Catweasel MK 4????????

[K7HTH]

amigakit wrote:
Great Idea!  

I can facilitate it and host in on http://catweasel.amigakit.com

Send all tested hints, tips using the contact form.  Every contributor will be creditted next to their  tip.

Good Job, amigakit! We now have a start to get what we have paid dearly for to finally operate!!!!

[Trev]

by amigakit on 2006/1/15 17:31:06

Great Idea!

I can facilitate it and host in on http://catweasel.amigakit.com

Send all tested hints, tips using the contact form. Every contributor will be creditted next to their tip.

I put together an Installer script for the Catweasel a couple years ago. I updated it after I received my MK4, so it's currently tested and working with the Catweasel ISA (via UAE and Amithlon), Catweasel MK3, and Catweasel MK4. It detects the Zorro and clock port Catweasels as well, but I don't own any of them, so I can't test that bit. While it doesn't detect the IDE-based Catweasel, it can be selected during the installation. (Bascially, detection just automates choosing between multidisk.device and catweaselisa.device when building the mount files.)

Jens (who is always extremely helpful, by the way) gave the OK to include the latest versions of multidisk.device and catweaselisa.device with the Installer script, so I don't see why I can't make the whole thing publicly available. I just need to polish it up a bit. . . .

Trev

[amigadave]

@Trev,

Great, I will be waiting to see your Catweasle Installer hosted on AmigaKit's website soon, with a link here for us to follow.

[Stainy]

Just for the record!!  I had ALL the problems writing disks... they were all non booters!! I think I made 1 disk!!  but after alot of testing.. I`m using the imagetool from 0107 drivers!  you`ll notice the difference because it doesn`t have the verify option, also when you save the image you`ve created.. the button should read `OK` but it reads `OPEN` I`m using that imagetool now and it works perfectly... so.. latest driver 0109 and the older 0107 imagetool.. I`ve also notice that before the program writes..the floppy grinds a little before the progress bar moves!! thats how i know it`s going to make a good copy!!  hope this helps some of you!

Daz

[Stainy]

Wondering if the Catweasel MK 4 could read an Amiga formatted hard drive or just floppies ??

I think Winuae can read Amiga hdd`s straight off!!  you may need a 3.5" to 2.5" ide connector if you have a small laptop hdd... but I`m sure it does work!

[amigakit]

As promised the website and sub-domain are up and running at http://catweasel.amigakit.com

As peoples hints and tips arrive, I'll add it to the site with creditations if you want.

[alltens]

I am not sure if this is the place to post this, but here goes.     What am I doing wrong???      I installed the Catweasel Mk4 between the floppy controller  and the floppy drive.  The software install went fine.  Now I can't see the floppy during bootup so the pass-through is not working.  Win Explorer can't see it either.  Therefore, I can't make a bootdisk to get into AmigaXL nor boot from it if I had one.  The imagetool can see the drive, but I don't know how to use it.  I want to dual-boot into either Win2k or into AmigaOS XL.  What am I doing wrong?

I haven't found any real instructions on how to use the Catweasel.  Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Thanks much.

alltens  

AMD64   3000
Abit KV8-MAX3
Win2k

[Trev]

As far as I know, the passthrough connector isn't implemented in the current MK4 driver. Even after it is, I'm fairly certain it won't work outside the operating system, as the PC BIOS has no way of initializing the card unless an option ROM is present, and I don't think Jens included one in the design.

The only reference to this in the manual is, "The current drivers do not give you the full functionality of the controller yet. Please check our website www.ami.ga on a regular basis to take advantage of the new functions of the Catweasel MK4." The manual then directs you to use the passthrough connector. Jens probably should have left that out of the initial release of the manual. I recommend using a separate floppy drive.

All official drivers and manuals are posted online at http://www.ami.ga/.

Trev

[alltens]

Trev,
Thanks for the info also it is bad news for me.  When it didn't work, I tried adding a second floppy, but now the system can't see it at all.  I guess the other drivers are interfering with it.  I'll try and make a bootCD or even using a bootloader like OSL2000 to see if that might work.
BTW is there a doc that tells how to use the imagetool?  

If that doesn't work I will try uninstalling all of the drivers and re-install them in the 2-drive configuration instead of the pass-through configuration.

I really want this to work, but I am getting less and less optomistic.  I have a bunch of documents that I need to transfer from Amiga format to Word format.  

I'll let you know if I have any luck.

Thanks again.

alltens

[shaf]

I haven't tried this yet still waiting for the delivery of my Catweasel MK4 from Amikit.

If running Win XP it can be very funny about Floppy drives, even writing to a standard 1.44MB FDD is slow compared to Win 9X and Win 2K.

My suggestion is to use a seperate FDD connected to the MK4 Controller and just use this drive for Amiga use.

Shaf

[chiark]

@DaBest:
Yes, you can access your amiga hard drive directly from WinUAE.  I've done it, it works, and it's excellent.  I even managed to access a system formatted with AmiFileSafe :-D

[Trev]

@alltens

I use three drives: a 3.5" 1.44 MB connected to my motherboard and a 3.5" 1.44 MB and a 5.25" 1.2 MB connected to the Catweasel. (Someone mentioned problems with C64 disks. They work fine for me, but using DSDD disks is a pain.) I'm using the MK4 right now, which works fine using imagetool under Windows XP. In WinUAE, I prefer the MK3 and direct access using WinIO. (I'm not sure if WinUAE 1.0+ supports the old way of accessing Catweasel controllers. I haven't checked.)

imagetool is pretty straightforward--select an image file and click write or insert a disk and click read. If you want to transfer documents from an ADF image to your PC, you'll need a tool like ADF View. (Why doesn't someone add support for the Catweasel to ADF View? ADFlib supports the file systems, so it's just a matter of adding the appropriate IO calls. Hmmm.) The process looks like this: 1) create disk image from floppy using imagetool; 2) extract files from disk image using ADF View or a similar tool.

Trev

[alltens]

Thanks for the info.  I haven't had a chance to get back to it, but I'll let you know what happens.  

I guess that this means that CrossDOS doesn't work with this setup.  No PC0:

Thanks again.

alltens

[Trev]

You can use the CrossDOS file system with the Catweasel. Here are two sample mount files (I use PDx for double-density and PHx for high-density, but you can also modify the default PCx mount files):

/* PD0
 */

Device         = multidisk.device
Unit           = 0
FileSystem     = L:CrossDOSFileSystem
Flags          = 2
BlockSize      = 512
Surfaces       = 2
BlocksPerTrack = 9
Reserved       = 1
Interleave     = 0
LowCyl         = 0
HighCyl        = 79
Buffers        = 5
BufMemType     = 1
StackSize      = 2048
Priority       = 5
GlobVec        = -1
DosType        = 0x4D534400

/* PH0
 */

Device         = multidisk.device
Unit           = 0
FileSystem     = L:CrossDOSFileSystem
Flags          = 3
Surfaces       = 2
BlocksPerTrack = 18
Reserved       = 1
Interleave     = 0
LowCyl         = 0
HighCyl        = 79
Buffers        = 5
BufMemType     = 1
Priority       = 5
GlobVec        = -1
DosType        = 0x4D534400

EDIT:

Just a quick note. Like other disk devices, if you have multiple mount files associated with a single device, you'll see : ? icons for all mounts that don't recognize the file system, just like you do with DF0: and PC0:.

[InTheSand]

If you're after using the Catweasel from the Amiga (emulated or otherwise) to access PC disks, it might also be worth looking at XFS as this allows proper long filename access, and not the mangled 8.3 files of CrossDOS.

I have a Zorro-based Catweasel in my A3000 and XFS works really well with it.

 - Ali

[Fester]

I hate to bring back and old thread, but I have difficulty with a newly purchased MK4.

Has anyone been able to use it under Windows XP WinUAE 1.4.5?

I followed the instructions from the WinUAE website. The cat: is automatically mounted when I boot up but it doesn't do anything!

I insert an empty ADF image in DF0: and an Amiga disk in my A drive. I write "Diskcopy CAT: to DF0: noverify" command in a shell and I press ENTER. It takes the command, no error messages appear, but no disk activity takes place.

??