Amiga 600 won't recognize Delock CF

[geir]

Hi.
I bought a Delock CF adapter for my A600 (http://www.vesalia.de/e_ide25sdcfhdd.htm) and are trying to install it. I have mounted it as hardfile in WinUAE and used HDToolbox to partition my card (3 partitions), formatted them and installed WB3.1. But when I insert it into my Amiga it can't find it. I have tried the same with two different CF card, Kingston Compact Flash 4GB (http://www.komplett.no/img/p/200/337673.jpg) and SanDisk Compact Flash Ultra 4GB (http://www.komplett.no/img/p/200/603682.jpg). My PCMCIA adapter doesn't recognize the Kingston card, but the Sandisk works with that adapter. So it should work with the Delock adapter as well right?
Anyone using this adapter with success and can share some info on how they installed it? Or any obvious things I have forgotten or any tip on how I can make it work?

Thanks,
Geir.

[geir]

Hi.

Kickstart 40.63 and currently running (IDE Harddrive) WB 39.29.
First partition was about 500mb, the rest of the 4GB was divided on the next two partitions.
MaxTransfer: 0x1fe00
Mask: 7ffffffe
Blocksize: 512
I have to admit I'm not exactly sure about what I'm doing here, being an Amiga "newbie", but I got these numbers from a guide on one of the forums.
The computer do boot, it just doesn't recognize the CF card so it either display the floppy or boot into the WB install disk I've inserted. But then I can't find the CF in WB.
I didn't have the PCMCIA adapter inserted when I've been trying.

[geir]

Nope, can't see any CF partitions under Control Active Devices.
Only things listed there is DF0 and CC0, which I don't know what it, but was still there after unconnecting the CF adapter. I'm starting to believe the adapter is broken.

[geir]

Hi and thanks for your reply.
I can't find the drive in HDToolbox on the Amiga, only in HDToolbox in WinUAE. I used diskpart to clean it before adding it as harddrive in UAE and partition it with HDToolbox and then format and install wb. I've found other posts where people lists the same cards and have them working and the Sandisk card also work with the pcmcia adapter so it should work with the cf adapter too?
I guess I'll just buy a pre formatted cf solution from Amigakit.

[geir]

Some CF cards can be configured to be removable/non removable, PC's won't boot from them when it's set to removable. I don't know if that affects Amiga's.
 
It could be the cable. I had to replace the one in my A1200 when it started only working sometimes. Also if the cable isn't key'd then make sure you have it plugged the right way round.

But it should be detected in HDToolboox even though it's not bootable?
The cable works, I'm using the same cable as my working IDE HDD.

Is there a chance that this DeLock adapter has any jumpers for Master/Slave?
If it's on Slave it might be your problem there.

That was my initial thought, but haven't find any jumpers, or pin to put one on, on it.

But my trouble just keep adding up. I just installed my new A604 expansion, but the Amiga won't recognize that either . My 600 simply doesn't want any new friends it seems. Hopefully the ACA620 that's on it's way will be recognized.

Btw, I ordered the preformatted CF drive from Amigakit. I was getting the accelerator anway, plus it is pretty cheap.

[geir]

Have in mind that the standard original version of HDToolBox will not work with CF cards, you will have to patch it with this first: http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/HDToolBoxPatch
An alternative can also be to use HDInstTools instead: http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/hdinst

I did not know that, thanks for the tip.

As for the A604, I will recommend that you try cleaning the connector on the A600 motherboard before installing it.

I did, using a pencil eraser as recommended in the "manual". Still no go. I'll have to ask Schoenfeld or Vesalia's (reseller) support about what may be the problem.
That's 2 out of 2 in my quest for an upgraded A600 :rolleyes:

[geir]

+/- 600.000. Sysinfo says 1MB total memory.

This may be a dumb question, but what's the chip in lower left corner? http://www.vesalia.de/e_a604.htm
That's missing from mine: http://inkognito.no/a604.jpg

Edit: Ok, real time clock. Strange that it's on the card on Vesalia's product page, but not on mine..

[geir]

How do your capacitors look?

They look fine to my untrained eyes, but they're as old as the board I'd guess. How to know if they're no good? Is this memory issue a typical bad capacitor(s) behavior?

Thanks for all your answers, really appreciate it

[geir]

The reason I asked about the memory is because I have a simlar setup to you and I'm also new to the scene like yourself
 
Let's talk about the A604 first of all. With just the A604 in place with the ECS in place I have 1,440,070 or there about meaning that I have 2Meg of chip mem. The other mem is showing 0 After messing with the setting in WinUAE I think this is correct. (anybody else please feel free to correct me  otherwise) As for the chip missing so is mine however if you look on the two different pictures you have the other chip is missing in the upper left and is in place in the other picture.
As for the delock. I found that when plugging it into the A600 I was able to put it into two different position into the motherboard. Apparently this is common. As for my own configuration I'm getting a lot of 1111 Error which from all accounts seems to be a hardware issue. Anyway I hope this helps somewhat.

Cool to hear that more people have found new interest for the Amiga (and OCS/ECS)

~1,400-1,500 chipmem sounds about right when running WB. The other mem is fastmem (and slowmem?) so no increase there until you get some fastmem expansion (like with the ACA620 accelerator). Yeah, the "missing" RTC chip wasn't that missing afterall .

I found this in the ACA620 thread: (http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=849411&postcount=2709)

Here is a curious side effect. My A604+Indivision ECS would not work before on this mobo (although they worked fine on a 1.5 mobo). The extra chip mem was not recognized. Since I installed the ACA620, the expansion and the scandoubler work just fine. Now this is mind boggling. I have no clue why.

Hope this will be true for me too as I have an ACA620 on its way. Sounds a bit unstable though. What then when the ACA620 is disabled. Hm.

You mean multiple IDE connectors? I only have one, the same one I use for the HDD. I used that one out while testing the CF, but still no go.

[geir]

Hm. Didn't know about that site. Very interesting! Pretty cheap too. Thanks for the heads up

[geir]

An update on the original post. I got a CF adapter from Amigakit and that one worked fine. So I guess the other adapter was either incompatible or defect.

I also got my ACA620 accelerator, which works fine, but the A604 expansion still isn't recognized

[geir]

Most of my capacitors looks fine, but there's one that didn't look quite as good as the others (top rigtht):
The rest of the capacitors on the board looks like the other ones.
Can that alone be responsible for the non recognized A604?

Yeah, I'll contact Vesalia and see if they can help me. If it is the capacitors I guess I have to send my board to Amigakit or something for a recap. And if they can be faulty without any visible signs too, there's no way for me to find out without sending the board to someone.