TF328 compatible good brand CF cards

[gtsamour]

Hello,

I recently aquired a CD32 equiped with TF328 expansion. Everything works OK but the CF card on it is a 8GB "Digital Rerory Card" and its probably slow.

https://i.imgur.com/CkYVLehm.jpg

As this CF seems to be low quality Chinese made crap, I would like to get a good brand CF card (Kingston, Sandisk etc) that is known to work well with the TF328. I found a compatiblity list of cards that work and others that don't work but its really short and most of the cards on the "Working" list are difficult to find nowdays and of low capacity.
https://github.com/terriblefire/tf328/wiki/Verified-CF-Cards

Could you please tell me what good brands CF cards do you use in combination with the TF328 so I could buy the exact same one?
That would be a guarantee that I won't be having any compatibility issues.

If you could also share links that could be awesome.

I would rather go with a 16GB or 32GB one, I plan to throw a lot of stuff in there but even a 8Gb of a good brand would be better than the one I have now. Is it possible to add a complete CD32 game to the CF card and execute it from there?
By "complete" I mean the whole thing, with the audio tracks and everything. The CF card I got had some CD32 versions of games in the iGame program but I noticed they had been stripped of the audio tracks.

Finally... what program should I use to back up the contents of my CF card or clone it? I'm still a noob

 

[-Acid-]

What do you mean by slow? those cheap Chinese cards work fine I use them all of the time. I do not think it's possible to play CD audio tracks from anything other than the CD in games.

 

[gtsamour]

I mean slow read/write speeds. Are all CF above the TF328 IDE controller speed capabilities? Aren't some cards faster than others?

 

[fitzsteve]

I go for Sandisk Ultra or Verbertim media these days. I'm using a 64gb Sandisk Ultra 300x with my A1200 / FastATA and 8gb Verbertim 133x with my TF330. I recommend either of these.

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I'm still using WinImage to cloan CF cards or just setup new with WinUAE and copy the data over. Also make sure you're not using old FFS file system. It isn't fast like the name might suggest. I recommend PFS3 AIO. Available on Aminet

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I mean slow read/write speeds. Are all CF above the TF328 IDE controller speed capabilities? Aren't some cards faster than others?

Speed here overall is limited by the IDE controller so in this case I think you get around 2mb/sec which is well within the capability of most modern CF.

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Here you can see IDE speeds in my old sales thread, I replaced by TF330 which incidentally is only slightly faster over IDE. Patching the scsi device can give a speed increase however I'm not sure on the support for CD32. https://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?104989-TF328-8mb-Ram-IDE-Card-Only-for-CD32

 

[gtsamour]

Thank you fitzsteve !!!!

As I researched the issue further (I'm new to the CD32/A1200 scene, I only had a A500 till recently) I discovered that the incompatibility issues were mostly prior to firmware v41 and ofcourse now there might be incompatibility with some cf cards but thats not a major issue anymore.

So I read in a forum someone mentioning that Sandisk Ultra 16GB (50mb/s) worked after the firmware update to v41, and since that was the only confirmed card I could find close by, I ordered that one.

Do you think 16GB for the CD32 is overkill?

I now have to research how to make my own card with all the games and stuff in it, for the moment I know very little but there are guides on youtube. I read on other places too that I should go with the PFS3 system so I will (as soon as I learn how the whole thing works ). Is PFS3 AIO different to the PFS3? My current CF shows PFS3 for it's partitions.

Pitty there aren't any (complete and loaded with goodies) 16GB CF images ready to download and clone, I understand there are copyright issues involved

edit:
I tried to connect the cf card that came with my cd32 through a card reader in order to take an image but the pc doesn't even recognise that something is connected. Any idea why? How do you do it?

 

[fitzsteve]

Hi ya, it's correct that your pc cant read the file system, you can still go ahead and use winimage to back it up. It will create a raw image that can be written back to another CF as long as it's the same size or greater.

If you will use the space then go for it. The complete Whdload pack should fit on 8gb but that wont leave you space for much else. If you just plan to play these games then fine it'll do. You probably wont use bigger than 16gb unless you're composing music, video or coding.

PFS3 AIO is the latest version, it was reworked by Toni Willen who is the coder if WinUAE. Incidentally if you want to read the contents of your CF on a PC you can use this emulator and add it as a hard drive.

If you get stuck setting it up theres plenty of people here too give advice, although slightly outdated now I did do a few guides on YouTube, check my sig. It was a while ago now mind... so my knowledge is a bit shetchy in places.

 

[gtsamour]

Thank you for all the info.

My problem is that the card reader will not even register a drive letter for the cf card, i was expecting the pc wont be able to read the files in it but this is a different problem. Its probably my cf reader, its a bit old (Hama brand) and probably crap. I ordered a KINGSTON FCR-HS4 that has to be good according to the reviews.

If I get an 8GB image from a card, I can clone it to a 16GB card? What happens with the excess space... is it usable after the cloning?

Thank you again for all your help

 

[supaduper]

Thank you for all the info.

My problem is that the card reader will not even register a drive letter for the cf card, i was expecting the pc wont be able to read the files in it but this is a different problem. Its probably my cf reader, its a bit old (Hama brand) and probably crap. I ordered a KINGSTON FCR-HS4 that has to be good according to the reviews.

If I get an 8GB image from a card, I can clone it to a 16GB card? What happens with the excess space... is it usable after the cloning?

Thank you again for all your help

Yes some USB to CF are not good with seeing CF cards in WINuae or even on the PC so can be hit and miss, I use `HAMA` brand ones and they work.

Yes you can put the 8gb image onto a 16gb cf, but then the other 8gb will not be seen, so you need to use the tool `fixhddsize` to see it and format it , obviously format it in PFS3 so it can be used because of the 4gb limit, link to fixhddsize below

http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/fixhddsize

 

[fitzsteve]

That's also correct Windoze will not set a drive letter for unknown file systems, it will list be listed by Disk number, you can check disk management to see if it's seen. In WinUAE or Disk management tools it should be visible.

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Also just don't let windows make any changes to the card, it will destroy the file system.

 

[gtsamour]

Thanks guys !!!!

I already went to "Manage", not showing up there either. I suspect my old card reader has a problem with "seeing" the most recent technology cards (like U1, U3, XC, HC etc).
It's led goes on and off like its trying to do something. When I get my new Kingston reader, that one is going to the bin.

 

[xubidoo]

i also have that Sandisk ultra 50mb/s 16gb card, works fine , and i also have an image of an 8gb backup on it lol , unfortunately fixhddsize does not restore it to its full size , it makes it around 8.4gb in total which isn't much of an increase really, but other than that , its a great card,no problems with it.
I have 1 of those cheap chinese cards as backup but tbh i dont really see any difference between it and the sandisk.

 

[fitzsteve]

i also have that Sandisk ultra 50mb/s 16gb card, works fine , and i also have an image of an 8gb backup on it lol , unfortunately fixhddsize does not restore it to its full size , it makes it around 8.4gb in total which isn't much of an increase really, but other than that , its a great card,no problems with it.
I have 1 of those cheap chinese cards as backup but tbh i dont really see any difference between it and the sandisk.

Maybe you're using PFS3 without patching your SCSI device so only getting 8gb support?

To get past 8gb you need SFS or PFS3 bit in addition you must patch the SCSI Device.

 

[gtsamour]

In order to setup a 16gb CF card and being able to access the whole capacity, do I need to install workbench 3.9 instead of 3.1? This was mentioned in a you tube tutorial...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2V3wQ2YjnA

Or do I just need a patched scsi.device 43.45 ?

 

[MadMaxGR]

@gtsamour I have brand new old stock Verbatim CF 8GB cards if still interested for quality memory card.

Sent from my MI MAX 2 using Tapatalk

 

[gtsamour]

Thanks MadMaxGR but I already found one that works of a known brand.
I bought a Sandisk Ultra 16gb and it works fine, I'm just looking for a way to take advantage of the whole 16gb not just 8.

 

[fitzsteve]

Avoid OS3.9 as it will use too much Ram (you only have 8mb on the TF328) You will need the TF330 for 3.9 ideally. To use the whole 16gb you need to patch the scsi device as well as a file system such as PFS3 or SFS.

 

[gtsamour]

I already have pfs3aio file system and the scsi.device.43.45 installed as the guide I followed. Is the scsi.device.43.45 already patched or the scsi.device.43.45 needs to be patched?

At the moment the system only recognizes the 16gb cf as 8gb.

 

[fitzsteve]

Did you write an 8gb image to your CF? You'll need to update the RDB if this is the case to unlock the remaining 8gb. Also worth noting old versions of HD Toolbox might not appear to show all the space due to the 4gb overlap. To update the RDB automatically use Thomas' Fixhdd program: https://thomas-rapp.homepage.t-online.de/download.html

 

[gtsamour]

No I didn't use an 8gb image, I started from scratch as per this guide... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2V3wQ2YjnA

Installed WB 3.1, is the HDTool in 3.1 outdated?

EDIT:
Nevermind, I used Fixhdd and the rest of the capacity (8gb) has appeared, made it into 2 more 4GB partitions. What I noticed though is that if I set those two in PFS3AIOfile system, the formatting of these partitions is impossible ("object too large" message).
So I set the filesystem for these two at SFS (standard file system) and the quick format was done successfully.

 

[xubidoo]

Was me that wrote an 8gb image to my 16gb card, fixed it eventually though using CLI PFSDOCTOR and the Fixhdd , back to 16gb with 8gb used, tried adding/enlarging partitions but no go as it messes up other partitions, but at least its back to its correct size and pfsdoctor sorted out quite a few errors., 2 really usefull programs.