Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Edpon on October 07, 2005, 07:49:25 AM
-
Hi,
This might have been answered a million times already, but what on earth is a Catweasel MK 4 used for exactly? Taking your Amiga disks into the Windows environment then transferring them to a cd or something? Also, I'm being lead to believe that these things can some how take a ROM image, like the retro gaming images from certain websites you can download, and transfer them to an actual working Amiga Game disk. If this is true, I'd love to hear from you all. Thanks.
Ed
-
Basically it interfaces between your PC and a floppy drive to enable it to read and write Amiga disks. Normally, PC floppy controllers can't handle the Amiga format, this allows the PC to do it. And yes, I believe it is possible to write ADF's to disk using a Catweasel.
-
However the truly cool part of this card is the possibility of real SiDs!
-
The Catweasle Mk 4 is a PCI card that has a floppy disk controller and drivers to read and write to many different formats from Windows OS. It also has a keyboard connector and driver to use an Amiga keyboard, two ports for Amiga mouse and joysticks with drivers in development and a socket on board to accept one or two SID sound chips from the C=64.
I don't know anything about the ROM image question.
-
Hmm what was the site to order one of these again and can I get a PCI
(PC box) version of this??
-
Yes, you can write back those adf's to disks, then use it on your amiga. And the inverse too.
-
That isn't really true. I am sure Catweasel MK4 has great potential and the hardware is great, but there are virtually no drivers for it. (I'm talking Windows here).
It cannot write Amiga floppies:
Ok, it can write savedisks and data disks, but it seems it cannot write any bootblocks. So transferring a game adf image to a real amiga floppy is impossible.
I tried writing a bunch of games, only to find them unbootable on my Amiga 500. I tried to install a new bootblock with my Action Replay, but it just gives a checksum error. However, if I format the floppy on the Amiga, it can install the bootblock. The only bad thing is, then you don't have the game on the floppy anymore.. :P
I've tried to write many games to floppies and then read them back in, but Catweasel always gives error messages on sector 2-20.
The passthru doesn't work:
You are supposed to be able to read Amiga and PC floppies through for example Windows Explorer. This is not possible. A: becomes unavailable when you install the Catweasel drivers. I cannot read PC floppies anymore, and Amiga floppies only as images.
Reading/writing C64 (1541) images doesn't work:
At least not for the people I've spoken to. I've never tried it on my own Catweasel.
I have tried to contact Individual Computers four times(!) with questions, but they have never replied.
To sum it up, I would never have bought the Catweasel MK4 if I knew about the lack of software support and device drivers. You get a very basic image tool, but it's almost unusable, because it doesn't even have a retry option, so reading your old floppies from the nineties becomes impossible.
If you're thinking about buying one, I suggest you wait until some proper drivers are released. It seems Individual Computers are more interested in making lots of new products than actually making the existing ones function properly.
-
@SHADES
The Catweasel MK4 (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=206) (PCI card) can be ordered here:
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=206
-
I have writed a lot of games for my 500 since i got the card and all of them worked perfectly. I don't understand your problem. It is true that the driver is not polished out yet, but it's usable and you can read and write amiga disks perfectly, even with winuae you can read and write disks as you would do it on a real amiga, being useful when you don't need to write an entire image but a few files.
-
Has anyone here use the SID chip functionality of the catweasel? What software control is offered? I bought some SIDs a while back for a DIY synth, but it's gone the way of most of my hobbies, and lies in a box in my workshop.
-
Wondering if the Catweasel MK 4 could read an Amiga formatted hard drive or just floppies ?? :-?
-
madsjm wrote:
That isn't really true. I am sure Catweasel MK4 has great potential and the hardware is great, but there are virtually no drivers for it. (I'm talking Windows here).
It cannot write Amiga floppies:
Ok, it can write savedisks and data disks, but it seems it cannot write any bootblocks. So transferring a game adf image to a real amiga floppy is impossible.
I tried writing a bunch of games, only to find them unbootable on my Amiga 500. I tried to install a new bootblock with my Action Replay, but it just gives a checksum error. However, if I format the floppy on the Amiga, it can install the bootblock. The only bad thing is, then you don't have the game on the floppy anymore.. :P
I've tried to write many games to floppies and then read them back in, but Catweasel always gives error messages on sector 2-20.
The passthru doesn't work:
You are supposed to be able to read Amiga and PC floppies through for example Windows Explorer. This is not possible. A: becomes unavailable when you install the Catweasel drivers. I cannot read PC floppies anymore, and Amiga floppies only as images.
Reading/writing C64 (1541) images doesn't work:
At least not for the people I've spoken to. I've never tried it on my own Catweasel.
I have tried to contact Individual Computers four times(!) with questions, but they have never replied.
To sum it up, I would never have bought the Catweasel MK4 if I knew about the lack of software support and device drivers. You get a very basic image tool, but it's almost unusable, because it doesn't even have a retry option, so reading your old floppies from the nineties becomes impossible.
If you're thinking about buying one, I suggest you wait until some proper drivers are released. It seems Individual Computers are more interested in making lots of new products than actually making the existing ones function properly.
Ditto. My EXACT problems with the MKIV!
-
@ThEcRoW, it appears from this thread that you are one of the few that have been able to use your catweasle to successfully write adf's to a floppy that will boot in your Real Amiga, and you have been able to mount the catweasle floppy to work from within WinUAE. Can you provide some instruction to the rest of us that have not been so lucky yet. I can create adf's from Amiga floppies and write them to my PC hard drive for use with WinUAE, but that is it so far. What I would like most right now is to be able to read & write files from the catweasle floppy from WinUAE, just like it was DF1: to DF3:. I don't care if I can boot from it as DF0:
-
@AmigaDave
Heres the information for the Catweasel MK4 (http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=206) that you need:
Download multidisk.device (http://siliconsonic.de/t/bin/multidisk365.lha) and copy it to your DEVS: directory.
Add new dosdriver to your DEVS:DosDrivers (for example named "CAT") containing following lines:
Device = multidisk.device
Unit = 1 /* 0 = connector at the middle, 1 = connector at the end of floppy cable */
Flags = 0 /* format #0 = Amiga DD */
Surfaces = 2
BlocksPerTrack = 11
Reserved = 2
mask = 0x7ffffffc
MaxTransfer = 0x00200000
Interleave = 0
LowCyl = 0
HighCyl = 79
Buffers = 5
BufMemType = 0
StackSize = 4096
Priority = 5
GlobVec = -1
Now you can mount the catweasel device by
typing "mount cat:" in to shell window.
Creating adf-files from Amiga floppies:
insert empty adf to DF0: and type "diskcopy cat: to df0: noverify"
Writing adf-files to Amiga floppies:
insert source adf to DF0: and type "diskcopy df0: to cat:"
-
@Amigakit, I have seen and followed that post already, still no luck. I get the message "device Cat: already mounted", but no disk icon appears on the workbench and there is no floppy activity at all. The Cat: drive does not show up as a valid device in a shell, or in DOpus, even though when I double click on the newly created Cat DOS device, again I get the error message "device Cat: already mounted". I don't get where I am going wrong? :-?
-
amigadave wrote:
@Amigakit, I have seen and followed that post already, still no luck. I get the message "device Cat: already mounted", but no disk icon appears on the workbench and there is no floppy activity at all. The Cat: drive does not show up as a valid device in a shell, or in DOpus, even though when I double click on the newly created Cat DOS device, again I get the error message "device Cat: already mounted". I don't get where I am going wrong? :-?
Perhaps better drivers will be developed to address these shortcomings. Unfortunately, more CWMKIVs will have to sell before that happens and since there are many issues at present, that may not happen in the near future. Can anyone say, "Amiga Hype"?
-
The most serious problem for me is that Individual Computers don't respond to my e-mails. I heard the same from another Catweasel owner. IC answered his e-mails as long as he was praising them, but as soon as he asked about C64 (1541) compatibility, they stopped responding.
I have been thinking about buying an MMC64, but I keep wondering if that also has issues like this. And with the virtually non-existing customer support, it's not really tempting anymore.
-
amigadave wrote:
@Amigakit, I have seen and followed that post already, still no luck. I get the message "device Cat: already mounted", but no disk icon appears on the workbench and there is no floppy activity at all. The Cat: drive does not show up as a valid device in a shell, or in DOpus, even though when I double click on the newly created Cat DOS device, again I get the error message "device Cat: already mounted". I don't get where I am going wrong? :-?
The cat: device is mounted automatically in startup-sequence.
I removed that, and did a mount cat:, and it seems to be ok, but when I do a dir cat:, I get
cat: is not a directory
directory not found
Whenever I try to copy files to cat:, it seems like I'm sending things to /dev/null, no disk activity at all.
-
Hi,
I get the same problems with the Catweasel MK IV when under WinUAE, e.g. it doesn't work!
The CAT: device is mounted, and the drive even clicks periodically, stopping when a disk is inserted just like it would with a real Amiga drive.
Doing a "dir cat:" from the shell when no disk is present brings up a "No disk present in device CAT:" prompt as expected.
However, doing a "dir cat:" with a known working Amiga OFS or FFS 880Kb disk in the drive brings up a "Not a DOS disk in device CAT:" prompt, even though the Windows-based Catweasel image program is able to read this disk.
Formatting a blank DD disk with "format drive cat: name test noicons ffs" goes throught the formatting process (very slowly!) right up to where the disk is initialised, and then states "Format Failure: not a valid DOS disk".
Anyhow, despite all this, the very basic Windows-based imaging tool works fine, and allows the creation of ADF files from Amiga floppies, and the creation of Amiga floppies from ADFs which then work fine in my real Amigas.
One point I have about the imaging tool is that it doesn't wait for the disk to be spun by the drive before it starts reading/writing. E.g. it's already started reading but the drive hasn't yet rotated the disk and aligned the ... err... "pointy thing" in the drive with the corresponding slot in the disk's metal spindle to rotated it. Because of this, I usually have to start the read or write process, then stop it and restart it once the disk has been grabbed by the drive.
I'm using the Catweasel with a Pentium 4, and the drive connected to it is a Sony 3.5" HD, this being the sole drive and connected to the middle connector. The drive is for the Catweasel's use only (I've not used the passthru feature from the motherboard's drive connector).
My UAE configuration for testing this is roughly A1200-ish, 2Mb chip, AGA, 32Mb RAM, 68040, with KS 3.0 and WB 3.0.
Finally, in response to a question above about Amiga hard disks - you don't need a Catweasel to do this. Instead, you can just read/write Amiga hard drives with UAE. Search the forums for one of the existing threads on that topic.
- Ali
-
One point I have about the imaging tool is that it doesn't wait for the disk to be spun by the drive before it starts reading/writing. E.g. it's already started reading but the drive hasn't yet rotated the disk and aligned the ... err... "pointy thing" in the drive with the corresponding slot in the disk's metal spindle to rotated it. Because of this, I usually have to start the read or write process, then stop it and restart it once the disk has been grabbed by the drive.
Thanks a lot, you made my day! :-D
I did the same, now I can write floppies and even boot them on my A500! :-)
-
BTW: Has anyone tried the Linux drivers? Do they work better?
-
-
InTheSand wrote:
And... as far as I know, the Windows-based WinUAE is the only UAE to have Catweasel "support" built in...
My Linux question was actually more about mounting/reading/writing in Linux than about UAE in Linux. But I guess if you can mount the Catweasel floppies in Linux, you can automatically use them in UAE anyway?
It would be great with seamless integration in Windows aswell, if Amiga disks could be read and written as A: in Windows Explorer, I guess we wouldn't need specific support in UAE?
-
Having everything available through A: would be nice, but I guess that'd require seriously complicated driver development... Besides, UAE expects the Amiga side of things to handle the drive access and decoding, so this probably wouldn't be the solution.
Although it doesn't talk to the Catweasel, you may find ADF View (http://www.viksoe.dk/code/adfview.htm) of use, if you've not already got it. I've created and modified quite a few ADF files with this, prior to using the Catweasel to write the ADFs out to real disks.
The most recent Linux drivers seem to be here (http://www.soundtracker.org/raw/cwfloppy/index.html). Unfortunately, my Catweasel is in my Windows machine rather than my Linux one, so I'm not really in a position to try it.
Mounting an Amiga disk appears to be possible (assuming the Linux distro being used has "AFFS" (Amiga FFS) support built
in).
The documentation states that the Catweasel drive can be used as DF0: within UAE: "Start uae with the parameter "-0 /dev/cw0amigadd". Don't forget to eject the disk using the UAE GUI before actually removing it from the drive!"
Next time I reinstall Windoze on this PC, I'll leave some space for a Linux partition... But in the mean time, has anyone else had any success with the Linux / Catweasel / UAE combination?
- Ali
-
Obvious to me that a "Catweasle Installation & Trouble Shooting FAQ" is badly needed. Any volunteers? Could be a group effort. I will even volunteer to compile it from entries of several persons after testing each item to be included in the FAQ. It is also obvious from what others have written that the developer is not going to provide such a FAQ or detailed support for those of us still unable to enable partial or full use of the Catweasle cards.
Any takers?
-
Great Idea!
I can facilitate it and host in on http://catweasel.amigakit.com
Send all tested hints, tips using the contact form (http://contact.amigakit.com). Every contributor will be creditted next to their tip.
-
Also, I'm being lead to believe that these things can some how take a ROM image, like the retro gaming images from certain websites you can download, and transfer them to an actual working Amiga Game disk. If this is true, I'd love to hear from you all. Thanks.
Yes you can! This device is enabling your pc to read/write amiga formatted floppies just like on the amiga itself, so you can easily write/extract an adf image into a real physical floppy that works on the amiga.
-
It cannot write Amiga floppies:
Ok, it can write savedisks and data disks, but it seems it cannot write any bootblocks. So transferring a game adf image to a real amiga floppy is impossible.
Are these floppies DD?? If not, then try to cover the extra hole with a bit of tape. I am not sure if this is needed with the catweasel, but it is definitely needed when trying to format in 720k format on a pc using HD floppies.
-
Wondering if the Catweasel MK 4 could read an Amiga formatted hard drive or just floppies ??
A pc can read amiga formatted floppies just fine, as long as you have the proper drivers/filesystem installed. I believe that filsystem drivers are not needed when using winuae with a amiga partitioned HD.
-
amigakit wrote:
Great Idea!
I can facilitate it and host in on http://catweasel.amigakit.com
Send all tested hints, tips using the contact form (http://contact.amigakit.com). Every contributor will be creditted next to their tip.
Good Job, amigakit! We now have a start to get what we have paid dearly for to finally operate!!!!
-
by amigakit on 2006/1/15 17:31:06
Great Idea!
I can facilitate it and host in on http://catweasel.amigakit.com
Send all tested hints, tips using the contact form. Every contributor will be creditted next to their tip.
I put together an Installer script for the Catweasel a couple years ago. I updated it after I received my MK4, so it's currently tested and working with the Catweasel ISA (via UAE and Amithlon), Catweasel MK3, and Catweasel MK4. It detects the Zorro and clock port Catweasels as well, but I don't own any of them, so I can't test that bit. While it doesn't detect the IDE-based Catweasel, it can be selected during the installation. (Bascially, detection just automates choosing between multidisk.device and catweaselisa.device when building the mount files.)
Jens (who is always extremely helpful, by the way) gave the OK to include the latest versions of multidisk.device and catweaselisa.device with the Installer script, so I don't see why I can't make the whole thing publicly available. I just need to polish it up a bit. . . .
Trev
-
@Trev,
Great, I will be waiting to see your Catweasle Installer hosted on AmigaKit's website soon, with a link here for us to follow.
-
Just for the record!! I had ALL the problems writing disks... they were all non booters!! I think I made 1 disk!! but after alot of testing.. I`m using the imagetool from 0107 drivers! you`ll notice the difference because it doesn`t have the verify option, also when you save the image you`ve created.. the button should read `OK` but it reads `OPEN` I`m using that imagetool now and it works perfectly... so.. latest driver 0109 and the older 0107 imagetool.. I`ve also notice that before the program writes..the floppy grinds a little before the progress bar moves!! thats how i know it`s going to make a good copy!! hope this helps some of you!
Daz
-
Wondering if the Catweasel MK 4 could read an Amiga formatted hard drive or just floppies ??
I think Winuae can read Amiga hdd`s straight off!! you may need a 3.5" to 2.5" ide connector if you have a small laptop hdd... but I`m sure it does work!
-
As promised the website and sub-domain are up and running at http://catweasel.amigakit.com
As peoples hints and tips arrive, I'll add it to the site with creditations if you want.
-
I am not sure if this is the place to post this, but here goes. What am I doing wrong??? I installed the Catweasel Mk4 between the floppy controller and the floppy drive. The software install went fine. Now I can't see the floppy during bootup so the pass-through is not working. Win Explorer can't see it either. Therefore, I can't make a bootdisk to get into AmigaXL nor boot from it if I had one. The imagetool can see the drive, but I don't know how to use it. I want to dual-boot into either Win2k or into AmigaOS XL. What am I doing wrong?
I haven't found any real instructions on how to use the Catweasel. Can anyone point me in the right direction?
Thanks much.
alltens
AMD64 3000
Abit KV8-MAX3
Win2k
-
As far as I know, the passthrough connector isn't implemented in the current MK4 driver. Even after it is, I'm fairly certain it won't work outside the operating system, as the PC BIOS has no way of initializing the card unless an option ROM is present, and I don't think Jens included one in the design.
The only reference to this in the manual is, "The current drivers do not give you the full functionality of the controller yet. Please check our website www.ami.ga on a regular basis to take advantage of the new functions of the Catweasel MK4." The manual then directs you to use the passthrough connector. Jens probably should have left that out of the initial release of the manual. I recommend using a separate floppy drive.
All official drivers and manuals are posted online at http://www.ami.ga/ (http://www.ami.ga/).
Trev
-
Trev,
Thanks for the info also it is bad news for me. When it didn't work, I tried adding a second floppy, but now the system can't see it at all. I guess the other drivers are interfering with it. I'll try and make a bootCD or even using a bootloader like OSL2000 to see if that might work.
BTW is there a doc that tells how to use the imagetool?
If that doesn't work I will try uninstalling all of the drivers and re-install them in the 2-drive configuration instead of the pass-through configuration.
I really want this to work, but I am getting less and less optomistic. I have a bunch of documents that I need to transfer from Amiga format to Word format.
I'll let you know if I have any luck.
Thanks again.
alltens
-
I haven't tried this yet still waiting for the delivery of my Catweasel MK4 from Amikit.
If running Win XP it can be very funny about Floppy drives, even writing to a standard 1.44MB FDD is slow compared to Win 9X and Win 2K.
My suggestion is to use a seperate FDD connected to the MK4 Controller and just use this drive for Amiga use.
Shaf
-
@DaBest:
Yes, you can access your amiga hard drive directly from WinUAE. I've done it, it works, and it's excellent. I even managed to access a system formatted with AmiFileSafe :-D
-
@alltens
I use three drives: a 3.5" 1.44 MB connected to my motherboard and a 3.5" 1.44 MB and a 5.25" 1.2 MB connected to the Catweasel. (Someone mentioned problems with C64 disks. They work fine for me, but using DSDD disks is a pain.) I'm using the MK4 right now, which works fine using imagetool under Windows XP. In WinUAE, I prefer the MK3 and direct access using WinIO. (I'm not sure if WinUAE 1.0+ supports the old way of accessing Catweasel controllers. I haven't checked.)
imagetool is pretty straightforward--select an image file and click write or insert a disk and click read. If you want to transfer documents from an ADF image to your PC, you'll need a tool like ADF View. (Why doesn't someone add support for the Catweasel to ADF View? ADFlib supports the file systems, so it's just a matter of adding the appropriate IO calls. Hmmm.) The process looks like this: 1) create disk image from floppy using imagetool; 2) extract files from disk image using ADF View or a similar tool.
Trev
-
Thanks for the info. I haven't had a chance to get back to it, but I'll let you know what happens.
I guess that this means that CrossDOS doesn't work with this setup. No PC0:???
Thanks again.
alltens
-
You can use the CrossDOS file system with the Catweasel. Here are two sample mount files (I use PDx for double-density and PHx for high-density, but you can also modify the default PCx mount files):
/* PD0
*/
Device = multidisk.device
Unit = 0
FileSystem = L:CrossDOSFileSystem
Flags = 2
BlockSize = 512
Surfaces = 2
BlocksPerTrack = 9
Reserved = 1
Interleave = 0
LowCyl = 0
HighCyl = 79
Buffers = 5
BufMemType = 1
StackSize = 2048
Priority = 5
GlobVec = -1
DosType = 0x4D534400
/* PH0
*/
Device = multidisk.device
Unit = 0
FileSystem = L:CrossDOSFileSystem
Flags = 3
Surfaces = 2
BlocksPerTrack = 18
Reserved = 1
Interleave = 0
LowCyl = 0
HighCyl = 79
Buffers = 5
BufMemType = 1
Priority = 5
GlobVec = -1
DosType = 0x4D534400
EDIT:
Just a quick note. Like other disk devices, if you have multiple mount files associated with a single device, you'll see : ???? icons for all mounts that don't recognize the file system, just like you do with DF0: and PC0:.
-
If you're after using the Catweasel from the Amiga (emulated or otherwise) to access PC disks, it might also be worth looking at XFS (http://main.aminet.net/package.php?package=disk/misc/xfs.lha) as this allows proper long filename access, and not the mangled 8.3 files of CrossDOS.
I have a Zorro-based Catweasel in my A3000 and XFS works really well with it.
- Ali
-
I hate to bring back and old thread, but I have difficulty with a newly purchased MK4.
Has anyone been able to use it under Windows XP WinUAE 1.4.5?
I followed the instructions from the WinUAE website. The cat: is automatically mounted when I boot up but it doesn't do anything!
I insert an empty ADF image in DF0: and an Amiga disk in my A drive. I write "Diskcopy CAT: to DF0: noverify" command in a shell and I press ENTER. It takes the command, no error messages appear, but no disk activity takes place.
??
-
madsjm wrote:
Reading/writing C64 (1541) images doesn't work:
At least not for the people I've spoken to. I've never tried it on my own Catweasel.
Say what? :-o I've used this feature many imes in the past, it sure does work! What drivers are you using?
I have tried to contact Individual Computers four times(!) with questions, but they have never replied.
Hmm.. I'm glad to see it is not just me. I'm a prior reseller and Jens has not replied to my emails either.
-
Where have you been, under a rock? :lol: Just kidding :-D
This is a great product with many features. Besides reading and writing Amiga disks and Commodore 64 disks, it has other useful features. It is possible to mount a real floppy drive on WinUAE using a Catweasel. IIRC you can even set it to poll normally, the famous "click click click click etc".
There is a socket for a real SID chip, to have hardware accurate sound in C64 emulators. There is also Amiga/c64 joystick port.
Finally the hardware is capable of reading any floppy standard on the planet. Software support for this is not complete, but if you look you can find quite a bit.
[color=ff0000]EDIT[/color]
Wow, I see this is a resurrected old thread. :-o
-
redrumloa wrote:
Wow, I see this is a resurrected old thread. :-o
Yeah. Well... I must be a retard. :-)
I'm having trouble getting it going. It was throwing back bad sector 0 errorswhen I tried to read amiga disks using ImageTool 2.3.
I figured I either had an incompatible floppy drive so I swapped it for an Amiga 2000 floppy drive. Same results.
I reconnected the Sony floppy and futzed around with the flat cables. Now, the PC can see drive A and write to it, but the computer won't recognize the pci catweasel mk4 even though I removed the drivers, un-installed the hardware from control panel and rebooted.
Still at it. I think if I ever get this going, I'll write a faq in English and in French and include pictures and take a trip to Florida just to calm my nerves.
-
You are using the latest (http://ami.ga/support/support_e.htm) drivers?
-
redrumloa wrote:
You are using the latest (http://ami.ga/support/support_e.htm) drivers?
I'm using the drivers from April 2007. I think those are the latest.
Im using ImageTool 2.3 Hotfix.
I got the darn thing working now. The problem was with the flat cables.
When I installed the Catweasel MK4, I simply used the floppy cable that was already in the pc: I unplugged the cable from the mother board and plugged it into the black connector on the MK4. That's what the Catweasel's short version manual says to do.
To solve the problem, I removed the original floppy cable from my PC and used the ones provided with the Catweasel.
1. Connected the cat's white connector to the motherboard using the cable with the white connector.
2. Connected the cat's black connector to my Sony 3.5" floppy drive using the 3 connector flat cable. The 3 connector cable's twisted end connects to the floppy with pin 1 (red) on the drive's pin 1. The other end goes to the black connector on the cat with pin 1 (red) facing upward, that is, away from the motherboard. The middle connector on the 3 connector flat cable is not used.
3. I then removed all old cat drivers from Windows XP. (windows/System32/Drivers/cat*)
4. I also un-installed anything related to Individual Computers from my Windows control panel hardware list.
5. Shut down the pc completely, waited 20 seconds and rebooted.
6. Got the pc to start re-installing the latest drivers from april 2007.
Once that was all done, I did an imagetool read/write test with PC floppies. The Imagetool's "Detect" function worked instantly, recognizing my pc floppies. I copied a disk to the buffer without errors and was able to write it back to a new floppy.
Then, I tried the "Detect" function on an Amiga DD disk. It also worked perfectly.
I launched Amiga OS 3.5 on WinUAE 1.4.5 and tried to copy the amiga floppy in device cat:. Sure thing, that worked great too.
I tried another disk but it had a bad sector. Interestingly enough, that killed the diskcopy from cat: but then the Cat: device showed up in Workbench as a diskette icon. I copied the files that I could using "copy cat: to df0: ALL FORCE".
So I am pretty happy at the moment.
The only thing I haven't tried is to actually make an ADF from the ImageTool. I'll give that a go shortly.
Fester
-
Hi Fester!! I see your quite well versed with the Catweasel :)
After alot of trouble.. I got mine working.. up and booting without blue screens and stuff.. Latest drivers in there too.
Now.. the SID emulation works :) I got the joystick working in Winuae and Vice etc.. ( after moving my usb mouse to one with a ps2 adaptor ( HID conflicts ))
Anyway.. I`m trying to write adf`s to disk.. I have the imagetool3 and the regular one.. can`t see to write a good disk with either! THe worrying thing is that on the imagetool3 under DRIVE it reads B: (5.25") - Unit 0
I mean... it whirrs and stuff when I attempt to write an adf.. but on my A1200.. just clicks three times and sits me back at the disk prompt! any ideas why my disk is set to B: and 5.25 ? The original imagetool.. under drives there`s nothing!
I`m using my original floppy cable and one supplied ( 2 heads ) as per the manual .. :getmad: :getmad:
-
redrumloa wrote:
You are using the latest (http://ami.ga/support/support_e.htm) drivers?
These aren`t the latest ones!
Very latest (http://siliconsonic.de/t/bin/CWMK42400.zip)
:-D
-
Hi Stainy,
At first, I too had grinding noises coming from the MK4, bizarre drive selections such as your 5.25" and the like.
It seems my biggest problem was cabling. I was using the floppy cable that was originally supplied in the PC. Secondly, I had connected the cables upside down. After using the cables supplied with the MK4 and finally plugging them upside right, everything worked fine.
1. I can now auto detect PC floppies and copy them.
2. I can now auto-detect Amiga diskettes, and read/write ADFs.
3. My WinUAE CAT: device works fine too. I can use it to diskcopy or to copy files, although this is by far the slowest. The device doesn't seem to show up on the workbench until to call it up once in a shell window. No big deal.
As far as drivers are concerned, I tried several versions. The one I'm using now is the one from April 2007 and the Imagetool 2.3 hotfix.
Try the latest drivers as suggested by redrumloa. Also tinker with your cables. Make sure they're connected correctly. Try using the cable supplied with the MK4 instead of any other cables you might have been using.
Let me know if that helps at all. I will have to test the MK4 a bit more to feel comfortable with it. I've tried several Amiga diskettes and it looks like 8 out of the 10 I tried were corrupt. Couldn't read them. I'm going to pull out my old 2000s from storage to see if those 8 diskettes are actually corrupt or not.
-
boy, am I glad this thread was ressurected! if it weren't I wouldn't have known how bad this product was and would have bought it! I was looking at it purely for C64 discs, but from this thread it seems no-one's got it working for this - perhaps Individual should fix their advertising up to mention the fact it doesn't really work as advertised?
-
I see you can read Amiga disks in WinUAE using your Catweasel. I just got an MK4, and it works well. I am having one problem though. When I try to use the Catweasel in WinUAE to access CAT: I get the error "Not a DOS disk in device CAT". Any ideas?
Imagetool 2.3 has worked perfectly. I've tried the April and September drivers. I have also done the steps you have listed here, as best as I can tell.
Thanks.
-
jalister wrote:
I see you can read Amiga disks in WinUAE using your Catweasel. I just got an MK4, and it works well. I am having one problem though. When I try to use the Catweasel in WinUAE to access CAT: I get the error "Not a DOS disk in device CAT". Any ideas?
Imagetool 2.3 has worked perfectly. I've tried the April and September drivers. I have also done the steps you have listed here, as best as I can tell.
Thanks.
Might be a silly question but do you have the catweasel check box checked in Misc? on Winuae
-
zhulien wrote:
boy, am I glad this thread was ressurected! if it weren't I wouldn't have known how bad this product was and would have bought it! I was looking at it purely for C64 discs, but from this thread it seems no-one's got it working for this - perhaps Individual should fix their advertising up to mention the fact it doesn't really work as advertised?
Don`t be down heartened! I know of a few people that this works for, for C64 disks.
-
Fester wrote:
Hi Stainy,
At first, I too had grinding noises coming from the MK4, bizarre drive selections such as your 5.25" and the like.
It seems my biggest problem was cabling. I was using the floppy cable that was originally supplied in the PC. Secondly, I had connected the cables upside down. After using the cables supplied with the MK4 and finally plugging them upside right, everything worked fine.
1. I can now auto detect PC floppies and copy them.
2. I can now auto-detect Amiga diskettes, and read/write ADFs.
3. My WinUAE CAT: device works fine too. I can use it to diskcopy or to copy files, although this is by far the slowest. The device doesn't seem to show up on the workbench until to call it up once in a shell window. No big deal.
As far as drivers are concerned, I tried several versions. The one I'm using now is the one from April 2007 and the Imagetool 2.3 hotfix.
Try the latest drivers as suggested by redrumloa. Also tinker with your cables. Make sure they're connected correctly. Try using the cable supplied with the MK4 instead of any other cables you might have been using.
Let me know if that helps at all. I will have to test the MK4 a bit more to feel comfortable with it. I've tried several Amiga diskettes and it looks like 8 out of the 10 I tried were corrupt. Couldn't read them. I'm going to pull out my old 2000s from storage to see if those 8 diskettes are actually corrupt or not.
Thanks for your suggestions.. I`m using the latest drivers.. I will have a fiddle with the cables..although I am using them as per the manual... original floppy cable and the teo headed one! I`m guessing the three headed cable in the box isn`t used because it`s assuming you have that one already in your pc..
But I will try :)
Also I remember before when I had a CW and had it working in Winuae.. I had to mount CAT in shell before it would pull up a disk :-o
-
Stainy wrote:
Might be a silly question but do you have the catweasel check box checked in Misc? on Winuae
Yes, it's checked. I also connected the MK4 to the motherboard to match Fester's setup. I only used cables that came with it.
Also, I am using Kickstart and Workbench 3.1.
-
Stainy wrote:
Thanks for your suggestions.. I`m using the latest drivers.. I will have a fiddle with the cables..although I am using them as per the manual... original floppy cable and the teo headed one! I`m guessing the three headed cable in the box isn`t used because it`s assuming you have that one already in your pc..
But I will try :)
The original cable in my pc does NOT work with the mk4. I finally tried the 3 connector cable supplied with the mk4. This might also be part of the problem in your setup.
Stainy wrote:
Also I remember before when I had a CW and had it working in Winuae.. I had to mount CAT in shell before it would pull up a disk :-o
[/quote]
Mine is automatically mounted. My cat device setup is in dh0:devs/dosdrivers/ and my default startup-sequence included the following lines:
BindDrivers
C:Mount >NIL: DEVS:DOSDrivers/~(#?.info)
So when I type "mount cat:" in a shell window, I get the message that the cat is already mounted. Also, if I type "cat:", the device's icon appears on the workbench. It's not there by default when I boot up even though the cat is mounted. No big deal. I can live with that.
-
jalister wrote:
I see you can read Amiga disks in WinUAE using your Catweasel. I just got an MK4, and it works well. I am having one problem though. When I try to use the Catweasel in WinUAE to access CAT: I get the error "Not a DOS disk in device CAT". Any ideas?
Imagetool 2.3 has worked perfectly. I've tried the April and September drivers. I have also done the steps you have listed here, as best as I can tell.
Thanks.
Hi jalister,
I got the same error as you did but if I remember correctly, I wasn't able to make an ADF with the imagetool at that time. My cables were not connected correctly.
I'd check the cat device's file in devs/dosdrivers. See if the unit and flag is set to correct values.
I am using the last connector on the 3 connector cable so imagetool opens up with Unit 2 by default. (I assume that's the reason why). At any rate, I had to set the unit and flag in the cat file as shown below:
Device = multidisk.device
Unit = 1
Flags = 0
Surfaces = 2
BlocksPerTrack = 11
Reserved = 2
mask = 0x7ffffffc
MaxTransfer = 0x00200000
Interleave = 0
LowCyl = 0
HighCyl = 79
Buffers = 5
BufMemType = 0
StackSize = 4096
Priority = 5
GlobVec = -1
Hope this helps.
-
zhulien wrote:
boy, am I glad this thread was ressurected! if it weren't I wouldn't have known how bad this product was and would have bought it! I was looking at it purely for C64 discs, but from this thread it seems no-one's got it working for this - perhaps Individual should fix their advertising up to mention the fact it doesn't really work as advertised?
Well it works reasonably well for me. I can do the things I purchased it for. Plus, I have a couple of those old command control joysticks connected to it.
Browsing the Internet, it seems people all have the same problems with this Catweasel. Same errors keep appearing in forums. Seems it's either the drivers or the cables. But I'm not into C64 so I don't know anything about that aspect.