CompactFlash.device how-to?

[RedWarrior]

Hey guys-
I searched compactflash.device on this site, as I imagine this is a fairly common subject, but the search engine returned zero results... so I apologise if this is a regular question!

"Amiga... where nothing is simple." is my new proposed tagline for these machines.

This "I'm almost finished" feeling has been dragging on for weeks- I'm now trying to get my CF PCMCIA reader to read... on my a600 this was a reasonably simple process, but my 1200 isn't cooperating so far.

I have the Fat95 file in the L: folder, and the CF0 file in the Devs: folder... I had hoped that simply clicking CF0 in devs would make the PCMCIA card appear on Workbench... but no.

I tried copying my old Mountlist file from my a600 to the 1200, but that hasn't helped. I get the feeling I'm going to have to wrestle with block sizes, baudrates, binddrivers and a bunch of weird things I don't understand...

Do I need to do something special to the mountlist to make it work on this system? Does Fat/Fat32 make a difference? (fat16 no longer an option in Windows7)...

My brain hurts.

Input greatly appreciated. thanks guys =)


I'm guessing the error message after "mount cf0:" is significant?

[RedWarrior]

I already have that...
Nothing is showing up on Workbench... not even NDOS:

Please take a look at the images attached above?

[RedWarrior]

Does your Amiga 1200 has an Accelerator card in it?

Then you have to change the mask transfer value to 00x1fe00 with HDToolbox.

If the value is higher then, the files wil be corrupted.

No accelerator, this is a stock standard A1200. HDToolbox isn't showing anything other than the internal (CF) drive. Nothing detected related to the PCMCIA slot...

Shouldn't I have the basics here to at least get an icon showing up in Workbench? I tried running the Install95 command from a cli window... no idea if it did anything or if I did it correctly...

Anything obvious I'm missing? :/

[RedWarrior]

Brilliant - thank you!!

I did just try the DosDrivers instructions there... not sure if I accidentally missed something, but now I'm getting a boot to workbench and a "Wait" mouse cursor that never goes away....

I'm not sure if this counts as progress... but at least something different happened! =)

[RedWarrior]

The compactflash.device has a line of text:
$VER: compactflash.device 1.25 (17.07.2004)

and then a bunch of garbled (compiled?) code after it. The file size is 7656 bytes.

[RedWarrior]

Seems like you have an old version. Try the latest one: http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/cfd

To ensure that you have all the right files in the right places, open a dos window and enter this commmand:

list sys: all files lformat="%8l %d %t %p%n" p="(fat#?|compact#?|cf0#?)"

The result should look like this:

Code: [Select]


3> list sys: all files lformat="%8l %d %t %p%n" p="(fat#?|compact#?|cf0#?)"
    8280 31-Dec-80 23:00:00 sys:Devs/compactflash.device
    2431 19-Apr-02 15:48:48 sys:Storage/DOSDrivers/CF0.info
     420 19-Oct-02 21:43:40 sys:Storage/DOSDrivers/CF0
   26868 01-Mar-80 04:19:38 sys:L/fat95
3>

I typed that in as best as I could... the drive light flickers for a while, but nothing comes back.

To update the CF0 file means i have to open my machine again and use Winuae again etc...?

no other possibilities with existing files?

[RedWarrior]

I mis-copied your text there- I thought it was an "l", but it was a "1"...

I have a lot of files with similar names. what do you make of all this? =) (image attached)

[RedWarrior]

CF0 - drag the icon (from the archive that Thomas linked to) to Storage/DOSDrivers.
fat95 goes in L:
compactflash.device goes in Devs

Things in Storage don't activate or mount - giving you the freedom to click on them when required, or to move them for permenant activation by moving them to their corresponding drawer in Devs. It's all in the Workbench User Guide.

http://aminet.net/package/util/boot/CardPatch
http://aminet.net/package/util/boot/CardReset

CardReset is required on A1200's unless you have a hardware fix. Otherwise it won't work unless you coldboot with card removed and then insert card (iirc), but putting those in your Startup-sequence will solve that problem (or run CardReset manually if you like once in Workbench). CardPatch - this may be the reason for your busy pointer. Read the docs on cfd, cardpatch and card reset, and also fat95.

Amiga's are actually very elegant in how they work, the simplest most elegant OS in existance. It's so easy to do things that most don't bother writing installation scripts for their programs etc - once you learn the basics you'll realise this yourself.

I'm sure I'll love this machine again once it's working... but I'm not a coder by any means, so this is really pushing my limits of technical ability (and patience!) ;-)

Should I delete the dosdrivers/keymaps/datatypes/moitors/printers folders from Devs? I seem to have duplicates in Storage as well as Devs...

[RedWarrior]

"Doesn't matter if you have duplicates in Storage, Storage isn't used by the operating system. "

I have a strange knack of taking the worst interpretation of things sometimes... I read that and concluded that I ought to have whatever was in the storage/dosdrivers/ folder in the devs/dosdrivers folder... I copied everything in there to devs/dosdrivers....

and rebooted to a dead CLI limbo with nothing mounted and nothing normal at all...

I did manage to launch my file manager and delete the files I copied into devs/dosdrivers/... but the damage is done! How do I get my system back?

I even unscrewed by amiga and copied all those recommended latest files for CFD etc... (didn't make a difference, still no CF0 drive coming up...)  

What am I doing wrong? (besides everything?)

[RedWarrior]

Looks like I did something to make the RAD: drive enabled all the time. I tried a boot with both mouse buttons, and now RAD: is in there (wasn't before). If I cold boot, the bloody thing comes back...

How can I turn off the RAD drive? It's also chewing about half of my RAM now...

Man I'm bad at this...

Thanks for your input/pity/charity =)

[RedWarrior]

I think it might be Workbench 3.0

Installed? No... copied from a system that was running the display screens in a train station... I saved a few of them from being thrown away.

[RedWarrior]

ok. system back (phew!)

but still no CF0... I've tried a few different CF cards... I can't even get CF0:NDOS to show up...

Would anyone feel like possibly talking me through this? ICQ? Skype? Doing my head in...

[RedWarrior]

Plot twist: Running the PrepCard tool shows that there is a CF card in the PCMCIA slot... Some info appears when I insert the card & goes blank when I remove it.

Of course nothing actually works when I try to initialise it...

[RedWarrior]

CardPatch and CardReset... I have tried running those as commands... nothing happens... is something meant to happen? The card is/was in my Amiga600 and I tried to format it under winuae with pfs3 (as per your earlier recommendation, as I have done for the internal CF)... though it returned with "OUT OF MEMORY" and rebooted when I tried to perform pfsformat.

I tried adding more memory via winuae settings, but made no difference. I think it is lying about being out of memory. Oh- it might be the DosType... I didn't know what to put as the dostype. It's a 4gig CF card...

Though surely it would at least show up as CF0:NDOS and let me fix it on the Amiga?? :/

[RedWarrior]

Does the CF0: card reading thing care if it's an Amiga formatted Card (PFS3) or Fat32? Will it read both? or only Fat95?