Questions about CF cards and readers

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Eddie123

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Hello fellow Amiga lovers.

I have a couple of questions regarding Amiga 1200, and CF cards.

I have seen on Ebay, that you can buy a double CF card reader, for very little money. Does anyone know if this one will work in my A1200 ?

Also, you can buy SD card to IDE adapters, anyone have any experience with these ?

And, finally, how about using a CF or CD card larger than 4GB, is that possible ? It would not be used for booting, already have 4GB for that, but for storage for WHDload, etc.

Thank you

Vegard
 
You're referring to the PCMCIA slot? If so, I have found that you even need to be careful about which brand of CF card you use. I have many that don't work.
 
If you are talking about CF to IDE internal converters ,then yes some do work. I have read on Cosmos blog and I think I have seen Zetr0 mention working ones somewhere on here. They effectively allow you to have a master/slave set up.:thumbsup:

I would not guarentee all of them though. Different ones may or may not work.
 
Yes, I am talking about CF to IDE, or SD to IDE.

I was hoping to add storage to my rig, for WHDload
 
Heisann Vegard!

As Graham says it seems that some work and some don't.
The internal IDE is also known to not always work that well with two units (master/slave) in general.

You are limited to 4GB or 8GB with direct-scsi mode (SFS or PFS3 file systems) with original IDE drivers (scsi.device resident in kickstart ROM).
You can have more, but then you need to take more care, and use patched software.

I use this 8gb SD card with PFS3 direct-scsi and this adapter on the onboard IDE of a600 and a1200 without any problems.
Have an extra set of these, and I'm coming to Bergen on Oct 8th if you're interested :)

Cheers,
Frode
 
Hi there.

Thamks for the offer, I already have one SD adapter, but I havent tried it yet, since I dont have a cable that allow sme to connect 2 IDE devices.

But thanks still !

Vegard


frodegh said:
Heisann Vegard!

As Graham says it seems that some work and some don't.
The internal IDE is also known to not always work that well with two units (master/slave) in general.

You are limited to 4GB or 8GB with direct-scsi mode (SFS or PFS3 file systems) with original IDE drivers (scsi.device resident in kickstart ROM).
You can have more, but then you need to take more care, and use patched software.

I use this 8gb SD card with PFS3 direct-scsi and this adapter on the onboard IDE of a600 and a1200 without any problems.
Have an extra set of these, and I'm coming to Bergen on Oct 8th if you're interested :)

Cheers,
Frode
Click to expand...
 
Ok, good. Interested to hear how it goes with two units.
Never tried it, as 8GB is more than enough for me.
(Back in the days my a500 HDD was 20 megabyte...)
 
For all you guru's out there. If I have installed the fat32 driver, and whatever rest needed to read a fat32 formated CF card in the pcmcia slot, is this also enough to get the same card recognised when used in a cf to ide converter ?

Vegard
 
in a cf to ide adaptor, it will be recognised as a native hdd, so no need for any changes at all. Though you won't be able to use fat32 anymore afaik.
 
Well, that was my main question, really: Can I use a fat32 CF card in a CF to IDE adapter ?
 
Eddie123 said:
Well, that was my main question, really: Can I use a fat32 CF card in a CF to IDE adapter ?
Click to expand...

It might be possible to mount it as a partition for storage but I doubt you could boot from it. You'll need someone very technical to explain how though and if it is possible since this is not normal usage.

You normally use a file system like FFS, SFS or PFS3 for Amiga Partitions on the native IDE. FAT(16) or FAT32 are normally used on PCMCIA for removable storage and for transfering files via PC/Amiga.

If you want to use a CF card over 4gb (such as 8gb/16gb) on IDE this is possible but you will need to install an updated FFS, SFS or PFS3 file system and you will also need to patch the scsi.device (the IDE driver) to see partitions outside the first 4gb. You boot partition will still need to be smaller than 4gb and within that said 4gb window.

You can also use IDEFIX97 drivers to overcome the 4gb barrier and these would be even more useful if fitted a 4Way Buffered IDE device which is a better way of using more than one IDE device :)

I hope that helps.

Steve.
 
Thanks for the reply.

I would not use the fat32 card for booting, just as extra permanent storage, already have a 1 GB CF card as boot device, and was just interested in getting a 4 GB one in there for storage.

The 4 way adapter, is ti easy to install ? Works fine ?

Vegard
 
Eddie123 said:
Thanks for the reply.

I would not use the fat32 card for booting, just as extra permanent storage, already have a 1 GB CF card as boot device, and was just interested in getting a 4 GB one in there for storage.

The 4 way adapter, is ti easy to install ? Works fine ?

Vegard
Click to expand...

Hi,

The 4Way IDE is easy to install and works great, you could even mount your second CF card in a location that gives access to remove the CF without opening the Amiga (like at the SCSI bay) the software is easy to install and reliable.

I'm still not 100% sure how you would go about mounting a FAT32 partition though, I would suggest trying SFS and you can use WinUAE to transfer files to the CF card. You wont need to patch the SCSI if you are using a 4gb CF/IDEFix97.

Here is a link to the adapter:

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=532

I would run the second CF on the secondary IDE to the SCSI port at the back of the case.

You may be able to get two CF's to work on a twin CF adapter but as I understand they don't always work, the Dual CF adapter I have here don't work in my A4000, well only as 1 CF :cool:

Steve.
 
Eddie123 said:
Thanks for the advice !

I have one more question : I am looking on amigakit, and they have at least 2 adapters,
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=42&products_id=532
and
http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=425

What is the difference?

Vegard
Click to expand...


Hi, the second board has the 'express' adapter, it will boost the IDE speed from 1.8-2mb/sec to about 4-5mb/sec this of course makes your applications and games load quicker and the who system a lot more responsive. AFAIK the IDEFix Express is sold out, the only other option is the FastATA MkIV, but this is much more expensive:

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1052

With the FastATA you will see speeds 6-8mb/sec maybe more! (up to about 10mb/sec) But this is really only for those looking to boost their system...

The standard IDEFix adapter does not give any extra speed to the stock IDE but it does provide a buffer between the IDE devices.

Steve.
 
Hi there. Thanks for good advice, I hope to be able to connect a lot of stuff to my Amiga. I had the hope to connect an accelerator too, but I cant get it too work.... Which is a shame...


Vegard
 
Too bad about the Jaws accellerator!

If you get an IDE fix adapter, know that the IDEfix97 drivers accepts fewer CF cards than the onboard IDE.
(IDEfix97 requires 'fixed' type cards, and scsi.device accept both fixed and removable types.)
I posted a (work-in-progress) FAQ on removable media here with some more info.

As for using FAT32 on IDE, that's very uncommon as people use PCMCIA for that as fitzsteve said.
I believe it should be possible by creating a mountfile using scsi.device (hdtoolbox can not be used, it requires an RDB, FAT requires an MBR) but I never tried anything like it.
You could start by modifying the CF0 file from devs/dosdrivers or storage/dosdrivers, and replace references to compactflash.device with scsi.device, and see if you get anywhere.. :)

If your planned setup is 1+4GB CF's, I would still prefer to get an 8gb SD card, mount it in WinUAE for the initial setup, and get a small CF or SD card and PCMCIA adapter for future transfers.
(PCMCIA adapters and 1-2GB cards are only a few euros..)

Good luck in any case!

Edit: Without an accellerator board, you will have really slow IDE speeds, with or without third party IDE controllers.
 
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