FastATA MkIII & CF Cards

Hi Ya'll,

Was having a little play last night with my Amiga 1200 Tower. I removed all the PCI Cards, Mediator, Roms and installed my FastATA that I removed from my Desktop A1200 last week.

Until now I was using (albiet it slowly lol) a 4 Way Buffered IDE Device with my A1200T and a variety of CF Cards with various setups on them however the bulk of my data, games and such along with my main OS3.9 setup are running off the Blizzard PPC SCSI.

Anyway, the FastATA installed fine and fits ok under the mediator and I hooked up a couple of 40way IDE cables to the two IDE headers, ran one to the DVDRW and one to my CF-IDE on the back plane.

When I boot the HDD LED will flash a few times to suggest its looking for an IDE but it does not pick up any of the CF cards :( Therefore just goes ahead and boots from the SCSI and none of the partitions for the CF card are shown nor are they visable in the Boot menu.

Now, I have used CF cards on this FastATA but I used them on the 44pin header with a little CF-IDE adapter, is this the only way CF cards will work with the FastATA?

Its worth noting I've not installed the FastATA drivers yet however normally it will at least boot without them as otherwise we have a chicken and egg situation lol, how to install the drivers if the drive isn't seen :huh:

Thanks for any advice!

Steve.

As far as i'm aware, the FastATA will allow booting from the primary IDE port in PIO 0 on master without drivers (basically just as if it were connected to the standard IDE port). The Secondary port isn't recognised until the driver is loaded, neither are the speed increases up to PIO 4. There shouldn't be any issue with 40 or 44 pin as the extra pins are just power. as long as you have a floppy power connector plugged into your CF - IDE adapter it should be just the same. :)

Assuming you've got your CF - IDE adapter set as Master, and you've got the right cable plugged into the adapter it should work....

Hey Phippy, its defo all hooked up correctly, pin1-pin1, Master, etc...

I seem to recall this CF-IDE adapter being a bit fussy before now I think about it.

I'm going to try another adapter later...

Might end up taking your other advice though ;)

FastATA ->>>:explode

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Originally Posted by fitzsteve

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FastATA ->>>:explode

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You're telling me! - Probably the worst peripheral ever released for the A1200. :computertrash:

Kin

@Steve,

AFAIK the fast ATA has the two primary connectors, 44 pin 2.5 inch and 40 pin 3.5 inch. Only one of these primary connectors can be used at a time. The secondary 40 pin is for CD or DVD ROMS (or more disks of course).

What does your early boot screen tell you about detected disks?

Can you disconnect your SCSI in case that is getting priority, just to see if it then boots from IDE?

Something else to check. Is the little black wire connecting to pin 39 ok? The one I have was very loose, had to squish it a little to get a good connection.

---------- Post added at 10:38 ---------- Previous post was at 10:35 ----------

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kin Hell

Quote:

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Originally Posted by fitzsteve

<snip>

FastATA ->>>:explode

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You're telling me! - Probably the worst peripheral ever released for the A1200. :computertrash:

Kin

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:) I'd give that honour to the A1200 Mediator :hammer:

Hi Ed.D,

Thanks for the suggestion, I didn't try without the SCSI so I'll check that. If it is a problem that I cannot share the FastATA and the SCSI then its going to be no use to be becuase I need to be able to share the files.

The little black wire is only for HDD activity, so you can even run without out that plugged in, you just wont get any HDD activity LED.

Early boot screen only sees the BlizPPC.device :(

Cheers & will update later, but looks like the 4WayIDE will be going back in!

@Kinny :D

Steve.

Hi Steve,

Checked if cable to pin 39 is fitted well? Sometimes go out or cable is bad..... I see your answer about black cable..... But If I remember well... wihtout black cable connected nothing works...

Time a go I have one A1200T with FastATA and woks fine with CF's & HDD's.

On my old system I work together with Blizzard SCSI kit (DVD, no HDD) and IDE CF-HDD.... :thumbsup: CF as PM, HDD as SM.

Of course, you get the best performance with the drivers installed

I don't know about BPPC's sorry.... :(

Best wishes

Gah Steve. You have no idea. JuvUK sent a Fast ATA to Zetr0 becuase he couldn't get it to work. Apparently, Zetr0 got it to work & sent it to me because of the real bad SCSI headache I was having with ravestar's A1200 PPC Tower build. I'd had ravestars mobo on the workbench for weeks trying to suss out the SCSI headache & the mobo was powered from a floppy header connection taken from an Enermax 365W PSU. That same Fast ATA controller caused the 5v wire on this connection to light up like a roman candle. It scorched the external floppy port really badly. - imnogeek sent me a replacement mobo; - Zeets had the scorched one; - ravestar was a happy chappy again & Zeeets told me my old scorched board worked fine. :Doh: :shrug:

Wtf all round, though the interface for the ROM sockets is cheap & very very nasty.

I need a coffee for re-living that one..... :coffee:

Kin

Merlinkv's suggestion is correct.
Check the Single wire that leads to IDE pin 39. It's very much required for FastATA to operate correctly and if it doesn't make a solid connection you're gonna have issues.
As Phipscube said... With FastATA you can only operate under IDE0 channel (Primary+Secondary) but you can't see the IDE1 unless you install the ATA3 declaration in Startup-Sequence plus ATA3.prefs program.

I kinda agree with Kin Hell on that though. FastATA is indeed a <polite mode>weird</polite_mode> device that works fine only per case :D
Idefix Express is really a so much stable and trustworthy device

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Originally Posted by mfilos

Merlinkv's suggestion is correct.
Check the Single wire that leads to IDE pin 39. It's very much required for FastATA to operate correctly and if it doesn't make a solid connection you're gonna have issues.
As Phipscube said... With FastATA you can only operate under IDE0 channel (Primary+Secondary) but you can't see the IDE1 unless you install the ATA3 declaration in Startup-Sequence plus ATA3.prefs program.

I kinda agree with Kin Hell on that though. FastATA is indeed a <polite mode>weird</polite_mode> device that works fine only per case :D
Idefix Express is really a so much stable and trustworthy device

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+1 for the Idefix Express! Much more reliable, nice software but only letdown is speed.

The FastATA just doesn't play well with the BPPC, or heavily expanded systems in general. I did have it running stellar with only my old Mtec 1230-28 RTC in the A1200, If anyone asks me about the FastATA i'd say great for a light expansion 030 machine, pain in the butt for anything more. I've kept mine aside as a possible future use in a cleaner more simple A1200 running WHDLoad or something....