How can I troubleshoot a PCMCIA CF card on an A1200?

cannontrodder

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I've got a 1200 booting from IDE->CF internally but just cannot seem to get an external card to be recognised. I've tried a Transcend 4GB 133x card and a SanDisk 4GB 200X card.

I grabbed the fat95 and cfd packages directly form Aminet a couple of days ago, so I know I have the latest versions. compactflash.device is in DEVS:, fat95 in L: and I dragged the CF0 device into devs/dosdrivers.

I've formatted both cards as fat32 on the smallest allocation size (but have since gone back and tried fat16 too) but I don't get any icons appearing on the workbench when I insert them. I've read so many different ideas and tips that I'm bewildered by the permutations and trying to be careful that I am not bouncing around randomly trying things without any method.

If I boot the 1200 with the PCMCIA with card already inserted, I get the timer mouse pointer for about a minute but then nothing. Double-clicking on the CF0 icon gives me the message that it is already mounted but beyond this I am getting no further.

I know there is a lot of advice saying that some cards just don't work but I don't want to just endlessly keep buying cards when I may be doing something very simple incorrectly. I'd love to even just buy a card if I had a degree of certainty that it would work!

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
 
Pretty sure Transcend don't work and some of the faster Sandisk can be troublesome too. Try one of the old 512mb/1gb Blue Sandisk CF's, these are the best ones for the job. Maybe someone can lend you a compatible CF?
 
I have mainly used Sandisk Ultra cards (2/4GB) both for PCMCIA and internal IDE and have never had any issues with them.
 
I have updated my CFD but sadly no change and that's on either of the two cards. I have ordered an older 1GB card for one final go.

Sir_lucas, I think that's really only for internal connections and while it'd be simpler to copy from drive to drive, it'd be great if I could plug a card in when my Amiga is all screwed together.

The tricky part here is I see *nothing*, is there anything I can do to confirm a card has even been seen (despite it not working)
 
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You don't have anything disabling the CF port do you (thinking 8mb Ram Board for example)
 
The tricky part here is I see *nothing*, is there anything I can do to confirm a card has even been seen (despite it not working)
I think PrepCard (included in WB) should show that something is connected (although it cannot be used for anything).
 
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You don't have anything disabling the CF port do you (thinking 8mb Ram Board for example)

No, apart from the internal IDE-CF boot card this is pretty much a vanilla 1200. I suppose it is always possible that there is some other hardware problem but it seems to be in working order and a visual inspection of the motherboard shows no corrosion or obvious capacitor leaks.

- - - Updated - - -

The tricky part here is I see *nothing*, is there anything I can do to confirm a card has even been seen (despite it not working)
I think PrepCard (included in WB) should show that something is connected (although it cannot be used for anything).

Excellent, it does report the card - both of them, in fact. That's a bit of a relief :D
 
One more thing comes to my mind.
CardReset and CardPatch.

You'll find both of them on Aminet.
Then add these two line to your startup-sequence

C:CardPatch
run >NIL: C:CardReset TICKS 50
 
CardReset and CardPatch are meant for PCMCIA cards that do interrupts such as NICs. I don't think they have any effect on CF cards. I know I have used PCMCIA CF cards many times without those programs.
 
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I think they are needed for every device that use PCMCIA port. Anyway, it won't hurt to try that as well.
 
One more thing comes to my mind.
CardReset and CardPatch.

You'll find both of them on Aminet.
Then add these two line to your startup-sequence

C:CardPatch
run >NIL: C:CardReset TICKS 50

Nothing new to report, but yes - worth a try anyway.

Just to ensure I am not making a mistake, I took the card from the IDE boot connector and swapped it with one of the new cf cards. I then re-installed Workbench, the cf drivers and fat95 and tried my old boot card in the external pcmcia adaptor an that cannot be read.

It seems to me I'm running out of options and I suppose there's no hiding from the fact that some cards just won't work. I'll wait on for the older card to arrive unless there are any suggestions in the meantime.

Thanks for all the help, so far everyone :D
 
You will need to format the old boot card in windows

Yes, I've been using Windows to format the cards I have tried with PCMCIA with fat32 so I did this when I tried the old boot card externally.


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Back to your orignal request, the old cf cards do ALL WORK. Talking about 512 mb, 16 mb, 256mb etc.. I keep them all for that use.. Officially larger sizes should work, but never tried beyond that limit. But I did get some problems, even with small cards I always did disk check in windows. Then no problems.. But in my experience don't keep swapping without regular cf check in windows.
 
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Back to your orignal request, the old cf cards do ALL WORK. Talking about 512 mb, 16 mb, 256mb etc.. I keep them all for that use.. Officially larger sizes should work, but never tried beyond that limit. But I did get some problems, even with small cards I always did disk check in windows. Then no problems.. But in my experience don't keep swapping without regular cf check in windows.

I have just tried a 1GB card and nothing again. I've ordered a 128mb and 256mb card as a last resort. Am I really being this unlucky?
 
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