Life, the universe & everything...Atari (well, mostly)

[JezC]

Bear in mind you can’t autoboot from byteswapped or joint TOS/Windows partitions — HDDriver gives you the option to make these, but they break the boot sector.

BW

Ah, will have to double-check the settings in the HD Driver util then...that might well be the issue!

So best setup might be 2x partitions, the first one as native TOS to boot from & the other byte-swapped for sharing data with PCs...?

I'll try to make time to check this later today & report back with my findings...though I'm beginning to think this should have been a thread on its own now... :roll:

EDIT: Yes, that fixed it! Many thanks! :)

[JezC]

So, now that I have my near stock Falcon booting off the SD card (thanks again to @Badwolf and others for helping find the problems I had with this set up), I have found that I don't seem to be able to have different partitions on that SD card set up for booting from and compatibility with Windows for file transfer...or I'm a complete idiot and missing something terribly obvious in HD Driver 11... ;)

I will eventually get my external 1G SCSI HDD running with the Falcon again (maybe ever sooner than later depending on the solutions offered) but in the meantime what other options do I have?

I could use floppies but the 1.44M limit and lack of a floppy in any decent spec PCs (only an old Celeron laptop running XP at present) means having to download files onto a pen drive & then transfer them to floppy on that laptop, then put the floppy into the Falcon...so painful for anything but a small number of files. I've not yet got my Greaseweazle up & running on a PC either (again, limited time)

I could use a serial port link between a newer PC and the Falcon (Ghostlink?) so a bit slower but less faffing around on multiple computers

I have an older 100M Zip drive (SCSI) plus an internal IDE drive version so maybe they could be an optoin?

Otherwise, what could I do to use the SD cards (or CF cards) for easier transfer? Can I boot off the SD card & then eject that (without upsetting TOS on the Falcon) & swap it for a different card formatted to be Windows compatible?

I'd appreciate anybody with info on the above ideas or other suggestions/feedback on what works & doesn't
:D

[stephen_usher]

Get a NetUSBee for the Falcon, run UIPTool and then connect to it via a web browser. Quickest and simplest option.

[JezC]

Get a NetUSBee for the Falcon, run UIPTool and then connect to it via a web browser. Quickest and simplest option.

Sadly I need the cart port for my MIDI s/w dongles/port expanders (Log3/Unitor 2/Combiner, Midex+ etc.) or that would be one of the first options I'd save up for...

I did wonder if there was anything to connect via SCSI to do a similar function...? Or even to plug into the expansion port inside the Falcon?

[JezC]

Hmm...perhaps another option might be to fit a different internal IDE cable so that I can have master & slave 44 pin IDE connections & then I could move one storage device between PC and falcon while keeping the other in situ...?

[Badwolf]

Hmm...perhaps another option might be to fit a different internal IDE cable so that I can have master & slave 44 pin IDE connections & then I could move one storage device between PC and falcon while keeping the other in situ...?

This is what I've been looking into, actually. The CF card adapter I have has a master/slave select, but not the SD card. I need to perform a test or two on it. Have all the gear, here, but also have a one week old! :lol:

BW

[JezC]

This is what I've been looking into, actually. The CF card adapter I have has a master/slave select, but not the SD card. I need to perform a test or two on it. Have all the gear, here, but also have a one week old! :lol:

BW

Congratulations on the new addition! My two are both teenagers now...but I still remember when they were both the new additions.

My CF card adaptor only has a single CF connector fitted but should allow master/slave to be selected, so I'm considering buying a 3 way 44 pin IDE cable & then having a couple of adaptors fitted to let me swap at least one device between PC and Falcon (and maybe ST in future - once I have a workable solution in the Falcon).

I have seen the CF adapters with 2x CF connectors fitted but don't know if they will work with the ST/Falcon etc... Does anybody know if they work or not (or any specific versions more precisely)?

[rubber_jonnie]

So, now that I have my near stock Falcon booting off the SD card (thanks again to @Badwolf and others for helping find the problems I had with this set up), I have found that I don't seem to be able to have different partitions on that SD card set up for booting from and compatibility with Windows for file transfer...or I'm a complete idiot and missing something terribly obvious in HD Driver 11... ;)

Ok, so I use HDDRIVER and though I don't have a Falcon, I do have a CosmosEx and Ultrasatan and in both cases I used the HDD utilities to set up my SD cards and I can boot to ST and also insert my SD cards into a Windows PC and see all partitions and transfer data to and from the SD card in both scenarios.

IIRC you need to look at the compatibility options when partitioning the card, but you should be able to see the partitions/disks under Windows.

[JezC]

Ok, so I use HDDRIVER and though I don't have a Falcon, I do have a CosmosEx and Ultrasatan and in both cases I used the HDD utilities to set up my SD cards and I can boot to ST and also insert my SD cards into a Windows PC and see all partitions and transfer data to and from the SD card in both scenarios.

IIRC you need to look at the compatibility options when partitioning the card, but you should be able to see the partitions/disks under Windows.

Thanks - I'll dig a bit deeper into this over the next day or two (now I have a booting SD card in my Falcon I can try other settings on other SD cards to see if I can keep it booting while allowing data exchange with a PC).

When I had byte-swapping and some other settings enabled with HD Driver v11.14 the Falcon wasn't booting from SD but did detect the card & the partitions when running the HD Driver from floppy/auto folder.

It might still be something in the h/w (CosmosEx / US) giving the compatibility but once I've checked a few options with the above I'll try & report my findings here...

[Badwolf]

Congratulations on the new addition! My two are both teenagers now...but I still remember when they were both the new additions.

Thanks! :-)

Ok, so I use HDDRIVER and though I don't have a Falcon, I do have a CosmosEx and Ultrasatan and in both cases I used the HDD utilities to set up my SD cards and I can boot to ST and also insert my SD cards into a Windows PC and see all partitions and transfer data to and from the SD card in both scenarios.

I think it's a Falcon IDE problem -- unlike the ASCI and SCSI ports, it's a 16 bit bus. Atari chose to do everything big-endian whereas the convention everywhere else is little-endian.

So you can either byteswap in software, which is, I think, what breaks auto-boot, or people have had success with twisted cables (swapping the bytes physically).

I've knocked up this little board to play with, but haven't received it yet on account of the Chinese new year.

BW

Screenshot 2023-01-26 at 18.53.41.png

Screenshot 2023-01-26 at 18.53.55.png