dsk2cd problem

[PeBo]

I've never had this problem before, so looking for suggestions...

 

Wanted to copy a couple dsk's over to a CF card this morning. but dsk2cf (which has always worked flawlessly in the past) seems to be having issues.

 

I enter the dsk name and volume parameters, it reports back that it found the flash drive, identifies it correctly, and asks me if this is the drive I want to use, but when I type "Y" it just returns to the command prompt without the familiar "Successful!" (or whatever it is it usually responds after a successful copy).

 

The flash drive is accessible and readable through TI99Dir and as I said dsk2cf recognizes it, but for some reason it's not completing the copy. I've tried multiple CF cards, all of which have worked fine in the past. Since the CF7 formatted cards are not directly accessible to windows I can't test writing to it in windows. but TI99Dir initializes volumes without problem.

 

I just can't seem to copy dsks with dsk2cf, and as far as I know, there is no windows alternative.

 

Been doing this for a couple years without issue, so kind of surprised it's suddenly not working.

 

Any thoughts??

Edited January 8, 2017 by PeBo

[+mizapf]

You can write to CFs with "DD for Windows". This is a port of the Linux dd tool. (http://www.chrysocome.net/dd)

 

While you're at it, if you successfully installed DD, you could try TIImageTool 2.4 if you dare, and never use dsk2cf again.

[PeBo]

See, that's what I get for not paying more attention to the plethora of tools I download...have TIImageTool but never though to use it for copying onto a CF7 CFcard! Will look at DD for Windows as well, thanks.

 

I DID fix my problem by physically disconnecting my media drive and reconnecting it (with a reboot in between without having it hooked up).

All back to normal now, but thanks for providing alternatives.

 

When it works dsk2cf is a cinch and pretty idiot proof though (even if it did beat this idiot this morning).

[+mizapf]

It's new in 2.4, so you may not have noticed it. The idea is, shortly explained, that you pull a copy of the contents of the CF card on your hard drive (you'll get a possibly large file of 2 GiB or so, depends on the size), then you can work on any volume, create new ones, rename, whatever, just like with disk images, and when you're done, you write that huge blob back on the CF card in one go.

 

The solution in 2.4 was to spawn a separate process that runs dd with some arguments prepared by TIMT, instead of the old way of trying to get direct access via Java.

[+Lee Stewart]

TI99Dir also works for copying disk images to CF. I believe they must be 1600-sector (400KiB) images on the PC side. I usually create an empty. 1600-sector image, copy files to it and then copy the image to the CF—all in TI99Dir.

 

...lee

[Asmusr]

TI99Dir also works for copying disk images to CF. I believe they must be 1600-sector (400KiB) images on the PC side. I usually create an empty. 1600-sector image, copy files to it and then copy the image to the CF—all in TI99Dir.

 

...lee

 

I think you can copy disk images of any size and they will automatically be converted to 1600 sectors in the process.

[+Lee Stewart]

 

I think you can copy disk images of any size and they will automatically be converted to 1600 sectors in the process.

 

You are probably right, but I had trouble with that sometime back and do it the way I described as a matter of habit. I will try it again soon.

 

...lee

[PeBo]

I figured there must be a way to do it within TI99Dir, but couldn't find it.

 

Help guide me past my apparent senility please.

[+Lee Stewart]

I figured there must be a way to do it within TI99Dir, but couldn't find it.

 

Help guide me past my apparent senility please.

 

Opening “Files”--->“Read CF7A+ Volume list” and choosing the CF connected to your PC will open the volume list in the active pane of TI99Dir. Once you have the volume list in one pane, you can copy from one pane to the other. You can also initialize and mount volumes.

 

...lee

[+mizapf]

@PeBo and others who already used TIMT and have CF7: It would nevertheless be nice if at least one of you would give it a try at some time, so I know it is working and serves its purpose.

[PeBo]

@PeBo and others who already used TIMT and have CF7: It would nevertheless be nice if at least one of you would give it a try at some time, so I know it is working and serves its purpose.

I'm off for a couple days in the later part of next week, will try it then and let you know in this thread (already have an image file of 1 of my CF cards to play with.)

[PeBo]

 

Opening “Files”--->“Read CF7A+ Volume list” and choosing the CF connected to your PC will open the volume list in the active pane of TI99Dir. Once you have the volume list in one pane, you can copy from one pane to the other. You can also initialize and mount volumes.

 

...lee

Well slap my face and colour me stupid...

 

never thought to USE the CF7 volume directory for copying after reading it.

[PeBo]

Thought I should get back in here and apologize for not reporting back on my successes failures with TIMT, but alas I am having endless problems with my CF cards, and am hoping someone can suggest a fix.

 

(apologies in advance, can;t figure out how to explain this without being long-winded)

 

First, the CF card that came with the nanoPEB a couple years ago continues to work flawlessly - but it was a 256MB, and I really want to store all of the Plato disks on a single CF, so at least 512MB is required. Luckily I have two 512's and a 256 from an old camera, so I'm off to the races...

 

...or so I thought.

 

I tell TI99Dir to read the CF7+ volumes, and as it should it reports that the drive is formatted FAT and using it will remove all contents yadayadayada. I say yes go for it.

 

Everything looks hunky dory, I insert/remove the card multiple times initializng volumes, copying dsk's into volumes, etc., and TI99Dir continues to update and recognize the card as a CF7+ disk all the details are correct when I look at the info. But when I put it into the nanoPEB, none of the volumes can be read. Although they can be mounted when I call up a catalog, nothing's on it, the size and volume names are all screwy).

 

Here's the weird part... when I open it in TI99dir aain, it reports that it's formatted FAT, and using it will remove all contents...the card name has reverted from being listed as CF7+ to FAT. Now all the volumes I copied previously are still listed, and intact (no size/usage changes) EXCEPT THE FIRST VOLUME, which is being reported as UNFORMATED empty 1600 sectors again, although I had copied the standard CF7 vol1 onto it.

 

Any of the three cards I'm testing work as expected, until I put them in the nanoPEB.

 

Now I noticed last night when I was once again trying to get a usable CFcard, the when I used one of the cards I got an error <5> (can't write sector <1> to disc<X:>...), tried another disc and yup same error. So I figure that.not being able to write to a sector (specifically sector 1) must be screwing up the header for the DSR. But the question remains what's causing it. I've tried 3 computers and 4 CF readers, and none of them seem to be able to give me a usable CFcard...

 

I even tried backing up my working card to a second 256 and again it looks perfect under TI99dir, BUT the first volume is unformated! What the CF?!?! Are all 3 cards simply incompatible? (all three are Lexar) I could by one of Greg's biggies, but hate to spend money when I have 3 otherwise working cards (would be mighty angry if I bought a new card and was unable to get it to work either).

 

Any ideas? As I said, my original card works perfectly.

 

 

One final question (if you've made it this far I may as well) I've tried both cf2k_8.bin and CF2K_V2.4.bin in the FR99 with the working CFcard in the nanoPEB, but as soon as I hit a key I get "DSR error <6>". What am I missing here? My brain is getting way too old for such things.

[Stuart]

If all 3 cards are the same brand, sounds like they have a compatibility problem. Try getting a card of the same brand as your working card off eBay - it doesn't have to be new if you just to want to prove the (in)compatibility problem. Cameras and PCs seem to be far more tolerant of different brand cards than CF devices for old processors.

[sparkdrummer]

I don't know if this part of your problem or not but Plato disks are set up funky. The file record sector is at the end of the disk and that's where Plato looks for the files. For them to work with a Nano the disks will have to be sector copied to a volume up to the 360 sectors that a normal Plato disk uses. You might show one file on a normal disk catalog, but that's all. I've set up about 10 Plato disk on my nano and it worked ok

[+helocast]

 

I tell TI99Dir to read the CF7+ volumes, and as it should it reports that the drive is formatted FAT and using it will remove all contents yadayadayada. I say yes go for it.

 

Everything looks hunky dory, I insert/remove the card multiple times initializng volumes, copying dsk's into volumes, etc., and TI99Dir continues to update and recognize the card as a CF7+ disk all the details are correct when I look at the info. But when I put it into the nanoPEB, none of the volumes can be read. Although they can be mounted when I call up a catalog, nothing's on it, the size and volume names are all screwy).

Did you come up with an answer yet? First time I've tried doing this and ran across this thread.

I can also move volumes and files from volumes from right window (Nano CF) to a left windows (PC directory), but for the life of me I can't move the .TIfiles to the CF in the right window:

[+Lee Stewart]

Did you come up with an answer yet? First time I've tried doing this and ran across this thread.

I can also move volumes and files from volumes from right window (Nano CF) to a left windows (PC directory), but for the life of me I can't move the .TIfiles to the CF in the right window:

 

I cannot check this right now because my TI equipment is unavailable, but I can tell you that you can only copy DSK images as volumes to the right panel you show. What I cannot check at the moment is whether you can open a volume. If you can, then you should be able to transfer TI-format files to it, providing there is enough room, of course.

 

...lee

[sparkdrummer]

Here is a template nanoPEB dsk that I use when I want to do some PLATOing.

 

The way I use it is to "fix" the Plato disk I want to use by copying sector 167 to sector 1, this will allow a normal disk catalog to see all files on the disk. For some reason the powers that be elected to have the Plato cart look at sector 167 for the catalog - probably a form of copy protection.

 

On the template dsk I first delete the files $$1, DISKMENU, TIMENU (they are on all Plato disks to my knowledge with the same filenames) and usually 2 sometimes more other files which are the program data (shown - TGAR1A1, TGEDR1A1).

 

I then copy the files from the disk I want to use to the template. After completing that I copy sector 1 to sector 167.

 

The other files on the template disk are:

dummy - this is a fake file that points at sector 167 so it won't get written over by the above action.

UTIL1,UTIL2,UTIL3,UTIL4,UTIL5,UTIL6 - These are a supercart version of the Plato cartridge.

 

I simply enter the E/A cartridge - press 5 and then press enter. The E/A cart will autoload any file on drive 1 with the filename UTIL1.

 

You must have a supercart to run this.

 

It would be nice if someone could hack the search of sector 167 with sector 1 to eliminate the need for the sector copying

 

PLATO_SC.dsk

[PeBo]

I've actually had no problem using plato dsks simply copying them over to the native 1600 sector CF7 volumes and mounting them as volume 1.

 

That is, with my only working CF card. That's why I was hoping to get one of these 512MB cards to work as CF7+ compatible cards...I have 492 Plato dsk's (including the learning outcomes and survey disks), so a 512K card has room for all of them plus an additional 133 volumes for other Educational carts/tapes/disks). Thought it would be cool to have the majority of TI's educational catalog - including the Plato Learning Series - on a single CF card.

 

But after trying to get these to work with multiple card readers, I think I simply have to concede that the Lexar brand (or something that took place in the prior camera or windows formatting) rendered them unusable as nanoPEB cards. (maybe the attached picture will describe the results of my attempts better than my previous verbal diarrhea)

 

As far as copying TIfiles over to my card, it was my understanding (my understanding is often wrong) that TIFiles were incompatible with the nanoPEB, so I've always coverted the files to V9T9 format first (which is a simple single click under TI99dir)

[+Ksarul]

Have you tried to put an empty image in the first slot and then move your BOOT-F18A into slot two, just to see if that one also goes unformatted/crazy on you? It may just be a problem with the position on the card. . .not likely, but still worth a shot from a testing standpoint.

[+Schmitzi]

I often was able to solve "problems" by reinserting the CF-card, formatting it with Windows (FAT or FAT16 I think ?)

and then using the "initialize"-function from ti99dir. Afterwards, read/write was OK again.

[PeBo]

Have you tried to put an empty image in the first slot and then move your BOOT-F18A into slot two, just to see if that one also goes unformatted/crazy on you? It may just be a problem with the position on the card. . .not likely, but still worth a shot from a testing standpoint.

 

No matter what is mounted in Vol 1, it becomes an unformatted after being inserted on the TI side. Of course this is no surprise since the the format drops back to FAT. I figure the write error <5> is preventing the DSR header from being be written to the card. That would explain why the nanoPEB doesn't recognize the file structure, while the volumes seem to remain intact in TI99dir (aside from vol 1 - which I would think sits at sector 1) I just don't understand why I keep getting the write error in the first place.

 

Just another unsolved mystery.

[PeBo]

I often was able to solve "problems" by reinserting the CF-card, formatting it with Windows (FAT or FAT16 I think ?)

and then using the "initialize"-function from ti99dir. Afterwards, read/write was OK again.

I'm going to try that again, I just hate to repeatedly format a card - especially from FAT to a custom format over and over (I've killed more than a few cards that way). Hopefully I can find a solution that will help the next person that encounters this problem.

 

As of this moment though, I would simply tell folks to steer clear of Lexar 256MB and 512MB cards for this purpose.

 

At least I know that Greg has the 2GB cards if I finally give up on getting these to work.

[+Schmitzi]

I use 4 GB cards iirc from Apacer, and some other ? but I have to check

[+arcadeshopper]

i have 4gb cards on arcadeshopper that are tested with my nanopeb, work great.. restored the back up from my main card to one and it worked first try

 

Greg