CompactFlash.device how-to?

[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?

[RedWarrior]

Finally managed to get pfsformat to work on this CF card I was planning to use as a transfer card.... (borrowed from my A600)

Luckily I didn't just wait an hour for nothing...
I want to cry.

[RedWarrior]

Yeah I think I got confused and wanted to try everything I could think of... as you can see the format failed anyway, so I let Windows format the card as FAT32... and the Amiga still didn't read it anyway...

I didn't use diskpart this time... is that important? I can't remember- it's all a blur...

[RedWarrior]

I tried ASSIGN - and this is what came back...

When I double click the CF0 in Devs/Dosdrivers - it tells me it's already mounted...

Maybe there are different kinds of "mounted"?

[RedWarrior]

Trawling google, it's quite disturbing how many similar threads there are out there like this... they just trail off and there's no solution. I wonder what happened to those poor people? Am I next?

...what was that?!...

[RedWarrior]

You're right... it SHOULD appear...

Weird that on my (now dismantled) a600 I could pop any card in the PCMCIA port and it would at least show up on workbench... even as CF0:NDOS if it didn't like it.

On my 1200 nothing shows up... ever. (Though Cardprep does confirm that it can identify the card- so it can't be a hardware problem)

I'm using a hackjob OS - from the workbench311 hardfile that comes with WinUAE... would that have any bearing on the situation?

[RedWarrior]

Please run this: http://thomas-rapp.homepage.t-online.de/downloads/hddreport.lha
and attach the report here. It should give some hints where the problem could be.

Ok- thank you! Lots of info in there! photos attached....

[RedWarrior]

more pics

[RedWarrior]

come on, you got the lha archive to your amiga, so you can move the txt file the opposite way and attach it here as a single file. I refuse to read text from blurry photos.

I also had to unscrew the case, being careful not to tear out the keyboard ribbon cable whilst holding the underside of the computer with my face and insert the CF card... This is kind of why I really want to get the CF card working. I'm sorry for the poor screen quality- it's the "easiest" setup I can manage at this point running composite RCA into my very old laptop. I'm trying to avoid opening and re-opening my 1200 as much as possible... I'm just tempting fate.

[RedWarrior]

Ok I copied it... text file attached.

[RedWarrior]

Does anyone use IRC anymore by any chance?

[RedWarrior]

Opening the case for each file is a bad idea, that's true. Don't you still have this A600 where everything worked? You could have saved the txt file to a floppy disk, put it into the A600, copy it to CF card and then carry it to the PC. No need to open a case.

Or use a 720K PC-formatted floppy disk to transfer the file directly to the PC.

Sadly no, I harvested the CF card from the a600 just as another option to test... (copied everything off though)

My 600 had gremlins of its own... certain keys on the keyboard have given up- so it's hard trying to run any commands whtn the colon : and P and U don't work...

I'll maybe start a thread "how to safely clean and maintain old floppy drives?" to deal with the current "disk-shredding" I'm experiencing... (floppies not an option at the moment)

So this has been a very slow and painful process so far... I'm still looking forward to maybe one day seeing what all the fuss was about AGA... (All 1200's are AGA, right?)

TExt file posted above... does it tell you anything useful?

thanks heaps for your help... this is rather gruelling =)

[RedWarrior]

The report shows that the software is correctly installed and working. It's more a hardware problem now. It says there is no disk in the drive and the SCSI identify command returns garbage.

Check that the CF card sits properly in the adapter and the adapter properly in the Amiga and no pins are bent or pushed back.

Is there a way to look inside the actual card reader? (without breaking it?)

This machine still has all its shielding etc (still chrome shiny! - Made in France... my Made in Malaysia machine is rusted and busted) - I'm a bit reluctant to take the shielding off to look at the pins... The card adapter feels fine- smooth... like it's connecting... and the card is also snug...

[RedWarrior]

Oh I thought you meant the pins inside the Amiga PCMCIA reader? I have 2 CF to PCMCIA card adapters... I can test them on my pc... sure,...

Just tested- yep they both work fine.

[RedWarrior]

I think you said earlier RedWarrior that your A600 worked fine with a CF adapter and card - are you using the same CF card and CF adapter now as you did with the A600?

Yes. I have 2 adaptors and 2 cards... One of those CF cards was the guts of my A600, so it's out of action for now... I could put any old card into the a600 and it would at least give me an icon CFO:NDOS.

I'm confused about the comment from Thomas earlier suggesting it could be hardware or a bent pin on the a1200... Especially since Prepcard can identify the CF card... It's just workbench and the system that refuses to assign an icon and let me access the device.

I hope this misery and frustration is going to benefit someone else some day... =)

[RedWarrior]

Cardreset usage?
The readme for cardreset is confusing... It says: "A PC Card must be plugged within the PCMCIA slot."

It also says it should be run as part of the startup-sequence... and I'm told to not insert the PCMCIA card until workbench is loaded?

Have run the command from a shell window: "cardreset TICKS 300"
(nothing happens... new line in shell)

I tried "cardreset TICKS 300 FORCE"
(nothing happens... new line in shell)

Is it meant to return some data? :-/