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Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: Tupin on October 06, 2011, 11:07:42 PM

Title: CF Card as a method of transfer?
Post by: Tupin on October 06, 2011, 11:07:42 PM
Is using a CF card with one of those CF-IDE adapters a good method of transferring disk images and other stuff to and from an Amiga?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Amiga-4000-IDE-INTERNAL-CF-5-25-DRIVE-BAY-/220695755112?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item33627df968

I've heard you can also format a hard drive in WinUAE? How would that work? What program would you use to unpack an .adf file, by the way? I'm guessing WHDLoad would be easy after that?
Title: Re: CF Card as a method of transfer?
Post by: orange on October 07, 2011, 07:10:40 AM
Quote from: Tupin;662767
Is using a CF card with one of those CF-IDE adapters a good method of transferring disk images and other stuff to and from an Amiga?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Amiga-4000-IDE-INTERNAL-CF-5-25-DRIVE-BAY-/220695755112?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item33627df968

I've heard you can also format a hard drive in WinUAE? How would that work? What program would you use to unpack an .adf file, by the way? I'm guessing WHDLoad would be easy after that?


I don't think CF is a good choice, because it doesn't support hot-swap. I prefer cable, network/serial/parallel.

For .adf I use excellent TSGUI by Thomas.
yes, WinUAE can use the CF just like real Amiga.
Title: Re: CF Card as a method of transfer?
Post by: fitzsteve on October 07, 2011, 08:26:50 AM
Also to mention how outrageously priced that is, cheap 99p CF-IDE reader with a plastic chassis relabled Amiga and price inflated :griping:

You could get one that sits on a rear backplace for a couple of bucks:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/40-Pin-IDE-CF-Compact-Flash-Card-Adapter-Bootable-/110529162403?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19bc0d2ca3

As Orange has said they ate not hot swappable so you will need to remove/insert CF with the Amiga switched off and you would need to use an Amiga file system on the CF card so would need to use WinUAE to move the files to the CF on the PC.

If you have lots of money you could look at a USB solution like the Deneb (if you can find one) or a networking option.

This is all assuming you have an A4000, if you have a 1200/600 you can use PCMCIA/CF

All the best,

Steve.
Title: Re: CF Card as a method of transfer?
Post by: José Manuel on October 07, 2011, 09:06:04 AM
If you have amiga 600 or 1200 use PCMCIA/CF and download this software:
http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/cfd
http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/fat95

read here:
http://www.vesalia.de/e_amigapcmciacf%5B7125%5D.htm

Regards
Jose
Title: Re: CF Card as a method of transfer?
Post by: runequester on October 07, 2011, 01:56:30 PM
I use a CF adapter and its easy as pie. Also doubles as cheap additional storage.
Title: Re: CF Card as a method of transfer?
Post by: Tupin on October 07, 2011, 10:32:40 PM
Cool, sounds like CF is the way to go. As for the disk program, I want to take .adf files and unpack them on the Amiga and copy them back onto the CF card or a floppy.

Also, a newbie question: how do I check the specs of my machine? Like RAM, hard drive space, etc. Thanks. :)
Title: Re: CF Card as a method of transfer?
Post by: desiv on October 07, 2011, 10:58:52 PM
I actually just recently got an adapter for my Amiga 1000 that is a DUAL CF card.
The MASTER card is currently 2 AmigaDOS partitions, but the SLAVE is a standard FAT card.

True, there's no hot swap, but it's nice if I want/need to transfer larger files (or a large amount of files) or for a backup of his main partitions...

I like the flexibility there...

desiv
Title: Re: CF Card as a method of transfer?
Post by: pyrre on October 07, 2011, 11:40:08 PM
Not exactly an answer to your question.
But
Id like to revive this (http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=899) little devil. looks like a neat peace of kit.
details (http://www.relec.ch/Amigalink.html)

I use a zip drive for filetransfering. i have one IDE in my pc and one SCSI in my amiga. Allthough i only have a zipdrive in one of my amigas. its still better than nothing. But a network solution would be best.
Title: Re: CF Card as a method of transfer?
Post by: Bigbronc on October 08, 2011, 01:26:51 AM
Quote from: pyrre;662887
Not exactly an answer to your question.
But
Id like to revive this (http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=899) little devil. looks like a neat peace of kit.
details (http://www.relec.ch/Amigalink.html)
 
I use a zip drive for filetransfering. i have one IDE in my pc and one SCSI in my amiga. Allthough i only have a zipdrive in one of my amigas. its still better than nothing. But a network solution would be best.

 
what program do you use to get the zip drive to work on the amiga, could I get a copy of it? I have a few zip drives and would like to try transfering that way too.
Title: Re: CF Card as a method of transfer?
Post by: stefcep2 on October 08, 2011, 02:25:03 AM
Quote from: Bigbronc;662902
what program do you use to get the zip drive to work on the amiga, could I get a copy of it? I have a few zip drives and would like to try transfering that way too.



Didn't 3.5+ have zip support built in to the OS?
Title: Re: CF Card as a method of transfer?
Post by: pyrre on October 08, 2011, 11:50:54 AM
Quote from: Bigbronc;662902
what program do you use to get the zip drive to work on the amiga, could I get a copy of it? I have a few zip drives and would like to try transfering that way too.
I use OS3.9 and i have a SCSI controller on my PPC board. appart from hardware i only use dosdrivers to access my zip drive. even fat formated disks. (but remember; FAT is unable to maintain some of amiga file properties. Allways transfer files compressed. LHA and UAE works nice.)

My A1200 is currently unavailable. but as soon as i get it up and running i will copy the dosdrivers and mail it to you.
I got mine from "A4000_mad" some years ago.
Title: Re: CF Card as a method of transfer?
Post by: pyrre on October 08, 2011, 12:03:15 PM
Quote from: stefcep2;662905
Didn't 3.5+ have zip support built in to the OS?
Zip disks (amiga RDB formatted) pops ut by them selves. Bootable zips, just works...
FAT formatted zips need a dos driver. I initially had trouble getting it to work. But got some dos drivers from "A4000_mad" and they works just fine.

The only problem with os older than 3.5 is to format disks. 3.5 and 3.9 have zip tools by default. (if i am not mistaken, and if I'm not completely mistaken they are written by iomega themselves.)
Zip tools are available at Aminet (http://aminet.net/search?query=zip+tools)
Title: Re: CF Card as a method of transfer?
Post by: Tupin on October 08, 2011, 10:51:10 PM
I just want to put .adf on the card, unpack them, and use WHDLoad or write them. Is there anything like that?
Title: Re: CF Card as a method of transfer?
Post by: pyrre on October 09, 2011, 07:52:11 PM
Quote from: Tupin;662975
I just want to put .adf on the card, unpack them, and use WHDLoad or write them. Is there anything like that?
I dont know how WHDload works. And i cant help there.
But for your purpose of copying .adf files to a Cf card and put it in the amiga. it should work just fine.
But it is a rather cumbersome prosess to swap the CF card between the pc and the amiga. like stated before in the tread, they are not hotswappable without special hardware. like usb card reader or alike...

@Bigbronc
A little update on amiga zip drive prepping.
Try following these (http://www.amigau.com/zipdrives/aFormat.html) instructions.
Title: Re: CF Card as a method of transfer?
Post by: runequester on October 09, 2011, 08:58:16 PM
I dont know if its that bothersome. Put the CF card in a normal card reader, like what you'd use for SD cards and whatnot, then put it in the PCMCIA adapter on the amiga and boot it up.

It's no worse than swapping a USB stick between two computers.
Title: Re: CF Card as a method of transfer?
Post by: Tupin on October 10, 2011, 12:12:48 AM
I'll probably get that backplane CF adapter. How do I format a real hard drive in WinUAE for use in an Amiga?
Title: Re: CF Card as a method of transfer?
Post by: drwho on October 10, 2011, 02:36:50 PM
Is there a solution like this that can be used on the 500/2000?
Title: Re: CF Card as a method of transfer?
Post by: orange on October 10, 2011, 03:56:46 PM
Quote from: drwho;663108
Is there a solution like this that can be used on the 500/2000?


well there are several IDE controllers for A500/2000.
Title: Re: CF Card as a method of transfer?
Post by: drwho on October 11, 2011, 03:33:41 PM
Quote from: orange;663109
well there are several IDE controllers for A500/2000.


What would be cool is a CF reader for the Amiga floppy interface. I swear I saw something like that before, but, I cant remember where.
Title: Re: CF Card as a method of transfer?
Post by: Thomas on October 11, 2011, 03:54:01 PM
http://www.torlus.com/floppy/
Title: Re: CF Card as a method of transfer?
Post by: desiv on October 11, 2011, 04:20:27 PM
Quote from: Thomas;663230
http://www.torlus.com/floppy/
Not quite the same thing, but with a Windows program to place files inside of ADF files (You can do this with WinUAE, but something like HFVExplorer for the Mac is more what I am thinking..), you could accomplish file transfers that way..

There was someone on EAB who had come up with a rudimentary serial port/thumb drive adapter.  It used a USB controller that has a built in thumb drive/file system support and he wrote a simple interface for transferring files.  It was slow but it worked..

desiv
Title: Re: CF Card as a method of transfer?
Post by: Tupin on October 15, 2011, 01:17:01 AM
Well, I got the adapter, but I cannot put it on the backplane as the power and IDE cables are too short...
Title: Re: CF Card as a method of transfer?
Post by: gertsy on October 15, 2011, 06:25:52 PM
Quote from: Tupin;662881
Cool, sounds like CF is the way to go. As for the disk program, I want to take .adf files and unpack them on the Amiga and copy them back onto the CF card or a floppy.

Also, a newbie question: how do I check the specs of my machine? Like RAM, hard drive space, etc. Thanks. :)


Use the Sysinfo Icon from the workbench system disk or your system drive.