@sim085
I struggled some 2 months to troubleshoot and find a working solution for my CF/A530 setup. To sum some valuable findings:
- get a cheap CF card on eBay. Limit search for volumes of 1-2Gb, older type with slow performance - avoid Ultra and Extreme editions. You'll find this affordable at few euros apiece. Purpose of this is to test compatibilty of your IDE2CF adapter and SCSI-IDE bridge.
- Faster CF cards (i.e. Ultra 3,4) are generally prone to induce trouble on SCSI-IDE bridges since a huge fraction of them are switched to non-true-IDE disk mode. For some series there is a switching utility (PCDOS based), but I won't recommend it, too much hassle.
- if your CF card can't be recognized on Amiga via HDInstTools, check both adapter and card in PC working setup. In my case I had a problem where that combo worked on PC, while failing on Amiga. Issue was located in IDE2CF adapter which lacked DMA support on correct pins. On the funny side, that was a quite expensive IDE2CF adapter (DeLock) and all my problems vanished when I replaced it with 2€ no-name Chinese counterapart. The best way to shoot on DMA compliant is to check pics for DMA labels (DMA signal also covers Vcc voltage on adapters). Another one is to avoid adapters with additional port (double CF), extra function LEDs and jumpers - go for a most "barebone" version.
- if above works, then I can recommend Sandisk CF someone already mentioned - the one with red and blue logo. Those can be snatched cheap on eBay, too. My primary A530 setup includes exactly that card, it works like charm. For more info go to Hardware/A500 gallery and check my pics.
Regards
