Synth-DIY Yahoo! Groups Archives

Problems with IDE to CF adapter and Emax I

2014-07-21 by xeelox@...

I've got an Acard 7720U REV 3.1 w/ firmware 3.89 and 2 different internal IDE to CF adapters I'm testing with. In Windows I can read/write/format any CF card using either adapter and the 7720U connected to pc SCSI card, but when testing in Emax 1 I get "Hard Drive Error" attempting to format.

- SCSI ID on Acard is 0

- Tried 4 different CF cards between 32-128mb from SanDisk and Toshiba.

- Tried Acard termination on w/ single-device cable, and also off w/ an active terminator on cable.

I attached some LEDs to both the Acard bridge and 1 of the CF adapters (an Addonics bootable, non-hot swap reader). In Windows, both activity LEDs light up during boot & any read/write operations. In Emax, the LED of the Acard and the CF reader only flicker briefly when first powered on, but NEVER blink during an attempted Emax format. It's seems the Emax is having trouble communicating with the SCSI bridge.

According to these previous posts:

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/emax/conversations/topics/10094 -- Ted said the Acards "don't work unless you have the latest firmware".

Latest ACARD firmware versions 3.89 AND 6.89 were both released on 5/27/2009. Description of each is same, but 6.89 won't install for me.

Q: Can anyone confirm whether 3.89 should be working?

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/emax/conversations/topics/9277 -- Jammie mentions that "scsi to ide adapters have a delay this sometimes causes a problem"

Q: How would I confirm if this is the cause of my issue?

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/emax/conversations/topics/7713 -- Jammie asked "have you set the cf card to work with dma? have you set the scsi to ide to use dma?"

Q: Set the CF memory Card to work w/ DMA? Or set the CF Reader to use DMA? My cf reader does have a jumper to enable DMA and it is set. If there's a way to set each CF memory card to work w/ DMA can someone please explain how to do that? Searching turned up nothing.

Q: Regarding setting the Acard to use DMA, how would I do this? Only jumpers on the 7720U are for SCSI ID & Termination. No mention of a DMA setting in user manual. Am I missing something?

Thanks,

Jim

Re: [emax] Problems with IDE to CF adapter and Emax I

2014-07-21 by Ted Summers

If I recall, the applicable version of firmware 3.89 or 6.89 depends upon your board revision.

The board revision is screened onto the board itself.

My board takes the 6.89

Your board revision may not take the 6.89.

DO NOT turn on DMA on the IDE to CF adapter

DMA attempts to make the IDE bus communications faster. Emax has the slowest possible SCSI bus speed.

Anything you do (settings etc) that attempt faster communication between the two buses (IDE to SCSI) may cause errors.

CF cards themselves do not have any DMA settings, they use whatever the bus dictates.

SCSI does not utiltize DMA, which is why you don't have any jumper settings on the SCSI bridge for it.

On Jul 20, 2014, at 9:14 PM, xeelox@... [emax] wrote:

I've got an Acard 7720U REV 3.1 w/ firmware 3.89 and 2 different internal IDE to CF adapters I'm testing with. In Windows I can read/write/format any CF card using either adapter and the 7720U connected to pc SCSI card, but when testing in Emax 1 I get "Hard Drive Error" attempting to format.

- SCSI ID on Acard is 0

- Tried 4 different CF cards between 32-128mb from SanDisk and Toshiba.

- Tried Acard termination on w/ single-device cable, and also off w/ an active terminator on cable.

I attached some LEDs to both the Acard bridge and 1 of the CF adapters (an Addonics bootable, non-hot swap reader). In Windows, both activity LEDs light up during boot & any read/write operations. In Emax, the LED of the Acard and the CF reader only flicker briefly when first powered on, but NEVER blink during an attempted Emax format. It's seems the Emax is having trouble communicating with the SCSI bridge.

According to these previous posts:

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/emax/conversations/topics/10094 -- Ted said the Acards "don't work unless you have the latest firmware".

Latest ACARD firmware versions 3.89 AND 6.89 were both released on 5/27/2009. Description of each is same, but 6.89 won't install for me.

Q: Can anyone confirm whether 3.89 should be working?

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/emax/conversations/topics/9277 -- Jammie mentions that "scsi to ide adapters have a delay this sometimes causes a problem"

Q: How would I confirm if this is the cause of my issue?

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/emax/conversations/topics/7713 -- Jammie asked "have you set the cf card to work with dma? have you set the scsi to ide to use dma?"

Q: Set the CF memory Card to work w/ DMA? Or set the CF Reader to use DMA? My cf reader does have a jumper to enable DMA and it is set. If there's a way to set each CF memory card to work w/ DMA can someone please explain how to do that? Searching turned up nothing.

Q: Regarding setting the Acard to use DMA, how would I do this? Only jumpers on the 7720U are for SCSI ID & Termination. No mention of a DMA setting in user manual. Am I missing something?

Thanks,

Jim

Re: [emax] Problems with IDE to CF adapter and Emax I

2014-07-21 by xeelox@...

Ted, I will assume for the time being that the 6.89 firmware on your board REV ??? should be reasonably comparable to my REV 3.1 board running 3.89 and that my Emax should likely be able to communicate with 3.89 unless someone can confirm otherwise.

I Tested the Addonics ADIDECF Adapter WITHOUT the DMA jumper set, but Emax 1 still gives the HD Error.

The generic looking Hexin HXSP-2108P CF Adapter I got has no DMA jumper, though specs say it does support DMA but I don't know if it's possible to disable. Users in the eiii forums reported this card as working for them but so far it doesn't work for me.

Q: Is there a way to disable DMA from the Acard 7720U?

The Acard activity LED does NOT light up when connected to Emax and I attempt to format the CF. I would expect this to behave like it does in Windows - i.e.the activity LEDs light on both the bridge & the CF reader when reading/writing.

Q: Since neither the bridge nor CF adapter LED lights up and the bridge is first in the chain, do you suspect the Emax is not sending commands to the Acard? Or is the Acard not able interpret the Emax SCSI commands?

Thanks,

Jim

Re: [emax] Problems with IDE to CF adapter and Emax I

2014-07-21 by Ted Summers

Regards DMA---
SCSI 1 (and possibly SCSI 2) do not use DMA, it predates DMA bus mastering topology.
Therefore, the ACARD is not going to have DMA capability or any way to enable or disable it.

If you have concern whether the SCSI is working at all, you could get a SCSI Internal Zip.
Set to ID 0- as a test it shouldn't be too expensive and we would expect that at the end of this test, the Zip is formatted successfully from a non-PLUS OS.

Regards Firmware---

Acard support site is currently offline, preventing me from validating your firmware version assertions.

I can neither confirm nor explicitly discredit your assumption regards the firmware.
Usually in my troubleshooting techniques I assume something doesn't work / not working properly as opposed to assuming it does / should work until I have proven otherwise.

When I first got my bridge(s) they did not work, I got the kind of errors you describe.
I had 6 bridges (4 x 7722) which I sold for use with ATAPI zip drives) and (2x 7220UW).
I updated the firmware to latest for the correct PCB version (what I have now) and tested it in my Emax 1 and 2... and one of them has been working in my Emax 2 ever since.

The rest I have sold, but did not have any return to me.

Suggestions-

Have you tried using an old IDE HD with the bridge instead of the CF adapter, or even an IDE/ATAPI Zip (common and cheap- I can find them for like $5)?

This is a test I have done and verified with my bridges.
I would do a test with this config for the bridge.- Get an 500MB or smaller IDE drive (smallest you can find from a reuse shop or something) or IDE Zip drive and test bridge with that.

Part of the problem here is you are basically troubleshooting multiple items with unknown state / and or compatibility all at one time.

The bridge could be fine, but the CF adapters may not be.
The bridge could have an issue, but the CF adapter could work fine.

It's easier to troubleshoot when you can break it down to 1 unknown variable in the chain....

-T

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On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 8:10 AM, xeelox@... [emax] <emax@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

Ted, I will assume for the time being that the 6.89 firmware on your board REV ??? should be reasonably comparable to my REV 3.1 board running 3.89 and that my Emax should likely be able to communicate with 3.89 unless someone can confirm otherwise.

I Tested the Addonics ADIDECF Adapter WITHOUT the DMA jumper set, but Emax 1 still gives the HD Error.

The generic looking Hexin HXSP-2108P CF Adapter I got has no DMA jumper, though specs say it does support DMA but I don't know if it's possible to disable. Users in the eiii forums reported this card as working for them but so far it doesn't work for me.

Q: Is there a way to disable DMA from the Acard 7720U?

The Acard activity LED does NOT light up when connected to Emax and I attempt to format the CF. I would expect this to behave like it does in Windows - i.e.the activity LEDs light on both the bridge & the CF reader when reading/writing.

Q: Since neither the bridge nor CF adapter LED lights up and the bridge is first in the chain, do you suspect the Emax is not sending commands to the Acard? Or is the Acard not able interpret the Emax SCSI commands?

Thanks,
Jim

Re: [emax] Problems with IDE to CF adapter and Emax I

2014-07-21 by JAMIE logan

the only cf drive i got to work with the acard was a startech ide to cf it has jumpers on there that you can remove for the dma

but it worked with the jumper for dma anyway

the only atapi drive i got to work was a akai mcddisk as i fitted that same acard and one to carl lofgrens emax

there was a bunch of dodgy acard 7720u as a friend but 15 of them to find they were all non working

now i have had similar problems with a 7720uw card recently that worked perfectly with the emax 2 but with the emax one it will format the card and add os but as soon as you add banks via emxp and try to load you get hd error

the acards 7720u we down graded them to an earlier revision which was set for win95/98 and it worked fine

but the 7720uw i have 3.88 flash but i have not yet down loaded the flash program to upgrade it yet to see if the 7720uw will boot in the emax1 they work great in the emax2 and the eIII but both of them samplers use a later generation scsi controller chip

where as the emax uses an older version

the acards are programmed to see whats being used it can set to pio mode or dma mode via software and why there is no dma or pio mode jumpers

the iodata scsi to ide cards do have jumpers for setting the dma or pio mode but they never worked with the emax either

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On 21 July 2014 18:39, Ted Summers djtbs1@... [emax] <emax@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

Regards DMA---
SCSI 1 (and possibly SCSI 2) do not use DMA, it predates DMA bus mastering topology.
Therefore, the ACARD is not going to have DMA capability or any way to enable or disable it.

If you have concern whether the SCSI is working at all, you could get a SCSI Internal Zip.
Set to ID 0- as a test it shouldn't be too expensive and we would expect that at the end of this test, the Zip is formatted successfully from a non-PLUS OS.

Regards Firmware---
Acard support site is currently offline, preventing me from validating your firmware version assertions.
I can neither confirm nor explicitly discredit your assumption regards the firmware.
Usually in my troubleshooting techniques I assume something doesn't work / not working properly as opposed to assuming it does / should work until I have proven otherwise.

When I first got my bridge(s) they did not work, I got the kind of errors you describe.
I had 6 bridges (4 x 7722) which I sold for use with ATAPI zip drives) and (2x 7220UW).
I updated the firmware to latest for the correct PCB version (what I have now) and tested it in my Emax 1 and 2... and one of them has been working in my Emax 2 ever since.

The rest I have sold, but did not have any return to me.

Suggestions-
Have you tried using an old IDE HD with the bridge instead of the CF adapter, or even an IDE/ATAPI Zip (common and cheap- I can find them for like $5)?

This is a test I have done and verified with my bridges.
I would do a test with this config for the bridge.- Get an 500MB or smaller IDE drive (smallest you can find from a reuse shop or something) or IDE Zip drive and test bridge with that.

Part of the problem here is you are basically troubleshooting multiple items with unknown state / and or compatibility all at one time.
The bridge could be fine, but the CF adapters may not be.
The bridge could have an issue, but the CF adapter could work fine.

It's easier to troubleshoot when you can break it down to 1 unknown variable in the chain....

-T

On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 8:10 AM, xeelox@... [emax] <emax@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

Ted, I will assume for the time being that the 6.89 firmware on your board REV ??? should be reasonably comparable to my REV 3.1 board running 3.89 and that my Emax should likely be able to communicate with 3.89 unless someone can confirm otherwise.

I Tested the Addonics ADIDECF Adapter WITHOUT the DMA jumper set, but Emax 1 still gives the HD Error.

The generic looking Hexin HXSP-2108P CF Adapter I got has no DMA jumper, though specs say it does support DMA but I don't know if it's possible to disable. Users in the eiii forums reported this card as working for them but so far it doesn't work for me.

Q: Is there a way to disable DMA from the Acard 7720U?

The Acard activity LED does NOT light up when connected to Emax and I attempt to format the CF. I would expect this to behave like it does in Windows - i.e.the activity LEDs light on both the bridge & the CF reader when reading/writing.

Q: Since neither the bridge nor CF adapter LED lights up and the bridge is first in the chain, do you suspect the Emax is not sending commands to the Acard? Or is the Acard not able interpret the Emax SCSI commands?

Thanks,
Jim

Re: Problems with IDE to CF adapter and Emax I

2014-07-22 by xeelox@...

>> Usually in my troubleshooting techniques I assume something doesn't work / not working properly as opposed to assuming it does / should work until I have proven otherwise.

Quite reasonable. Since it worked with 2 different CF readers as well as 2 different IDE Hard drives in Windows, I was going on the theory that the Acard's not dead, just questionable in my Emax.

Yesterday Esynthesist helped me get around an issue I've been having in EMXP writing images to CF, and this was a big step forward!

I restored a Plus 1.0 hard disk image to a CF card, then tried to boot Emax to it, but it still failed; however after loading OS from floppy I noticed the LEDs on the both the CF reader and bridge would blink occasionally. So I tried to format from within Emax, and that worked. Rebooted to CF and that also worked. I saved some banks to the CF and that seemed to work, but HD banks can't be read. I get "Hard Disk Error" when trying to load any banks. Good progress, but still a bit of a road block yet to overcome.

I will review past posts on causes of Hard Disk Error when loading banks and see what I discover.

Regards,

-Jim

Re: [emax] Re: Problems with IDE to CF adapter and Emax I

2014-07-22 by Ted Summers

Glad you are making some progress.

So to confirm- are you saying that the CF to IDE adapter worked to:

format
read a bank
save a bank

boot

with PLUS 1.0 also?
if so, please be sure to update the database in the group for the item(s) that worked for you.

Regards,
Ted

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On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 1:10 PM, xeelox@... [emax] <emax@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

>> Usually in my troubleshooting techniques I assume something doesn't work / not working properly as opposed to assuming it does / should work until I have proven otherwise.

Quite reasonable. Since it worked with 2 different CF readers as well as 2 different IDE Hard drives in Windows, I was going on the theory that the Acard's not dead, just questionable in my Emax.

Yesterday Esynthesist helped me get around an issue I've been having in EMXP writing images to CF, and this was a big step forward!

I restored a Plus 1.0 hard disk image to a CF card, then tried to boot Emax to it, but it still failed; however after loading OS from floppy I noticed the LEDs on the both the CF reader and bridge would blink occasionally. So I tried to format from within Emax, and that worked. Rebooted to CF and that also worked. I saved some banks to the CF and that seemed to work, but HD banks can't be read. I get "Hard Disk Error" when trying to load any banks. Good progress, but still a bit of a road block yet to overcome.

I will review past posts on causes of Hard Disk Error when loading banks and see what I discover.

Regards,
-Jim

Re: Problems with IDE to CF adapter and Emax I

2014-07-23 by xeelox@...

Technically, I still can't read banks; that's where I get the Hard Disk Error message.

And booting to CF, formatting & writing banks only worked with CF memory cards where I first restored a Plus OS image from within EMXP.

It's like burning the image in EMXP was not enough to boot/work on its own, but it was enough for the Emax to finally recognize the CF cards and allow me to reformat them natively. Now if only I can get it to read banks from CF!

Once I get everything working I will absolutely update the database regarding the hardware.

I genuinely appreciate everyone's ongoing assistance as I try to update my Emaxes!

- Jim

Re: Problems with IDE to CF adapter and Emax I

2014-07-23 by Lorne Hammond

So, have you taken the cf card it reads out and gone back to the computer to
load banks there?  It maybe the bank images are a different os or something
like that.

If you have the interface working and the card, consider the image maybe the
wrong type.

 

Lorne

Re: Problems with IDE to CF adapter and Emax I

2014-07-23 by xeelox@...

Thanks for the suggestion Lorne.

So you are suggesting I take the CF card out of Emax, put it back into the PC and look at it in EMXP. And then use EMXP to tell me if the banks on the CF are of a different OS than the OS on the card, is that correct?

I didn't think the individual banks stored/referenced the OS directly, but I could be wrong. I thought only a floppy and the HD stored an OS separately from the sound bank data. Some of the banks were copied from SE 1.1 floppies, so who knows. I'd hate to think I need to copy Plus OS software to every single floppy I own before I can copy a bank from it to a Plus OS hd.

Thanks,

Jim

Re: [emax] Re: Problems with IDE to CF adapter and Emax I

2014-07-23 by Ted Summers

Each bank does not have the OS unless you are using HXC..... I have copied a bank from floppy with SE1.1 (no HD) OS on it onto my PLUS formatted SD card (where I had booted from the SD card)....

-Ted

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On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 10:34 AM, xeelox@... [emax] <emax@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

Thanks for the suggestion Lorne.

So you are suggesting I take the CF card out of Emax, put it back into the PC and look at it in EMXP. And then use EMXP to tell me if the banks on the CF are of a different OS than the OS on the card, is that correct?

I didn't think the individual banks stored/referenced the OS directly, but I could be wrong. I thought only a floppy and the HD stored an OS separately from the sound bank data. Some of the banks were copied from SE 1.1 floppies, so who knows. I'd hate to think I need to copy Plus OS software to every single floppy I own before I can copy a bank from it to a Plus OS hd.

Thanks,
Jim

RE: [emax] Re: Problems with IDE to CF adapter and Emax I

2014-07-23 by Lorne Hammond

I'd at least view it in emxp and see what it looks like after the emax has formatted it.  It might be enough to drag the banks to the emax formatted cf from the image on the PC.

Seems to me like the cf is working and the interface and the emax seems to have formatted it so I'd say those three parts are okay and you are 90% there.

So I'd be tempted to reload the CFcard but without reformatting it or adding or overwriting an os to see what happens.

 

Lorne

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From: emax@yahoogroups.com [mailto:emax@yahoogroups.com] 
Sent: July-23-14 10:35 AM
To: emax@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [emax] Re: Problems with IDE to CF adapter and Emax I

Thanks for the suggestion Lorne.

So you are suggesting I take the CF card out of Emax, put it back into the PC and look at it in EMXP. And then use EMXP to tell me if the banks on the CF are of a different OS than the OS on the card, is that correct?

I didn't think the individual banks stored/referenced the OS directly, but I could be wrong. I thought only a floppy and the HD stored an OS separately from the sound bank data.  Some of the banks were copied from SE 1.1 floppies, so who knows. I'd hate to think I need to copy Plus OS software to every single floppy I own before I can copy a bank from it to a Plus OS hd.

Thanks,

Jim

Re: Problems with IDE to CF adapter and Emax I

2014-07-24 by xeelox@...

Still a no go. Any attempt to read a bank results in "Hard Disk Error" and occasionally "Bad Bank On Disk" errors.

My semi-working process so far has been using EMXP to do a logical format with an OS, or restoring a Plus OS hard disk image and then putting that card into Emax.

The Emax will never boot directly to the CF card at this point, but it WILL boot to the floppy, recognize the EMXP formatted CF card and let me reformat it in Emax. Then Emax can boot directly to the CF, but once I save a bank, it won't reload.

- I can copy a bank from a floppy & save to CF bank, but as soon as I try to reload that bank I get the error.

- I can also load an empty bank from CF, then copy a single preset from a floppy & save it to a CF bank, but once again I cannot load it back.

- I even tried taking an empty bank and sampling a sound & saving the bank. Still won't reload.

The only save & reload bank operation that works is saving an empty bank using Master 4 > Erase all memory > Create Default Preset, and then save the new empty bank to the CF. That WILL reload. So it seems any bank that contains data will not load.

And I can't put the cf cards back in the PC to be read by EMXP because windows shows the cf cards as "unknown" in disk management and won't assign a drive letter. No drive letter means EMXP can't see the drive to read it. And the only way to assign a drive letter is to format the cf card. How are you guys reading Emax hdd/cf/sd in EMXP for copying and backing up?

Re: [emax] Re: Problems with IDE to CF adapter and Emax I

2014-07-24 by Ted Summers

What you are describing (even in windows) isn't how mine works.

In Windows, my media drive has a drive letter assigned to each slot regardless of whether a media is in it.

When I insert a media in it and windows asks to do something I just ignore, and go on and use EMXP.

The fact that you don't have a drive letter assigned for the slot makes me wonder what exactly you are using for a drive, etc

I have a generic USB mutli reader I picked up for $5 at the local Goodwill used computer parts section of their store and it works fine….I've actually used like 3 different ones that are obviously different manufacturers and they all worked the same.

I am using Windows 7 on an Intel D865PERL motherboard.

for floppy I loaded in the Omniflop driver of course, per the instructions….my floppy is connected to a standard Floppy connector on the mobo, it is not USB

simply put- mine "just works" I didn't have to do anything special to get it working (other than load the Omniflop driver of course for floppies to work properly)

-Ted

On Jul 23, 2014, at 9:47 PM, xeelox@... [emax] wrote:

Still a no go. Any attempt to read a bank results in "Hard Disk Error" and occasionally "Bad Bank On Disk" errors.

My semi-working process so far has been using EMXP to do a logical format with an OS, or restoring a Plus OS hard disk image and then putting that card into Emax.

The Emax will never boot directly to the CF card at this point, but it WILL boot to the floppy, recognize the EMXP formatted CF card and let me reformat it in Emax. Then Emax can boot directly to the CF, but once I save a bank, it won't reload.

- I can copy a bank from a floppy & save to CF bank, but as soon as I try to reload that bank I get the error.

- I can also load an empty bank from CF, then copy a single preset from a floppy & save it to a CF bank, but once again I cannot load it back.

- I even tried taking an empty bank and sampling a sound & saving the bank. ;Still won't reload.

The only save & reload bank operation that works is saving an empty bank using Master 4 > Erase all memory > Create Default Preset, and then save the new empty bank to the CF. That WILL reload. So it seems any bank that contains data will not load.

And I can't put the cf cards back in the PC to be read by EMXP because windows shows the cf cards as "unknown" in disk management and won't assign a drive letter. No drive letter means EMXP can't see the drive to read it. And the only way to assign a drive letter is to format the cf card. How are you guys reading Emax hdd/cf/sd in EMXP for copying and backing up?

Re: [emax] Re: Problems with IDE to CF adapter and Emax I

2014-07-24 by xeelox@...

My Floppy is internal, connceted to mobo as well and I have the omniflop driver installed just like you. But floppies in EMXP are not an issue for me. Only "Emax formatted" scsi hdd and cf cards exhibit the behavior I have described.

These are the 2 IDE flash drives I am using:

Addonics ADIDECFB - http://www.addonics.com/products/adidecf.php

Hexin Technology HXSP 2108P - http://www.soarland.com/Universal_40-pin_Male_IDE_To_CF_Card_Adapter-product-163.html

I only ever connect 1 at a time for testing purposes, it's always set as the secondary master, and BIOS is set to auto detect. Windows has no trouble assigning a drive letter if the format of the drive is something it can recognize (dos, fat, ntfs, etc.) If a disk shows up in disk management as RAW or Unknown I get a screen exactly like this: http://i.imgur.com/xEd4K8B.png

And every single Emax formatted SCSI drive and CF card I have put into both my Win XP & Win 7 machines reports the format as either raw or unknown, and without any drive letter.

- Jim

Re: [emax] Re: Problems with IDE to CF adapter and Emax I

2014-07-24 by Ted Summers

So this adapter is working more like a USB stick device and less like a persistent system device.

in other words, it's only seen when a media is mounted, not when the adapter is simply present on the bus.

My suggestion- On the PC side get a multi-card reader that plugs into USB. They are cheap and easy to find.

Without media inserted you should have a drive letter for each and every slot.

You don't have to muck with the drive management portion in windows at all...
If you try and access a drive with no media, it will give you an error of course (you have to figure out which drive letter is the appropriate slot).
Once you know that you will ignore the media on insertion and use the prior-assigned drive letter in EMXP.

I can take a DOS formatted media, and put a Emax formatted image on and boot from it.... it really has been that simple....

Then only use your existing IDE to CF adapter(s) in the Emax with the bridge.

Hopefully that takes windows out of the equation, in that respect.

That's my primary suggestion.

The only other suggestion would be to send me (if in the US) the logic, adapters, and CF stuff and I can check it out from a known good working perspective.

First step I would take is verify I can boot your logic from my known working drives (the media drive and the ATAPI with bridge) and read and write bank.

If it doesn't, the next step I would take is to start looking at the SCSI modification. It is possible that one of the connections has been broken on the SCSI modification

(assuming this isnt a PC333 board). - you could potentially also do this by reviewing the SCSI retrofit update instructions.

From there (assuming no problem with logic) I would test each individual part of the setup.

-Ted

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On Thu, Jul 24, 2014 at 8:36 AM, xeelox@... [emax] <emax@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

My Floppy is internal, connceted to mobo as well and I have the omniflop driver installed just like you. But floppies in EMXP are not an issue for me. Only "Emax formatted" scsi hdd and cf cards exhibit the behavior I have described.

These are the 2 IDE flash drives I am using:

Addonics ADIDECFB - http://www.addonics.com/products/adidecf.php

Hexin Technology HXSP 2108P - http://www.soarland.com/Universal_40-pin_Male_IDE_To_CF_Card_Adapter-product-163.html

I only ever connect 1 at a time for testing purposes, it's always set as the secondary master, and BIOS is set to auto detect. Windows has no trouble assigning a drive letter if the format of the drive is something it can recognize (dos, fat, ntfs, etc.) If a disk shows up in disk management as RAW or Unknown I get a screen exactly like this: http://i.imgur.com/xEd4K8B.png

And every single Emax formatted SCSI drive and CF card I have put into both my Win XP &; Win 7 machines reports the format as either raw or unknown, and without any drive letter.

- Jim

Re: [emax] Re: Problems with IDE to CF adapter and Emax I

2014-07-24 by xeelox@...

>> My suggestion- On the PC side get a multi-card reader that plugs into USB. They are cheap and easy to find.

Will do. I'm sure I can pick one up locally for $20 or less.

>> I can take a DOS formatted media, and put a Emax formatted image on and boot from it.... it really has been that simple....

I'm jealous and long for such simplicity. ;)

>> The only other suggestion would be to send me (if in the US) the logic, adapters, and CF stuff and I can check it out from a known good working perspective.

I am in the US and would be happy to send you the adapters and whatnot. I want to try a few more things myself before throwing my hands in the air, but I will admit I'm close to that point.

>> the next step I would take is to start looking at the SCSI modification. It is possible that one of the connections has been broken on the SCSI modification (assuming this isnt a PC333 board). - you could potentially also do this by reviewing the SCSI retrofit update instructions.

All 4 of my Emax were HD models from the start, so I've never needed to do a SCSI upgrade to any of them and never modded the cases to add external adapters. Still I will review the boards for rev #'s and re-read your blog page about scsi upgrades; it's been a while, and since I bought 3 of them secondhand, who knows what parts may have been replaced or something. ...though they have previously been working fine w/ internal hdds, but something is clearly going on.

Thanks again for your (and everyone else's) continued support! You really have given me valuable advice throughout this journey.

- Jim

Re: [emax] Re: Problems with IDE to CF adapter and Emax I

2014-07-25 by Ted Summers

Well, I have seen odd behavior where the connection at pin 18 on the SCSI connector on the bottom of the board has broken off (on a factory modified board, as a matter of fact).

things can happen, especially if you've been moving the unit about etc while doing this testing…

Regards,

Ted

On Jul 24, 2014, at 1:08 PM, xeelox@... [emax] wrote:

>> My suggestion- On the PC side get a multi-card reader that plugs into USB. They are cheap and easy to find.

Will do. I'm sure I can pick one up locally for $20 or less.

>> I can take a DOS formatted media, and put a Emax formatted image on and boot from it.... it really has been that simple....

I'm jealous and long for such simplicity. ;)

>> The only other suggestion would be to send me (if in the US) the logic, adapters, and CF stuff and I can check it out from a known good working perspective.

I am in the US and would be happy to send you the adapters and whatnot. I want to try a few more things myself before throwing my hands in the air, but I will admit I'm close to that point.

>> the next step I would take is to start looking at the SCSI modification. It is possible that one of the connections has been broken on the SCSI modification (assuming this isnt a PC333 board). - you could potentially also do this by reviewing the SCSI retrofit update instructions.

All 4 of my Emax were HD models from the start, so I've never needed to do a SCSI upgrade to any of them and never modded the cases to add external adapters. Still I will review the boards for rev #'s and re-read your blog page about scsi upgrades; it's been a while, and since I bought 3 of them secondhand, who knows what parts may have been replaced or something. ...though they have previously been working fine w/ internal hdds, but something is clearly going on.

Thanks again for your (and everyone else's) continued support! You really have given me valuable advice throughout this journey.

- Jim

Re: Problems with IDE to CF adapter and Emax I

2014-07-25 by xeelox@...

>> It is possible that one of the connections has been broken on the SCSI modification (assuming this isnt a PC333 board).

Opened up all 4 of my Emaxes and they are all PC333 boards. Suppose they could still have broken pins, but it seems unlikely all 4 suffer from the same issue, especially since they work fine reading/writing to my last good scsi hdd.

Also bought a USB card reader and I am now finally able to read an Emax formatted CF in EMXP. I took a CF card that I reformatted in Emax (because emxp formatted cf wasn't recognized) and had also saved 2 banks to it in Emax. When trying to read those banks in Emax I always get the Hard Disk Error. But interestingly in EMXP I was able to read those banks, copy them off to floppies and then load those floppies in the Emax. That tells me the save is not corrupted so I have to assume the read is the issue.

Ted,

I'd like to take you up on your offer. When you say to send you "the logic, adapters, and CF stuff..." are we just talking about the Acard, the 2 IDE CF Readers, and my cf cards? Let me know if there's anything else you would need.

If you want to take this offline, you can email me directly. My user name is my yahoo.com email address: xeelox at yahoo dot com.

Thanks,

Jim