HDToolbox and CF Card problems

[ArcadeGuru]

Hello all,

Have an issue setting up a 4GB CF card to work with the Amiga. I have connected everything up and booted the Amiga using the Installer 3.1 disk. Open up HDToolbox and the Amiga can see the CF card without any problems (I have defined a new drive) Now the confusing part. I create a partition of 208MB and label this as DH0 and bootable. I then save this and reboot. On boot up I then get the partition displayed on the main screen and I can format. Brilliant. Then I go back into HDToolbox and create another partition DH1 at 1.5GB. Save and reboot. On reboot the new partition DH1 does not appear? Go back into HDToolbox and the partition is there. It's set to automount with SFS file system.

I have selected the Default Setup which creates two 1.9GB partitions. These are viewable in the main screen after a reboot. Thought I could cheat it this way. I reduced the first partition to 208MB and created another partition in the free space. Rebooted and the first partition was now 208MB but the second partition was no longer available even though it is visible in HDToolbox? Overall it would seem that even though I can create as many partitions as I like only one will be seen, the first one. If I use the default setup option then I can have 2 partitions as long as I don't amend the second partition, if I do I lose it. I have tried this in WinUae using the CF card as a hard drive but I get exactly the same behaviour?

Anybody have an idea as to what could be wrong? I may be doing something wrong but I cannot see what other settings I can use. Very confusing

[Harrison]

You mentioned SFS file system. Are you using this for all partitions? Ahd are you correctly setting up the partition infomration when creating each partition?

Finally are you using the SFS format program? You cannot format SFS partitions with Workbench Format command. I also recommend not using HDToolbox as it doesn't correctly display sizes of larger drives. Instead I recommend HDInstTool that you can download from the main CA site here.

There is also a very detailed tutorial on setting up an HDD with SFS on our Wiki. The Wiki is however offline at the moment and I'm looking into the problem and will get it back up asap.

[ArcadeGuru]

Thanks Harrison you certainly deserve your guru status I was mainly sticking to the default selections hoping that the software would setup the partitions correctly. My mistake was thinking that when you create the partition it automatically appears in the window as an icon even though you can't use it. Had I formatted it then it would have appeared !

The HDInst programme is excellent. I see what you mean I have spent ages trying to set this up and with this tool I have it done in 2 minutes. I'm not complaining though as I have learnt something and I love the way I can use WinUae like a real Amiga to set things up. I'm just installing workbench then I should be able to plug the card into my 1200 tonight and all should work. Genius.

Thanks once again.

[Harrison]

Glad it was the simple format solution. That catches a lot of people out the first time.

If you are interested in having a nicely setup preconfigured Workbench 3.1 setup then I highly recommend you take a look at ClassicWB. Many different versions for different hardware setups and configured ready for WHDLoad. You can find it at http://classicwb.abime.net/

[Harrison]

If you are interested in looking at the SFS tutorial we have on the Wiki you can go to the page using the following link:

http://wiki.classicamiga.com/index.p..._within_WinUAE

Any links you try from that page to other areas of the Wiki won't currently work as there is a configuration issue on the server I'm trying to fix at the moment, but using this link you will be able to load the specific page about SFS.

[ArcadeGuru]

Thanks Harrison I will take a look at that.

WHDload is next on my list

[Tiago]

If you are interested in looking at the SFS tutorial we have on the Wiki you can go to the page using the following link:

http://wiki.classicamiga.com/index.p..._within_WinUAE

I did that soe time ago and it worked fine. CF Cards are a nice solution for the miggy

[StuKeith]

I am having so many issues at the mo with my CF card in the 600. was fine with the 64mb card but the 1gb card is giving me a headache!

format it in the A600. and goto read in winuae and it either wont read or gives bad block read errors.

hdtoolbox in the 600 wont read it, (Driver not istalled) so have to boot with a wb31 install disc to setup the drive.

hdinstall tools wont see the disc too, unless its 1st made with 31. arrrrhhh