CF Card - Which one to buy?

[MozzerFan]

Hello,

Also does anyone know if this CF card is Amiga compatible.
http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Item(1158)-SDCFH-002G-A11-SanDisk_Ultra_II_CompactFlash2GB.aspx

Most people have no problems with the Sandisk Ultra II cards (both PCMCIA and IDE).

I use a sandisk uLtra II 4GB in my a4000 with a scsi-ide and cf-ide adapter.

I also use a sandisk ultra II 2 GB in my a1200 and a600 with no problems at all.

I only had problems with the Ultra II 2GB version in my GVP hd8+ (with a scsi-ide/cf-ide).
The sandisk ultra II would give me write errors, but a Toshiba 128 MB CF would work with no problems at all.

[MozzerFan]

Did you try with more then one Ultra II 2GB card? What I mean is could the card you where using been defected.

No the card is not defective. It works like a charm in my a1200 now.

[MozzerFan]

... I was just hoping ... bought one from eBay before seeing your message. I'll see what happens. If it does not work then I'll try Toshiba.

Don't know if you want to put it in a gvp hd8+ too, but if you do and you find that it gives you troubles , try
to put a card in it that is NOT a high speed card (like the Ultra II).
I guess the old 1 GB Sandisk ("low" speed, the ones with the blue and red logo, see http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-SDCFB-1024-A10-Type-Retail-Package/dp/B00006AE3K)
would work too. I have no such a card, so I haven't tried this myself.

[MozzerFan]

I tried the PCMCIA2CF adapter, same story, none worked.
using cardprep, it says all the CF are SMI brand, only the 128MB is a Toshiba.
on all, exept the 128MB, it says there is an error, for the 128MB it says it is protected.
any advice?
thanx
S.

Are you saying you use cardprep to use the CF card.
If so, it won't work that way. At least not under os3.9 (I don't have OS4)
You need compactflash.device (cfd.lha on aminet).
If the card is FAT-formatted, you also need fat95.
If you want to format it with an amiga filesystem, you must make a mountlist yourself. You can use giggledisk for this.

[MozzerFan]

Regarding the CF card, MozzerFan said that the SanDisk 2GB Ultra II gives some problems but the Blue SanDisk don't; so if I where going to buy a new one I would choose the latter.

Actually I said I THINK the ones with the blue and red logo will work, but I haven't tried this myself.
Lockon succesfully tried this card with his A530 (which basically is a HD8+ with 030 processor), so he confirmed my presumption.

[MozzerFan]

I would like to research on the posibilities of using huge CF cards on the PCMCIA slot of a 3.1 A1200 (by "huge" I mean bigger than 4 GB, at least 8 GB)
 
Compactflash.device is meant to use fat95 file system (unless, as sugested here, you build your own mountlist) and fat95 is theorically supossed to be able to manage fat32 formatted cards (at least a 256 MB I tried with has worked OK).
 
Fat32 itself is supossed to be able to cope with more than 4 GB devices, so it could theorically work with an 8 or maybe even 16 GB CF. But then I couild be totally wrong anywhere ^_^'
 
Can a fat32 8 GB formatted CF work in an 3.1 Amiga 1200 through the PCMCIA slot using compactflash.device and fat95? Fact is I've never heard of someone doing it and a friend of mine is trying with no success (but then we can't be sure wether is CF happens to be uncompatible or not)
 
Any clue will be appreciated!
 
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Both fat95 and compactflash.device have TD64 support, so 8 GB CF cards should be supported. Even the largest cards available (32 GB) are supported. Look here for a description of TD64: http://icomp.de/t/bin/howto/etd64.htm
 
Edit: I think it was DJBase (a member of this forum) who got a Transcend 32GB working with a PCMCIA adapter.

[MozzerFan]

Thanks! That was quite useful info!
 
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No problem. One thing though, most of the document is about installing a harddrive > 4GB on the IDE port under Os3.1 (non-patched FFS from os3.1 doesn't support TD64).
Of course this can be ignored when using a PCMCIA adapter with a FAT-formatted CF card.
Just install compactflash.device and fat95 and mount CF0.

[MozzerFan]

I got hold of a couple of "slow" 1 GB Sandisk cards (the ones with the blue and red logo). Just like I expected, these also work like a charm with my SCSI-IDE and CF adapter.
 
I find it very strange the Ultra II card gives me troubles with my HD8+.