Kingston 4GB CF card problem

[Harrison]

I've got a couple of Kingston 4GB CF memory cards and just got hold of some CF to IDE adapters for about £1 each from a Chinese ebay seller.

I know the adapters should work OK as many people are using the same adapters with their Amigas perfectly well. The problem I current have is not being able to get the Kingston CF cards to work properly.

Is anyone else using CF cards as an Amiga HDD, and have you used Kingston CF cards? The cards I have are the ones with the flower on the label.

The problems I've had started with partitioning. I've tried both on an Amiga with a CF card adapter, and in WinUAE using a USB card reader, and also even tried by connecting the CF card adapter to an external USB HDD enclosure. All have the same problems, so I think it is the CF cards themselves.

Using HDToolbox booted from a Workbench 3.1 install disk it can see the CF card and correctly ID its size. It also then let me partition it. But on rebooting the Amiga or WinUAE only the first partition can be seen by Workbench. On reloading HDToolbox all the partitions are correctly shown as still being there.

I then tried HDInstTool and that worked better at partitioning the CF card more easily. But on reboot the additional partitions still didn't appear. But HDInstTool has a feature to allow formatting of partitions inside the program, rather than having to use Workbench. So after doing this all the partitions then appeared and could be used.

After finally getting this to work I copied a WB3.1 disk onto the boot partition and the CF card successfully booted into Workbench via both WinUAE and on a real Amiga.

However, I then tried to copy ClassicWB into the CF card and it started throwing up loads of false checksum errors. I've read online that this can be due to the max transfer and mask settings for the partitions being too large, so I've tried reducing them to under 64KB, but it still doesn't help and the checksum errors still occur.

Anyone got any ideas?

Someone has also suggested I try patching HDToolbox on the Install 3.1 disk to update it and then try partitioning again with that. So I'm going to try that when I have time.

If anyone is using CF cards can you let me know the make and model, as I might consider getting a different make as I think the Kingston cards are the problem. I've heard Sandisk are meant to be the most successful make to use. Any truth in that?

For something that was quite a simple process, this has ended up being quite annoying. I've currently reverted to using the existing 6GB 2.5" IDE drive in the A600 again until I can get this to work.

[ArcadeGuru]

Hi Harrison,

This does ring bells. I have the Kingston 4GB card with the flower on the front. I had issues only when using the HDToolBox utility. It would create the drives but they would not show on reboot. See thread,

http://forum.classicamiga.com/forum/...ead.php?t=3989

No matter what I did it just would not work. I ended up using the HDInstall utility and that put a smile back on my face. All drives appeared but only after formatting. I did install ClassicWB as well which worked ok. Apart from this I have had no issues. I am intending on changing the Max transfer rate though as I have some issues running some WHDLoad games (Powerdrift will not run) and I believe this could be the cause.

Specs of CF Card

CF/4GB 9904321-006.A00LF
3.3V/5V 4667400-0753549 X001


Hope this helps.

[Harrison]

Thanks for the info. I forgot about StuKeith's post at the bottom of that other thread. It looks like he was having exactly the same issues I'm having. I will have to PM him to see if he sorted them out.

Your problem with games not running might not be Max transfer as Workbench should throw up a checksum error message if it is. Is your copy of WHDLoad registered? Many games won't run properly if it isn't. And also a pirated key used with WHDLoad will create some strange results.

[ArcadeGuru]

Yes I have registered with WHDLoad. I think it was a checksum error from what I remember. I know Pinball Fantasies will not run but that was a kickstart error. Will investigate. Will post a thread next time I try Powerdrift a take a shot of the error.

Hope you get your CF card issue sorted.

I might be posting some more questions at the weekend as I have a SCSI CD-ROM being delivered on Friday. Going to hook it up and try to run some CD32 games, hopefully

[Harrison]

A WHDLoad kickstart error is normally because you need a copy of the Kickstart 1.3 rom in the WHDLoad installation directory so the loader can use it to run older games that are not compatible with newer Amigas.

How are you connecting the SCSI drive up? Squirrel or another SCSI card?

[ArcadeGuru]

I have all the kickstart roms so I assume I ahve a corrupt version.

I have a Blizzard SCSI adaptor attached to a Blizzard 1260. I found a SCSI drive on ebay which I have bought. I'm not sure if I have to download some drivers so Workbench can use the drive? Also do I have to download some CD32 emulation software?

[Harrison]

I'm not sure about CD32 emulation software for Blizzard SCSI. I've used Squirrel SCSI software that emulates CD32 quite well, and also IDEFix does too.

Yes you will need to install drivers and then setup a CD0: device for the drive. All drivers and manuals for your card can be found at the unofficial support page, http://phase5.a1k.org/

Manual is at http://phase5.a1k.org/files/blizzard_scsi_kit_iv_en.pdf

SCSI install disk at http://phase5.a1k.org/pix/lha_lg.jpg

And with the 060, don't forget to install the 060 systemdisk and then update the library, so the card is working to its full potential.

BTW, whilst the 060 is much more compatible with the same software as that for the 030, some might still fail to run, including some WHDLoad games.

[ArcadeGuru]

Thanks for that Harrison. I have all the phase 5 drivers installed so hopefully I should be good to go (the cd drive bit anyway) I will search out the CD32 solution.

The system disk was a necessity. After plugging the 1260 card in and booting the Amiga, I got the guru meditation ! The System disk sorted that one out.

[Harrison]

You may need to configure the CD drives device driver by editing the icon tooltypes once you have connected it up. It has been a long time since I used a SCSI CD drive with any of my Amigas as I since switched to IDE drives in both my A4000 and A1200's, but I seem to remember you have to check the correct SCSI device is set in the device driver and also I think the SCSI ID.