Broken Falcon IDE drive side effects

[wongck]

its all very well saying use mint or magic etc etc
but what ever way you still need to boot up tos first from a 1GB card

yeap totally agree with you otherwise how else to boot up tos you still need a gemdos partition for sure.

[wongck]

so im sure we all agree mint is cool and nice with yogart and pakora...

Trebor XXX extra strong....

however still needs tos or a boot floppy etc...
the best overall solution i found myself was to use a 1GB sdcard and the adapter mentioned

[wongck]

you still need to boot up tos first from a 1GB card. 2GB card's or bigger will not work easily for hddriver etc to actualy see the card

I am not familiar with this limitation. Is it a limitation of the SD adapter? A limitation of HDDriver when used with an SD adapter?

It's TOS limitation of 1GB for Falc.
Nothng to do with the SD adapter. of course the adapter chipset may be able to read 2GB max or 4GB max or SHDC 32 GB. it depends.
On my 6yr old digial camera, max is 2 GB but my PSP with micro-SD can read up to 8GB.

HDDriver mentioned that it can do up to 2 TB.

[wongck]

It cannot be a volume size limitation can it? I only ask because I used HDDriver 8.23 to partition my 60GB 2.5" IDE hard drive and now my Falcon is booting to TOS just fine.
IDE hard drives should be no different to an SD adapter + card, yes?

Your Hddriver is able to recognise up to 2 TB drives, so 60GB is peanuts to it.

Is your Falcon booting from a single 60 GB IDE HDD?
How did you overcome the TOS limitation??

Only difference for me, between IDE hard drives and SD adapter + card is that the Hard drives seems faster...

[alexh]

Is your Falcon booting from a single 60 GB IDE HDD?

Yes. The boot partition is only 1022MBytes though.

How did you overcome the TOS limitation??

This is why I asked for clarification if this limitation was about physical drive size or just the size of the primary boot partition.

Simbo's post read as though it was a physical drive size limitation but joska (and my empirical evidence) seems to indicate it is only a partition limitation.

[wongck]

Is your Falcon booting from a single 60 GB IDE HDD?

Yes. The boot partition is only 1022MBytes though.

How did you overcome the TOS limitation??

This is why I asked for clarification if this limitation was about physical drive size or just the size of the primary boot partition.

Simbo's post read as though it was a physical drive size limitation but joska (and my empirical evidence) seems to indicate it is only a partition limitation.

Sorry I did not asked the question correctly.... I meant to ask if your 60GB was entirely of single partition size of 60GB and TOS was able to read and boot from that single 60GB partition.
Guess your answer is No to the above as your single partition is 1022MB (seems a familiar number ).

For me, the limitation is the boot partition of < 1GB always.

[Desty]

Ok I got this & it don't seems to work with my internal HDD either as master or slave.
A no-brand name model, only good thing about it is cheap
It is looks exactly like this

I always worry (and laugh) when I buy something from eBay (usually HK due to their mysteriously free/cheap postage) and it has a "QC PASSED" sticker

It's kind of like getting a weird parcel with "NOT A BOMB" printed on it.

[wongck]

I always worry (and laugh) when I buy something from eBay (usually HK due to their mysteriously free/cheap postage) and it has a "QC PASSED" sticker

What can one do when you open up a branded HP notebook and see the same component that are MIC as well ?
Guess their QC is just better than those on eBay.

[wongck]

It's kind of like getting a weird parcel with "NOT A BOMB" printed on it.

For what's it worth, it does work.
It's cost less than a meal at Macdonalds so I do not expect much from it.
They probably took off some components (like the master/slave select) to cut cost.
The chip itself, from the specs I dl from the maker, does support it.
Otherwise, it's a reject... probably from HP/Lenovo/Dell/Acer/etc ... and made it into this board.

[Shredder11]

I've ordered the SD IDE 44-pin adapter to try from Deal Extreme, so I will report back with my findings in a few weeks time.

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.18013

I've not plugged in and tried it yet, but here is the user manual that I have just scanned a few mins ago.

[wongck]

The user guide looks more like a marketing brochure with what it can do....

[simbo]

listen for sdcards adapter its quite easy

you simply when booting hddriver disk
when it recognises the hardware
do an auto config from hdutil.prg tools menu
the logical lun window appears and offers lun choice
then enable for falcon lun 1,0 1,1 and scsi processor id 0,7
then grab 1,1 id and drop it on 1,0 this changes the ide boot id order
instead of saying

1,0 1,1 1,2 etc boxes
it says
1,1 1,0 1,2 etc
you must also load the driver to hdutil by first setting up the scsi driver parts
then reboot then do an autoconfig

this will allow the ide slave to be bootable and the driver copy on the floppy to install correctly

like i use here

falcon ide >> master ide or has no choice jumper sdcard windows card any size >> ide slave hdd or cf card with adapter set to slave and bootable as at least one gem partition of 1GB i used a 4gb cf card and split too 4 c,d,e,f and g becomes the master sd windows card {only accesed via bigdos} try to use fat but fat 32 will work ...


falcon ide <<>> master ide >><< slave ide
is old standard NOT more recent udma is like
ide <<>> slave >><< master

and you can format it and install the driver to the slave device
ie the slave ide falcon will then boot and be bootable gem part...

the net result is
once you add bigdos to the cf boot card auto folder you can make on ide slave bootdisk
you can use a sdcard as master {ive used 16GB card with ease}
with the above unit and it will then be avalible to windows and tos
its really a no brainer if you actualy read the hddriver manual
and note that you can drag and drop the bootable choice etc and order of driver disk scanning
both on the floppy and the hddriver.sys


8.13 worked for me only with 1gb cards
however 8.23 does the job fine and see's any card i pluged into cf or sd card
and hot swap worked fine also for the sdcard
i just use this to transfer from/to falcon and ste etc ...
also note when you have installed the driver to the hdd
before you reboot
also make a folder on your bootdrive and copy the hddriver disk contence there
run hdutil again and set the driver on the boot disk by auto config the same way
there seems to be some bugs in how hddriver copies its setting into the file hddriver.sys
on the boot disk uses to configure itself



i hope this makes sense

you can get to the msn atari group by adding me to your msn account
im sure someone will be on the msn atari forum group to answer

my msn details are accessed by clicking profile then the msn button


i also note you can have one ide set as cable select or master but one must be set to slave

uwe's manual says use master/slave physical setting
but in practice as long as the last drive on the cable is a physical id jumper as slave
a cs type master will work aok
provided you dont boot from it and move the lun id over as above...

i also used a sd/mmc type 2 adapter for sdcard to cf
mounted as a master in a similar way
also tried some cf microdrives and they worked as master or slave
but only with the later 8.23 driver unless they are 1GB or less
it seems 8.23 is needed for better interchange between sd card cf support and ste st satandisk/windows swap card,s

[simbo]

the problem with these 'master only' sd to ide adapter cards is the partition size
to be seen by any ide interface the card has to send 'fake geometry'
i beleve this info is sent to hddriver far outside its desired ~1GB gem limit

so it cant be used as a boot drive easily

you must therefore use it as a non bootable master ide and via bigdos
it seems only access speed it comprimised to the windows card with bigdos resident

if you unload big dos
as long as you dont try to boot from the sdcard it just comes up as an icon that cant be opened

you can also just turn off the master 1,0 ide and leave 1,1 enabled
only using the ide master when a transfer is needed

[wongck]

the problem with these 'master only' sd to ide adapter cards is the partition size
to be seen by any ide interface the card has to send 'fake geometry'
i beleve this info is sent to hddriver far outside its desired ~1GB gem limit

yeah i thought about that and so i put in my old 256mb
sd card as the media along with my hdd as slave but
unfortunately it still cannot work correctly.
when i do a hddriver device query, it sees 2 device but
the description is corrupted for both of them

further I am see the data access light on the sd adapter
turnning on at all the time when accessing the drives

individually the drive works perfectly and using a 2gb sd
i can easiy partition to 2 x 1gb partition and copy stuff on
to it back and fro and tested using the lzh file so that i can
test the crc tested as ok

[simbo]

the problem with these 'master only' sd to ide adapter cards is the partition size
to be seen by any ide interface the card has to send 'fake geometry'
i beleve this info is sent to hddriver far outside its desired ~1GB gem limit

yeah i thought about that and so i put in my old 256mb
sd card as the media along with my hdd as slave but
unfortunately it still cannot work correctly.
when i do a hddriver device query, it sees 2 device but
the description is corrupted for both of them

further I am see the data access light on the sd adapter
turnning on at all the time when accessing the drives

individually the drive works perfectly and using a 2gb sd
i can easiy partition to 2 x 1gb partition and copy stuff on
to it back and fro and tested using the lzh file so that i can
test the crc tested as ok

but did you move the id from 1,0 to 1,1 as the booting partition ???

i had to install hd driver AND bigdos before i could see the partition

i use exactly the same little adapter and it sees and i can use 16gb cards
at the same time as hdd
perhaps there is some bad solders or something else is wrong...

[wongck]

yeah i did that
make the 1st ide as boot drive
then make the 2nd ide as the boot drive
also tried running off from floppy the driver
after by pass hdd booting
all same results

in fact the best result was running from floppy
but after accessing it 2nd time round stuffs gets corrupted
my guess is that the initial scanning by running off the floppy
was only able to query 1 device and then accessing it to detect
subsequent device corrupts the ide dma bus
where by rendering the entire bus useless

[simbo]

? did you have a sdcard in place

becouse what i had to do was have no card in place till the slave was happy

its then 'seen' correctly as an adapter and once i had installed and tweaked the driver
as ide slave id bootable
and added bigdos
i could see windows cards boot or not seemed aok
ill check again today as i have setup the falcon for other additions so ill confirm this method

just not sure but it seems to have some sort of default condition
that if you use a warm cold boot then do work instead of off and on or reset button
this default condition isnt loaded again

but as power on after its all setup will not scan the card this state seems to stay friendly

not sure the controller may use internal nvram in a 'happy' fitted state
and revert to default like block mode 32bit fat 32 etc expected
if its unplugged from the adapter and replugged in
becouse the next machine will scan it first time
another way

ill document the method and add a guide to the guide section

if its small enough with photos ill add it here
these sdcard adapter do work ok just a fiddle to get the path through the drivers
and addins needed to see it

if you add bigdos to the auto folder on the hddriver disk
and set it to run first
these cards work much better
however its a fiddle again with drivers on the slave

better to set it up first and either with no card in place
or the thing unplugged

[wongck]

? did you have a sdcard in place
becouse what i had to do was have no card in place till the slave was happy

OK
this is where it deviates
if i have no sd card in it
it will not be detected at all
be it together with a hdd
or even on its own
i think it probably a bad product
and some electronics part not
totally working but seems to
work if a sd is on it

big QA OK on it means nothing
probably some 4 year old kid paste them on

what do you expect for a less than
£2 part including postage?
probably a reject and they are flogging it
on the web cheaply and to some poorly person
who uses it on a non-wintel product thinking
that it just like that and there is no other
way to get the flipping thing working because
the target machine is not a piece of junk called pc.

i will just pass it as a junk from china and I don't mean a ship

anyway if it insist on having its own ide bus
then i just give it its own ide bus on my
scsi chain
no biggie it works that way

[Shredder11]

Hmmm....I find HD Driver to be hit and miss too. Many times you can run the Scan ID or detect drives option and it will find everything correctly, but when you go into the Format and Partition options...the drive selection list is empty. Sometimes I get garbled drive names too. So as is evident by what Simbo has been detailing, HD Driver is excellent but a bit of a black art in getting things working properly; then again maybe it is the design of the actual Ataris that causes HD Driver so much trouble.

[wongck]

i would like to add that being on its own ide bus
on my scsi chain rather than on my falc is actually
a better configuration for me
i used to have dvd drive on my external and used
it to transfer large files but it's too much of a
bother to burn a dvd just to transfer a file
so i used network share and use sharity to get it
but now with my sd adapter on the external
scsi i now use sd to do file transfer
easier than network bcos it just a drag & drop
and i can share my external scsi between my
tt & falc

[wongck]

Hmmm....I find HD Driver to be hit and miss too.

could be
but i have also tried it
Cecile as it tha only other driver
that supports slave drive
i have an early version of hddriver and that fail
I then tried cecile and it gave the same results
as hddriver.... no adpater if no sd in it
and data corruption if i connect it with
a hdd... both tried as master or slave
same failure
I then asked to loan a higher version of hddriver to
test.... guess what.... it still the same results

btw there was a english version of cecile and it
was a minor version lower than the french one
and i tried both of them

[wongck]

if Simbo is going to do a
guide it is worth to have
a go using the guide
us Atarian just love to
try out stuff like that

[simbo]

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SD-MMC-44-PIN-IDE ... 20b0d154a6

here is a type you can use if you use dual master slave systems
it has a jumper setup for changing ide id
so i got one ill give it a go with a cf card connected also
i too find issues with hddriver and some adapters
im sure these adapters work as i use one
but i use an older version of hddriver and i had to use icd to prepair the card

this one on ebay is £14 inc postage{free}
and worth a go at getting a more stable setup
i just cant find a path to get the other type working/booting using hddriver alone

[wongck]

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SD-MMC-44-PIN-IDE-Adapter-Card-NB-laptop-uk1-/140405462182?cmd=ViewItem&pt=UK_Computing_ComputerComponents_InterfaceCards&hash=item20b0d154a6

yeap saw that but at £14 it is just 700% more expensive that the one I had

[simbo]

well if it works better maybe ck its 700% more usefull
* SD, MMC adapter to IDE interface as an embedded device
* Support SDHC CLASS 6
* Work like a normal hard drive
* Support SD, MMC
* Master/slave jumper selectable
* WEIGHT:16 GRAM
* Dimension: 63*56*4.5mm

i find the adapters work but not good
so its defo a driver issue with them ..???

this one looks the part for sure...
and at 14 quid its still cheeper than lunch and a pint


put your duffer like me on ebay 99p no reserve and charge a 5er for post...

the guy also supplies a boxed version for the sameish price

give me a week or two ill post an honest report and pics and speed tests

atleast we all then know what too use

as i say ive had both a cf to sd adapter and the one further above work for me
as a drive however later hddriver seems to have a small bug
how it handles an ide slave boot drive with a master present
i looked whats going on and its defo hddriver has the issues
seems uwe needs some weekend time and issue a fix...??