CF head scratcher..

[amigan24]

So I've been using cf cards with both my a600 and a1200 for about two years now using the cf kit from amigakit.com and it has pretty much handled everything I've thrown at it...until now of course!  :lol:

I recently purchased a few cf to ide adapters to replace my failing hard drives along with some *brand new* sandisk ultra II 2.0gb cards...one is formatted to fat16 and the other is fat32...

I've been able to mount a cf card as a harddisk before using other brands without any issues...both through the pcmcia and ide ports

well these sandisk cards simply do not want to show up on the amigas...they work fine on the mac and these are *not* counterfeit cards...I've installed card patch and just about every other patch / suggested driver recommended over at eab..when using prepcard it shows up but when I tried to prep it it says "error while writing changes"...when used in the ide port all of the options are blanked out so it doesn't even acknowledge it...also tried to do this in e-uae with the same results


I've read that these cards are ok to use with the amiga. I've spent a pretty decent amount on these things and because they are now open there is no returning them.

Any suggestions? I'm running wb 3.1 on both & using bloodwych's wb on the 1200

[Corfiot]

When Plugged into the IDE port you need to run HDtoolbox, or HDInstTool from Aminet.

Amiga treats the card as a HD when plugged into IDE, prepcard only used for the PCMCIA port.
 :-)

[amigan24]

sorry..I forgot to mention that I tried hdtoolbox when used with the ide port

that's what I meant by the options being blanked out

[adolescent]

And prepcard is only useful for SRAM/PSRAM cards.  (Although, it will show you some information on other PCMCIA cards.)

My guess is your IDE to CF adapter is cable select which won't work with the Amiga without modification.  Does it have a jumper for master/slave/csel selection?  Otherwise, see this post as it talks about what is needed for cable select to work.

[motorollin]

Does the device show up at all in HDToolBox?

--
moto

[amigan24]

The adapter I'm using is the same one I got to work for a buddy's a1200 system and the one recommended here...so I'm clear there.  :-D

As for it showing up in HDtoolbox at all...nope! It's almost as if one opened it with nothing connected at all.

[motorollin]

Ok, does the same card reader with the same IDE cable in exactly the same configuration work with a different CF card?

--
moto

[amigan24]

ack... realized I might have been mistaken with that last one

I'm using the same *brand type/model* of reader and not the actual same exact item itself..just wanted to clear that up just in case

and yes I'll contact him after work and demand him to stop by and open his amiga so we can swap the card just to test it for sure

however I did try my current readers and they work with other cf 512mb cards...just not these ultra II ones...hmmm

[motorollin]

Ok well if it doesn't work with any card but it does work with another reader then the problem is with the reader. If it works with a different card in the same reader then the problem is the card. If no card works in any reader, then the problem is the master/slave configuration, the cabling or the Amiga.

--
moto

[darksun9210]

hmmm,
i've got a Sandisk ultra3 card in the CF adapter on the scsi2ide bridge in the A530 on my A500 (phew! got there!).
no amount of trying would get it to show as a device using HDtoolbox.
actually plugged it into a PC and kicked off a winXP install on it to see if it even worked. worked just fine.
plugged it into a bog standard A1200 (adapter set to master) via a 44 to 40 pin IDE cable, booted off the install floppy, and there it was, in HDtoolbox. bit of jiggery pokery with the drive type, heads, sectors, blocks etc. and partitioned fine. then plugged it back into the A530, and i could see it in HD toolbox just fine...

got a couple of sandisk ultra2's plugged into the IDE ports for a couple of 1200's working fine. no worries. via basic 44pin laptop CF adapters. no problems at all.

maybe the card had to be in IDE mode, and thats what the PC did? i dunno... if you can, hook the CF card and adapter to a PC to double check it all works... otherwise, not sure what to suggest... good luck anyway...  :-?

--edit--
i remeber i also have a GVP HD8+ with scsi2ide bridge and compact flash adapter. nothing would show the compact flash card in hdtoolbox. too many links in the chain to figure out what was what till i put it into a bog standard A1200... and it showed up. put an RDB on the card. all working fine. plugged back into the GVP, and it showed up fine. had to re-write the RDB as GVP weren't using amiga standards at the time, but all was well...

maybe something needs to tell the card to operate in IDE mode? i don't know enuff about CF cards to guess... mostly they just work... sorry

[amigan24]

Well it seems as though we arrived to the problem!

Strangely enough it was a cable I was using. We used the cable in my buddies Amiga and there it was on screen. I guess the head scratcher here is that the cables worked fine for my ide drive. Everything worked..read...write...etc. but i use them with the cf / reader and nothing. Hmmm..

The only difference I see with the cables is that the ones that do work are about an inch long...the ones that don't are about 3-6 inches long. Might anyone be able to shed some light on this matter? Anyone know of a cable resource that would *not* charge $9 a cable?

Oh and in the split second I left the room to grab a beer my friend managed to low level format a cf card which effectively rendered it unreadable by both the mac and amigas. Grrrr..

He owes me!


 :pint:

[Boot_WB]

The Amiga's internal IDE port is not buffered, so you may encounter problems when using longer cables.

If the terminals are normal IDC types:
Rich

you can just detach them (be careful, as the clips are easy to break) and, with a bit of force, re-position them further along the cable. Then just snip off the extra IDE cable length using scissors (being careful to make sure there are no protruding wires which may short).

Regards