Re: HDdriver and CF card drive problem

On Mar 18, 12:02 pm, Jo Even Skarstein <jo...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
SixteenThirtytwo <sixteen_thirty...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Probably a limitation with the Link II, perhaps in combination with your
choice of cable.
Strange. I'm using the standard cable that came with it.

I said "perhaps" ;-)

I know ;-)
I don't think it's the cable, but the adapter is indeed acting
strange. It always works with termination off, but never when it's
on.


The device has a termination switch (on/off) on its side.

I'm pretty sure this is related to termination power. The ICD Link needs
termination power enabled on the SCSI bus in order to work - there could
be some issues with this on the card reader. But as the other SCSI
adapters work fine I would not bother with the Link.

I agree, but I always try to learn from problems like this :-)
The card reader uses a 25 pin connector, so to connect it to the 50
pin male SCSI host adapter I've used a couple of adapter connectors as
seen here: http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/7859/cf2jx8.jpg

What you see (from the left) is:

- Minolta CD-10 PCMCIA card-reader (25 pin female D-sub)
- 25 pin male to 50 pin female adapter
- 50 pin male to 50 pin female gender changer
- ICD Link II SCSI host adapter

The other end of the cable from the ICD Link II goes to the Mega STe
external DMA port of course.

Here's a photo of the card-reader itself: http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/4881/cf1sa2.jpg
There's a power on/off switch on the right side and a termination on/
off switch on the left hand side.
ID selection is by a rotary switch underneath the device.


What really puzzles me at this stage is why using the DOS partition
scheme makes the memory card unreadable. And I'm talking about the
MegaSTe. Why would Uwe add a partition option that doesn't work?

Is it unreadable on a PC as well?

I haven't tried it on a PC, but on the Mac it's unreadable and I'm
asked if I want to initialize the card.
I've just bought the HDdriver upgrade, so I now have version 8.21.
This time it all works like it should. I've chosen the TOS+DOS
compatibility partition mode, and I'm able to use the same card with
both my Mega STe and my Mac :-)
All without having to turn off the Mega STe (if I double-click the
drive icon on the TOS desktop nothing happens if the card isn't
available, but opens a window with its contents if the card is
inserted). Both computers can read/write/delete files without any
problems, so this is an excellent solution when transferring large
amounts of files quickly (e.g. backing up the Atari hard drive on to
the Mac) -it sure beats using floppy disks!
I haven't tried my 1GB memory card with the new HDdriver -I suppose I
have to split it into several partitions to make it readable on the
Mega STe.

One limitation of the TOS/DOS compatibility is that I can't make the
memory card bootable on the Mega STe. But that's really no problem -at
least not for me. The plan is to use this memory card reader for
exchanging data between the two computers. For the Atari hard drive my
plan is to install some sort of IDE interface and use a Compact Flash
memory card (permanently attached) or a 2.5" IDE hard drive. It will
of course be bootable as it doesn't need to be DOS compatible.
This will be inserted in an STe, but unfortunately as we're painfully
aware of there's no IDE interface available which fits into the STe.
Mario's interface is long gone, so is the IDEal and others. PLCC to
DIL adapter boards are even harder to come across, so I won't be able
to use an ST compatible IDE interface (such as the one from C't
magazine). There's been some talk of new IDE interfaces coming out,
but so we haven't seen anything concrete, and I can't wait forever.

The only readily available solution as far as I can see is to use an
Acard AEC-7720U (http://www.acard.com/english/fb01-product.jsp?
idno_no=23&prod_no=AEC-7720U&type1_title=SCSIDE%20Bridge&type1_idno=2)
which is an SCSI to IDE adapter board, but I'm not sure how well such
an interface will work compared to a dedicated Atari IDE interface...
But I digress.

Back to the HDdriver/memory card reader issues: I'm still wondering
why termination has to be off when using the ICD Link II and why DOS
partitioning under HDdriver 6.13 won't make the memory card readable
under TOS nor DOS.
.

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