Is my Catweasel dead ? [RESOLVED]

[TheFab77]

Hello all,

I bought a Catweasel MK4 card and receive it yesterday.

Apparently the card seems faulty. Below the full details of the story; (sorry for my bad english)

I plugged the card in my PC (Windows XP Pro), and I connected the floppy drive to the black connector of the catweasel and the floppy controller on the motherboard
to the white connector of the catweasel.

Next I installed drivers from the CD provided with the card (v0.1.0.7). The installation was ok; the wizard asked me to install each driver needed.

I launched ImageTool and wrote an .ADF on a floppy. I put the floppy in my amiga and the floppy booted perfectly. So I was happy.

1 hour later, I decided to wrote a second .ADF on a floppy. but when I putted the floppy in my amiga , it didn't boot, so I try with another floppy but I had the same behaviour. I try again with several differents floppys and differents .adf images, but I got the same issue (no boot on the amiga)

In fact I discovered that nothing is written by Imagetool on the floppy despite the progress bar in Imagetool increase normally. And I got no error message from the tool.
I also putted a standard MS-Dos formatted floppy in the floppy drive and I was not able to
access the floppy. I get a windows message box saying "Insert a floppy in the drive".

I also tryed to create an ADF image file from an existing orginal amiga floppy (Workbench disk). But when I click on "READ" in IMAGETOOL, I got an error box called "IO -ERROR" with the message "Error reading sector 0". If I click ignore I got the message for each next sectors.

I tryed also the following troubleshooting without success;

- Uninstall v0.1.0.7 and install v.0.1.0.9. downloaded from individual computers website, but get the same behaviour

- After installing drivers v.0.1.0.9, I wrote some ADFs on floppys and tried the "VERIFY" option in Imagetool, but I got errors for each sector of the floppys written with their ADFs. the same error like with the READ option for generating ADF images.
- I replaced the floppy drive with another one, but got the same behaviour
- I moved the card to another PC (Windows XP Home edition) and got exactly the same issues.
- When I removed the card and I reconnect my floppy drive directly to the motherboard, I can access MS dos formatted floppy.

So to summarize;

The card worked only one time. Image tool progress bar increase as normally but nothing or bad datas seems written on the floppy (get errors with "Verify"). I'm cannot generate and ADF with the "READ" option in Imagetool. I cannot access MS-DOS formatted floppy (windows message = "insert a floppy in the drive".

As described below I spend many hours for troubleshooting the issue, but without success :-(

If somebody already experienced the same issue and found a solution I'll appreciate his help. But probably the card is faulty and I'll have to request a replacement

Thanks a lot,
Fabien

[CLS2086]

Hi Fab,
i also read your post on amigaimpact too.
What about the cable ? It reminds me a bad experience with a partially brocken hdd cable that shooted down my datas.
Check that  :-)

[motorollin]

Or maybe the write head on the floppy drive? If it's not magnetising the sectors then the software will think the image is being written even if no data is being stored on the disk. I would try the floppy drive in an Amiga to make sure.

--
moto

[_ThEcRoW]

Use the latest driver on www.ami.ga
seems that the driver you use is very old.

[TheFab77]

motorollin> I tried with 2 differents floppy drives and got the same issue. I tested the original workbench floppy disk on my amiga and the floppy work fine.

TheCrow> I downloaded the last version available on www.ami.ga (v0.1.0.9) http://siliconsonic.de/t/bin/CWMK40109.zip
If someone know newer version I'm interested.

Today I sent a email to AMIGAKIT.COM for requesting a replacement. It worked one time and I didn't made any changes so the card is probably dead

Thanks,
Fabien

[motorollin]

Did you try a different cable? If so then it does indeed sound like the card may be at fault. Don't worry, Amigakit will get you sorted :-)

--
moto

[TheFab77]

Finally it works!

I removed the cable between the catweasel and the motherboard floppy controller and let only the floppy cable between the card and the floppy drive. I also connected the floppy drive to the connector in the middle of the floppy cable (not the one at the end of the cable as previously). And now I can write ADF and read amiga floppy with imagetool.

With this solution I cannot access the floppy drive in Windows but it's not important because I never use it on Windows

Someone know any others existing tools on Windows using the catweasel like imagetool.Exe for generating adf and also writing adf on floppys ?

Thanks,
Fabien

[Fester]

...middle connector on the floppy cable...I'll give that a try too. My cat is bugged up too. I might have reconnected it improperly...

It's always useful to read messages on Amiga.org.