first time. Anyone else?

[c0dehunter]

Well I just wanted to confirm, whether it is a 16 bit PCMCIA Type II and or a 32 Bit PC Card.
Update: For sure mine is a 16bit version:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pc...ii-and-iii.jpg

Now the only thing remains is that maybe the formatting is incorrect on my CF? I am sure it is in FAT (and not FAT32) format.

[prowler]

Hi c0dehunter,

There are two versions of the Compact Flash PCMCIA driver (cfd.lha), version 1.25 and version 1.27. Make sure you are using the latter for better compatibility.

In addition, a stated above, you will need the Windows 95 compatible filesystem, fat95.lha and CardReset v3.0, which allows forcing a reset signal on your PCMCIA slot.

Install those drivers and utilities in accordance with the readme files and you shouldn't have any trouble.

Note that the Amiga fat95 filesystem is compatible with both FAT and FAT32 formatted cards.

The Amiga's PCMCIA slot is far more picky than the IDE controller regarding compatibility of CF cards. If you still can't get the CF card to show up on your desktop, then I would say that incompatibility of the Kingston CF card with the PCMCIA slot is most likely the cause.