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Offline InTheSandTopic starter

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Catweasel MK4 installation questions (PC)
« on: February 10, 2005, 11:15:52 AM »
Hi,

Sorry this isn't strictly Amiga-related...

My Catweasel MK4 arrived yesterday. I've installed it, noting the instructions about which cable to use, etc. (I'm not using my PC's in-built floppy controller, so have used the three-way cable plugged into the card's black socket).

Windoze recognised the new hardware, so I installed the drivers that came on CD. I went through the process of adding all ten (!) floppy device drivers.

However, I do not have any additional drive letters listed, and the supplied "ImageTool" program doesn't read or write anything. The FDD drive's light does not come on, and the application says "error reading sector 0" regardless of whether I'm attempting a read or a write.

Any ideas?

Have I got a duff floppy drive? It's been a while since it was last used in a PC...

Regards,

 - Ali
 

Offline redrumloa

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Re: Catweasel MK4 installation questions (PC)
« Reply #1 on: February 10, 2005, 12:25:25 PM »
Quote

Any ideas?

Have I got a duff floppy drive? It's been a while since it was last used in a PC...
 - Ali


Hmm it's been a while since I used a Catweasel with Windows.. Let me start off by asking the obvious. Is the red line on the floppy cable lined up with pin one on the floppy drive and CW card? Is power connected to the floppy?
Someone has to state the obvious and that someone is me!
 

Offline InTheSandTopic starter

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Re: Catweasel MK4 installation questions (PC)
« Reply #2 on: February 10, 2005, 01:50:40 PM »
Hi,

I can understand why you've said that - many a time in the past, I'd plugged in floppy cables the wrong way round when building PCs!

However, in this case the connector on the Catweasel, the connector on the FDD, and the cable's connectors are all keyed, preventing anything from being plugged in the wrong way round.

I did open up my PC again and check this though! :-)

I've also tried an alternative floppy drive and an alternative cable, with the same results.

I guess I'll have to wait until a few more people have these to find out what they've done.

Regards,

 - Ali
 
 

Offline Orjan

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Re: Catweasel MK4 installation questions (PC)
« Reply #3 on: February 10, 2005, 02:18:58 PM »

Why don´t you e-mail Jens Schönfeld directly? His e-mail can be found on his webpage ( www.jschoenfeld.com ) and he is always quick to respond, at least with me..
\\"Memory is like an orgasm. It\\\'s a lot better if you don\\\'t have to fake it.\\"
- Seymore Cray, on virtual memory.
 

Offline InTheSandTopic starter

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Re: Catweasel MK4 installation questions (PC)
« Reply #4 on: February 10, 2005, 03:19:22 PM »
OK... will do! Thanks.

 - Ali
 

Offline Trev

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Re: Catweasel MK4 installation questions (PC)
« Reply #5 on: February 10, 2005, 08:44:53 PM »
I've always been a little annoyed by the bazillion floppy drive thing. It's definitely a bug. The MK3 INF files (don't have the MK4 yet) were over-complicated, using a custom device setup class and attempting to do most of the work manually instead of letting Windows handle everything. This is necessary when you want to do something non-standard, but for setup purposes, the Catweasel should look like a standard multifunction PCI device.

It looks like maybe the driver writer was attemping to make the devices available to user mode code, but I don't think the INF files accomplished that. I haven't dug into the driver itself to see what it's doing. You might want to look into Arjuna as well, but I don't know if it's evolved much over the last year.

Anyhow, I gave up on the Windows drivers and only use the Catweasel MK3 under WinUAE with multidisk.device 3.62. Version 3.63 ignores the timing settings set by multidisk prefs, breaking support for the Catweasel under the JIT emulation. Toni and Jens are aware of the problem, but it was never fixed.

So, after I get my MK4, maybe I'll put some time into cleaning up the INF file, if it still does werid stuff. :-) My Catweasel Installer project on the Amiga side stopped about this time last year. (I lost my grandfather on November 6, 2003 and my closest uncle the following February. I was still in denial over losing my grandfather, but losing my uncle shortly thereafter was a little too much. I just wasn't in the right frame of mind for recreational programming.) If Jens and company haven't improved the installer with the Catweasel MK4, I'll probably start up the Installer project again.

Trev
 

Offline InTheSandTopic starter

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Re: Catweasel MK4 installation questions (PC)
« Reply #6 on: February 12, 2005, 11:31:20 PM »
Hi,

The "bazillion floppy drive thing" ( :-) ) is slightly annoying, but at least it only has to be done once!

I've been in email communication with Jens, and he has resolved the issues I was experiencing with an updated set of drivers. The supplied image tool now works fine.

Next step is to try out UAE with it, I guess...

Cheers,

 - Ali
 

Offline Trev

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Re: Catweasel MK4 installation questions (PC)
« Reply #7 on: February 13, 2005, 12:36:30 AM »
:-)

WinUAE uses WinIO to access the Catweasel hardware directly (WinIO provides a UNIX-like I/O API to user mode Windows applications) to make it source compatible with UAE. Accessing the Catweasel this way makes WinUAE and the Catweasel Windows drivers mutually exclusive.

You could replace WinIO with I/O routines that use the Catweasel Windows driver instead and still maintain source compatibility, but I don't think anyone's working on it.

Trev
 

Offline Trev

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Re: Catweasel MK4 installation questions (PC)
« Reply #8 on: February 13, 2005, 12:39:05 AM »
Speaking of Catweasels, I can't get my Catweasel ISA working under Amithlon. I haven't done any troubleshooting . . . but does anyone have any time-saving pointers?

I'm using isacatweasel.device and the included TD0/TH0 mount files. I haven't even checked the card to see what I/O port it's set to. Anyone know what isacatweasel.device likes? Or does it probe?

Trev
 

Offline zutton

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Re: Catweasel MK4 installation questions (PC)
« Reply #9 on: February 19, 2005, 08:05:50 PM »
Ali,

I am having the exact same problem as you reported. I am emailing Jens, but in the meantime, could you post a link to the updated driver location? I cannot find it on the Individual Computers' site.

Thanks,

-Zutton
 

Offline InTheSandTopic starter

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Re: Catweasel MK4 installation questions (PC)
« Reply #10 on: February 21, 2005, 01:57:19 PM »
Hi,

The drivers are not final yet, so I'll ask Jens if it's OK for me to forward this information on (I wouldn't want to upset anyone at Individual Computers if it was going to cause a problem by doing this). Assuming he's OK with it, I'll PM you.

Regards,

 - Ali
 

Offline InTheSandTopic starter

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Re: Catweasel MK4 installation questions (PC)
« Reply #11 on: February 21, 2005, 02:22:08 PM »
Hi,

I've had a reply now from Jens, here's what he has to say:

Quote

I cought the flu, that's why I haven't made this driver public yet. It includes all features that

- make removing drivers possible without re-start
- let WinUAE use the Catweasel without having to de-activate the driver first
- recognize the driver on all 32-bit windows versions (w2k, WXP, WXPpro)
- w2k users might have to install update 822831 before the driver is correctly recognized

You're free to spread this link: http://think42.com/CWMK40107.zip

..and it's also an update for MK3 users, so the keyboard problems with the MK3 are now solved as well.


Hope this helps, thanks to Jens!

Regards,

 - Ali
 

Offline bloodline

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Re: Catweasel MK4 installation questions (PC)
« Reply #12 on: February 21, 2005, 02:43:25 PM »
Why doesn't Jens just make an amiga compatible floppy drive controler, stick it into a slimline external drive case with a small floppy drive and have a USB connector on it, and have it recognise as a standard USB storage device?


I'd buy one.