Problems with PCMCIA and cf flash

[trydowave]

I used to be able to transfer things from my PC to Amiga using my PCMCIA and a 128mb cf card (make: integral).
Now I cant seem to copy anything. lha are always corrupt etc.

Does anyone one know why this could happening?

Thanks

[gurth]

I'm having the same trouble too. Tried transferring from a Mac & PC and both times the file is corrupt when I attempt to unarchive on the Amiga. If I try to unarchive on either the Mac or PC I get mixed results (corrupt and unable to extract or extracts but the installer on the Amiga fails).

[gurth]

I'm trying to get my A1200 online and stood-up on it's own 2 feet so I don't have to constantly shuffle Compact Flash cards back-and-forth. Bought a wireless PCMCIA card from Amibay. Already have PCMCIA to Compact Flash Adapter.

The issue I have at the mo is installing MUI so I can then install MiamiDX or Genesis.

Whenever I try and unarchive the mui38usr.lha file from aminet its stops at the same point and fails with a CRC check. lha v mui38usr.lha shows the file is corrupt.

If I extract the files first on either my Mac or PC then the install won't run, I'm guessing due to some odd Windows character in the install script.

Just this second tried the same mui38usr.lha in FS-UAE on my Mac and its fine.

In my mind this means the mui38usr.lha file is being corrupted when I transfer it to the Compact Flash card, over USB.

Does this sound plausible?

[ptyerman]

Try expanding it again under UAE and while there use LHA to re-archive the files, see if that cures it. If not, re-format the CF card and try again. It could indeed be something to do with the file system.

[fitzsteve]

Is your Max_Transfer set correctly? Should be:

0x1FE00

[gurth]

do I need to do this if I'm using the PCMCIA slot? If so how do I go about it - HDTools?

[desiv]

Originally Posted by gurth

do I need to do this if I'm using the PCMCIA slot?

If you're copying files (or extracting) from the PCMCIA slot to your HD, then YES.

Originally Posted by gurth

If so how do I go about it - HDTools?

I believe so, it's been awhile tho and I'm not at my Amiga. I do remember that you have to hit enter after you make the change or it won't stick.

desiv
If you are extracting the files on your PCMCIA TO your PCMCIA, you will probably have filesystem issues...
As a test, if you have enough RAM, try copying the file to RAM and extracting it from there to RAM.

[fitzsteve]

Did you set the HDD up yourself? This value is entered during the partitioning stage however it's safe to change it now, any data that was corrupted while copying will still be corrupt but any new data will be fine.

Remember to press enter/return after you type the value or it wont stay.

[gurth]

fantastic, that could well be it. I'm using fat95 on the compact flash with the PCMCIA card. I know I set the transfer rate on the internal drive when I set the system up, need to go back and do it for the external option.

[gurth]

Thought I'd done this for DH0: and DH1:
I'll double check. thank you

[fitzsteve]

Originally Posted by gurth

fantastic, that could well be it. I'm using fat95 on the compact flash with the PCMCIA card. I know I set the transfer rate on the internal drive when I set the system up, need to go back and do it for the external option.

No the max transfer setting is only for your internal drive however data you copy from an external source to the internal drive can be corrupted if your internal HDD's max transfer is incorrect, double check it's correct as if you didn't press enter/return it wont have stuck!

[gurth]

I'm having the issue extracting from PCMCIA to RAM: surely that doesn't hit the transfer rate limit?

lha x CF0:mui38usr.lha RAM:
fails halfway through.

lha v CF0:mui38usr.lha
fails halfway through.

Same file extracts fine on my Mac and in FS-UAE.

[fitzsteve]

Ram issue? What are the specs of your Amiga?

Faulty PCMCIA slot, any bent pins?

[ptyerman]

You don't mention if your A1200 has any fast ram expansion or not. If it's a bog standard 2mb chip A1200, then your probably running out of memory. The mui38usr.lha file is 1mb alone, LHA will throw a wobbly with all sorts of errors if your short on ram, it uses quite a bit itself to decompress the file.

[gurth]

Machine: A1200 Kickstart 3.0, Workbench 3.1 with ACA1232 128Mb.

Have the same compact flash hooked up via WinUAE and mui38user.lha file fails to verify or extract, suggests to me the file is being corrupted during the copy from my Win or Mac desktop to the CF, over USB.

Use the mui38usr.lha file straight from my desktop after a download with WinUAE and it extracts fine. Very odd.

Been using the same CF and PCMCIA adapter to transfer ADFs across, ASM-One, Directory Opus - all been fine until now. I'll have another stab at it tonight. Thank you all.

[gurth]

formatted the CF on Amiga and it complains it can't write to cylinder 1.
format on Windows and Mac just fine.

[ptyerman]

Try another CF card if you have one, that one may be dodgy.

[gurth]

Ordered a new CF card from eBay. Fixed. These cards are not that robust, makes me worried about the one inside I'm using as DH0:

[fitzsteve]

All CF's I bought brand new in the last 3 years are still working fine so I think they are OK as long as you don't use your Amiga intensively, i.e running productivity software 24/7.

How old was your CF that died? The one or two I have had issues with were used ones I bought from eBay which I assume had a hard life before me, probably used to extreme in a professional Digital Camera.

Lastly, don't always blame the CF, faulty USB & IDE adapters are often the cause of dead CF's, also those who insert/connect them the wrong way round!