Another big CF issue

[XDelusion]

You guys have me a bit paranoid. Or rather Thomas does.

I see this discussion is for OS 3.x users, and it appears that OS 3.9 users do not have to worry about Hard Drive size limitations. Assuming I am reading all correctly.

The reason I am curious is because I just received a new Kingston 8Gb CF in the mail, I'm using OS 3.9, and was able to set up the Partition tables in WinUAE, format on the A1200, and boot without issues. Shouldn't I be having problems being that it is a Kingston? Is there something I have to worry about down the road such as random data loss or some jazz?

[Thomas]

There are only two major issues with CF cards:

1. if the CF card identifies itself as a removable device, then it might not be recognised on the Amiga or might be refused by HDToolbox and similar programs. Behaviour might be different depending on which driver you use, i.e. Kick 3.1 scsi.device, OS 3.9 scsi.device, IDEfix or something else.

If your Amiga accepts the card as a harddrive, then you are fine.

Some removable cards can be redefined as fixed with some PC software. AFAIK such software only exists for Sandisk cards, therefore if you cought a removable card of another brand, you've bad luck.

2. IDE devices like CF cards will produce corrupted data if the MaxTransfer value is too high. The maximum possible MaxTransfer value for IDE is 0x1fe00 (255 blocks of 512 bytes each). Unfortunately WB 3.1's HDToolbox defaults to 0xffffff which is way too high.

Make sure that your MaxTransfer is set correctly for all partitions, then you are fine.

If both of the above is taken care of, then the card should work, no matter which brand it is.

[XDelusion]

Good to hear!

[gertsy]

Just an FYI.  8GB authentic SANDisk CFs work fine in an A1200 and A4000.  Or at least they do in mine.

Gertsy

[Buzzfuzz]

Yep 2 Amiga 1200's rev 2B running Sandisk Ultra II and III CF 8GB, Delock CF Adapters and both Blizzard 1230IV with 64MB running Classic WB 3.1.
Both stable
 
These are the CF adapters:

http://www.vesalia.de/e_cfide4044adapter.htm

[Retrofan]

I don't know what happens. I've got two (well, I have three) CF: the 16Gb Sandisk and the 32 GB Transcend, and both have some problems. The Transcend has the cold boot one, but for the rest goes right, I've installed Boing Bag 3 and runs fine.
 
But the other, the Sandisk that was running fine crashes in the same Amiga when I try to install Boing Bag 2 with the Rom update. I've tried it twice with the same result. If I try it in WinUAE it runs Ok, but in the amiga only get a black screen. Why?

[Thomas]

In WinUAE, did you use uaehf.device or scsi.device? Uaehf.device has all the modern features that scsi.device lacks: it is able to handle large harddrives with both NSD and TD64 commands and it is independant of MaxTransfer issues.

So if you prepare a harddrive with uaehf.device all might work right in UAE but once you connect to the real Amiga it might not work at all.

And even if you use scsi.device in UAE it might still work better than scsi.device in the real Amiga, because with UAE there is Windows and USB in the middle which might filter out some incompatibilities.

[Retrofan]

I used uaehf device in HDToolBox.
 
I'm gonna trying to do all in the PC with scsi.device.
 
I will make a copy of System (I have a copy of when it had BB1) to the PC and will reinstall the System drawers from the copy.
 
EDIT:  No, I've remembered the last time I used the Amiga to make the partitions in this CF. Will try with WinUAE this time

[broken]

Anyone with experience with one of the dual CF adaptors?

Like the Addonics AD44MIDE2CF

http://www.addonics.com/products/flash_memory_reader/ad44midecf.asp

Its a 44 pin adaptor that appears that the bottom card is master and the top is slave.

[Retrofan]

I've just tried partitioning with WinUAE (HdTools as Uaehf), formating with SFS and have the BB2 crash again.
Before doing that I tried to see the partitions with HDTools setting it as scsi.device, but coudn't see the drive with it. I don't know much about WinUAE... how do I do it?

[Thomas]

When you add the harddrive, select IDE0 as controller. It's like real hardware: if you connect the HDD to one controller naturally it cannot be seen on another one.

In order to use IDE0 you need to make sure that you emulate a chipset which actually has an IDE controller and that your Kickstart ROM matches this chipset. Easiest way to be sure is to select A1200 from the quickstart menu. If you have an A1200 Kickstart ROM file, that is.

[Retrofan]

Ok, I've got WinUAE working with the right Kickstart and IDE0, and made the partitions, but I get a message when I try to format using SFSformat saying "error while initiating the drive, packet request type unknown".
So I've done a quick format without any format (no fast system, no other selected). The thing is I made a copy of SFSformat on one of the partitions and tried to SFSformat in the Amiga, but I get the same message.
Anyway I will go on with the installation, as I believe it isn't neccesary to use that kind of format, is it?

[Thomas]

I believe it isn't neccesary to use that kind of format, is it?

I think this has already been discussed a thousand times: you don't need to format a harddrive and you should never format a flash memory drive!

There are no format commands for IDE anyway. The drives are formatted by the manufacturer and you need special manufacturer-specific software to format them again.

The commands issued by the Format program are translated into write commands by the IDE driver. This means that Format does nothing but to write garbage into each and every sector of the harddrive. This is completely unnecessary unless you want to safely destroy all data before you sell the drive.

Writing to every sector on the drive just stresses the drive and in case of flash memory, which has a limited amount of write cycles, significantly reduces the life time.

packet request type unknown

Are you sure you use SFS? You can only initialize SFS partitions with SFSFormat. This message implies that you try to format an FFS partition.

[Retrofan]

I don't understand what you say about formatting. I never make any complete format since you told me so. I only do a quickformat, as it's a must. In this case I tried with SFSformat that is a quick one too, and finally did a WB quickformat without filling any add.
 
I followed your fantastic "Quick Installation Guide for OS3.9 on WinUAE (with CD-Rom support)" at some points like create emergency disk and unprotect the df0, and I did with DH0 too, as it didn't write all when it tried to self-install os3.9 from the Sys4Aga I installed first.
 
Well, it's true that I coudn't make the OS3.9 start from the Emergency Disk, as it didn't find unit 0 (I tried with unit 1 and 2 too, although I only have one cdrom in the laptop), but I installed without it and OS telling I must do it from it, but (that's extrange) with the Emergency disk inside at the end it said as I was installing from the floppy, to press enter if it was inside, and I did so.
 
The thing is I could install BB1 and BB2, and it worked in the PC, but again it crashed in the Amiga. At least I know it has no relationship with Idefix, as it wasn't installed.
 
As I see it now, there must be some kind of problem with this Sandisk Ultra CF and the rom update, as I can't explain why the Transcend one works in the same Amiga doing the same.
 
I believe I will install it again with BB1, as I don't believe BB2 has to be so neccesary, or up to BB2 without rom update.

[Retrofan]

Hi again:
 
As it's been a long time I will resume the thing:
 
As you know I'm using my 32GB Transcend CF as HD, and I get a problem when I make a cold boot, as the Amiga asks for a floppy to start. Thomas said it hasn't solution, and the only I can do is pressing A+A+Ctrl, start from a warm boot.
 
That works right and that's what I was using. I have to say I only had installed a Hawk Ramboard.
 
The thing is that today I've received a fantastic Blizzard 1260 from Stachu and the first thing I see is that when I make the cold boot it starts right, no floppy demand and all perfect.
 
Thomas can you please tell me why, what has happened? I thought it didn't have any soluti:confused:n...
 
 
EDIT: I have to say I'm happy because I've seen a new Tron movie will be on Cinemas by december

[broken]

Hi again:
 
As it's been a long time I will resume the thing:
 
As you know I'm using my 32GB Transcend CF as HD, and I get a problem when I make a cold boot, as the Amiga asks for a floppy to start. Thomas said it hasn't solution, and the only I can do is pressing A+A+Ctrl, start from a warm boot.
 
That works right and that's what I was using. I have to say I only had installed a Hawk Ramboard.
 
The thing is that today I've received a fantastic Blizzard 1260 from Stachu and the first thing I see is that when I make the cold boot it starts right, no floppy demand and all perfect.
 
Thomas can you please tell me why, what has happened? I thought it didn't have any soluti:confused:n...
 
 
EDIT: I have to say I'm happy because I've seen a new Tron movie will be on Cinemas by december

I have seen this same behavior before.

Couple years ago I had a stock, unaccelerated A1200 with 4 gig Kingston Elite Pro CF card in it. Booted up fine every time. Added in a Paravision 030 accelerator and I would get the same issue as you. I would have to press Control-A-A and then it would boot up fine off the CF card.


I replaced the Kingston card with an 8 gig Sandisk Ultra card and everything was perfect. Would boot up straight away each time.


Bottom line is that results may vary depending on whether the Amiga has an accelerator, brand of CF card, adaptor used, standard ide port or buffered and etc.


But, I really think the CF card is going to be the difference. The English Amiga board has a large thread about using CF cards on the ide bus in the A600 and A1200. You can see folks vary greatly depending on the brand of CF card.