Problem with new CF PCMCIA card reader - CC0: or CF0:

[gurthuk]

New CF PCMCIA card reader arrived yesterday and tonight I have sat down to play with it however I'm having a little trouble...

A1200, Workbench 3.0 hard drive install and followed the Amigakit instructions but my compact flash card doesn't appear on the desktop.

I've looked in Workbench / Tools and ran the Format program and there appears to be 2 devices:

CC0: (20k)
CF0: (0k)

Why do I have 2 and why do neither show my CF card?

I also ran the Workbench Prep Card program. It seems to see something in the reader but fails to format.

[gurthuk]

Guess I'll have to buy another card then...

[gurthuk]

Amigakit - are all your Compact Flash cards okay to use? Looking at your site the description reads "suitable for some Digital Cameras and personal electronic organisers" - nothing about Amiga.

[gurthuk]

cfd is part of the Amigakit install, I've read the same readme file that your link contains.

[gurthuk]

If I try the quick format option I'm presented with a prompt telling me no card is inserted. I have 2 cards (same model) an both return the same message.

Not tried the Shell option yet as I packed the Amiga away last night to make room.

If I remove the whole PCMCIA card I can see my RAM increase slightly, add the card and my RAM comes down a little which I think the OS mounting the drive correctly.

I'm sure the Amigakit install has gone okay. Sadly I can't install it again as the disk corrupted after it forced me write to it when I registered the Transfer ADF program.

Sounds as if I need to try another CF.

[gurthuk]

ah I did try CF0: in the shell last night and it came up with the same no card / disk in drive prompt. Not tried the diskchange method though...

[gurthuk]

Does the ATAPI / ATA firmware matter if I'm side-loading the card through the PCMCIA slot? The same cards work fine in an IDE-to-CF adapter.

[gurthuk]

Ok will order a CF card today (and new ADF disk if I can please).

[gurthuk]

Card arrived this morning, plugged it and straight away it appeared on the Workbench desktop. I'm up and running.

- thanks AmigaKit!

[gurthuk]

grrr why is nothing easy.

Sat down to spend an hour or two with the Amiga this afternoon and the PCMCIA reader and CF card seemed to have died somehow.

Not sure what's happened but one minute I could read the card in Workbench then after transferring some files from my Mac (via a USB card reader) the disc on Workbench would hang when trying to open directory after root. Workbench was still running as I could move the mouse / windows.

I reset the Amiga and the CF disc was labelled as CF0:NDOS. I've reformatted the card now on a Mac and PC both with FAT16 and FAT32 but nothing appears in Workbench.

Any ideas folks?  Diskchange CF0: in Workbench runs fine but when I try CF0: I'm told there is no disc in the drive.

When I use the Workbench format tool CF0: is showing as 0k. If I use the PrepCard program it see's something is inserted but can't format it - error writing track 0 or something.

[gurthuk]

Is FAT95 not part of the AmigaKit install disk?

I've reinstalled that several times and checked the log output all seems fine. I've also ran the disk as if I didn't have a hard drive and still the card fails to appear.

I'm formatting the CF card again FAT32 and writing to all the all blocks (zero) just to clear anything strange.

It's very odd as the card works fine on both MCc and PC, the PCMCIA card seems fine as it notices the card being inserted when I have PrepCard open.

[gurthuk]

Problem is how do I get the latest version of FAT95 over onto the Amiga? This is half the reason why I bought a CF card and PCMCIA Reader in the first place...

[gurthuk]

Removed my Hawk 4Mb expansion card and the CF card appears in Workbench!

[gurthuk]

All I can say is check the A1200 doesn't have a trapdoor expansion card installed - if it does remove it and try again. Worked in my case.

I check on EAB and found a list of cards and notes saying whether the compact flash card worked with an expansion installed or not. I wasn’t too inclined to believe it but as a last resort gave it a go.

And so last night I for the first time I had Lotus 2 running via WHDLoad – made me smile.