I/O error when formating CF card from winUAE

[Frimann]

Hi guys!

I have a curious problem when trying to format a compact flash card from winUAE. Here is what I do:

1. Setup winUAE to closely resemble my real system:

• A600
• 68k cpu
• 4MB chip mem
• 4MB fast mem
• 1.5MB slow mem
• HDD1 = Bloodwych's harddisk image from the "WB Classic Lite 68k"
• HDD2 = Folder mounted from Windows for easy file transfers
• HDD3 = My CF card

2. Setup HDToolBox to scan devices from winUAE:



3. Identify my CF card in HDToolBox (Change Drive Type > Define New... > Read Configuration):



4. Setup partitions using HDToolBox's own suggestion (4GB cf card = 2x2GB partitions on FFS):



5. Finally I hit Low-level Format Drive, which brings us to my problem. Following two errors are written to the screen:

• "Driver returned I/O error code -5":

• "Failed Low-level Format, error -5 !":

I'm at my wits' end at this one as I've tried a lot of different configurations, all throwing the same error at me:

• Tried to format from vanilla Workbench 3.0
• Tried to format from vanilla Workbench 3.1
• Tried to format from Bloodwych's Classic Workbench Lite 68k 3.1
• Used two different Windows Machines (XP sp2 and XP sp3)
• Tried two different CF cards:
  • Kingston CompactFlash 4GB (tested in my A600 with succes)
  • Transcend CompactFlash 4GB (used in a PDA, FAT32)
• Finally I've tried both the FFS and the SFS file systems with same results

I was not sure whether to classify this as a hardware or winUAE specific problem, but I hope you can help me either way =)

Best regards,
Stefan Frimann

[Toni Wilen]

Simple answer: Do not use low level format -button. It is never needed. (ok, it may have been needed with mega-ancient XT drives..)

Just click "Save changes to drive" and continue.

[zipper]

What - no XT emulation...

[Frimann]

@Toni Willen

And "Save changes to drive" is basically a quick format? Is the drive fully functional after this operation?

[TheCorfiot]

@Frimann

After you have saved the changes to the CF card, you will need to reboot.

The aprtitions should appear on the Workbench screen with the partition name followed by some garbage.
In turn select each partition then carry out a Format from the pull down menu, Quick Format only else you will be there for days.

If it appears to fail formatting a partition, don't panic just reformat it, sometimes this happens.
Now search the forum to ensure your Max transfer settings for each partition is correct.

One further comment, I notice you have a Windows folder mounted as a HD under WinUAE, be careful with this, use it to transfer Zip files but do not unpack in this folder as Windows can affect the proper Amiga directory name lengths in some cases.

Good Luck
TC

[Frimann]

@TheCorfiot

Thanks for the information! I had a hunch about the mounted Windows folder though, as I've experienced the problems you describe before when moving files from PC to Amiga by means of a PCMCIA adapter

Can I bother you guys with another question in this thread? I would very much like to mount the entire 4GB of my CF card as a single partition. I figured I would need to use the SFS file system for this, but when I follow Killergorilla's great guide, I'm hit with the following error when rebooting my system (I have tried in WB3.0, WB3.1 and Classic WB 68k 3.1 and recieve the same error):

[TheCorfiot]

@Frimann

Ensure the version of SFS you are running is 68K compatible, I remember reading that the last release needed 68020 minimum...
I'm not sure if 1 x 4GB partition may cause more chipram to be assigned for the partition when mounted and again would be a nightmare to backup or if you suffer data loss.
Personally why not just stick with 2x2GB & avoid all the hassle.

TC

[Frimann]

@TheCorfiot

I'm using the "AmigaOS 3.x/m68k" version so I guess it should work alright. Anyway, you're probably right - sticking to two partitions is the better idea, but I would like to make it work just because it's possible

How much chip mem do you recon it eats by the way? I have 2 megs of chip memory and potentially 8 megs of fast memory on top of this.

[rkauer]

The loss of available memory is dead easy to calculate: the number of buffers on all partitions versus the block size (normally 512 bytes).

If you are using the standard 30 buffers, that would be 30kb.