Compact Flash - IDE & Buddha problem

[tonyyeb]

Hi all

Got my SanDisk UltraII 2GB CF card today. PC sees it fine but Amiga/Buddha will not. Low Level Formatted (on the PC) and WinUAE allowed me to add it as a drive but wont show up in HDToolBox.

The CF-IDE adapter on the Amiga blinks when doing the detect in HDToolBox but only shows my SCSI hard drive. Tried changing from master to slave but still no joy. Buddha works fine with my 120gb 2.5" laptop hard drive.

What am I doing wrong?

[tonyyeb]

I tried putting the CF-IDE into my PC but still no joy there. Tried initialising the disk in Windows and still WinUAE will not see it. Going to try it back in my A3000 now to see if it has made any difference.

[tonyyeb]

ZeBeeDee wrote:
What version of HDToolbox are you using on the Amiga?

The version required for easy setup of CF cards is 6.9 from here

Cheers bud. Giving that a go now.

[tonyyeb]

ZeBeeDee wrote:
No probs and good luck!

Looks like I needed more than luck. It still doesn't work. The light blinks when the detection is being done but doesn't show in the list. Even tried running mountide which makes the detection process take a little longer but still nothing shows in the list.

Must just be incompatible. My DVD ROM, laptop HD and Zip 100 IDE drives all show but nothing from the CF-IDE. Everything works in my PC. It must be simply not compatible. I've ordered an SD-IDE from ebay and ill give that a try.

If anyone has anymore ideas then i'm willing to give anything a try!

[tonyyeb]

Yeah I have an 8mb one (yes 8mb!) at work that ill try tomorrow. Im just trying to get it to work in WinUAE now just to see if I can get an Amiga partition on it. Maybe that might work?

[tonyyeb]

HyAmi wrote:
I have the same issue. I believe I read somewhere that the Buddha can't handle CF cards. However, I haven't researched it any further.

Eek! I hope that isn't true!

[tonyyeb]

Well got it working with WinUAE. Had to change the scsi.device to uaehf.device when loading HDToolBox, still no joy with the A3000 though. Got a few more things to try before I give up totally. A guy on EAB has suggested using atcfwchg to change the CF to a fixed disk. Not sure how to do it but ill give it a try.

[tonyyeb]

ZeBeeDee wrote:

tonyyeb wrote:
Yeah I have an 8mb one at work that ill try tomorrow.

Bypass the WinUAE and try it directly in the A3000

Don't worry I will!

[tonyyeb]

atcfwchg only works from a DOS boot device (floppy or USB). My SATA controller on my mobo is causing problems and as such my PATA IDE channel is number 4 and atcfwchg only likes channel 0 and 1 it would seem. Tried disabling various bits but no joy. Will try it at work tomorrow and bring home the 8mb CF card I have.

[tonyyeb]

Got atcfwchg to change the device type to fixed disk and hopefully this should now work. I will take home the 8mb CF drive as well just in case.

[tonyyeb]

tonyyeb wrote:
Got atcfwchg to change the device type to fixed disk and hopefully this should now work. I will take home the 8mb CF drive as well just in case.

This was the missing piece of the puzzle. Thanks to Alexh for pointing it out. Now Compact Flash is working a treat! Thanks all for the help.

[tonyyeb]

ZeBeeDee wrote:
Well done to both you and Alexh  :-)

Cheers bud. If it wasn't for the help of the Amiga community (help, advice, tips, selling bits, sending bits for free!) I would have given up along time ago!

Thanks all!