flashjazzcat Posted July 21, 2011 Share Posted July 21, 2011 My conclusions about Windows' handling of removable devices after last night's tribulations (which involved 90 minutes fixing the driver for my CF card reader) are dire. Yes - we can use third-party applications under Windows to partition CF cards, but regardless of this, Windows will only assign a drive letter to the first primary partition it finds on a device whose removable media bit is set. So yes - we can fully partition the card, and the SIDE loader will find a FAT32 partition full of XEX files, but the partition will only be usable under Windows if it is the first primary partition on the card. So, bearing this in mind, all the flexible partitioning options I have in mind for FDISK seem rather wasteful for the lion's share of users. I think the best plan is: a) To have separate CF cards for the SIDE loader and for DOS partitions b) If using a single card, have the FAT partition as the first primary partition, and the Atari partition (which in any case never needs to be assigned a drive number by Windows, until such time as an Atari partition table and filesystem driver is written) immediately after it. The user will get to choose how much space to allocate to each. Sure I'll install Linux at some stage, but my frustration at the limitations Windows imposes on removable media are intense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kurtm Posted July 21, 2011 Share Posted July 21, 2011 Sure I'll install Linux at some stage, but my frustration at the limitations Windows imposes on removable media are intense. To be clear, I was only saying you could boot off an install disk to use linux's fdisk, not saying you should install it. I mean, you're welcome to, of course, but I'm not going to presume to tell folks how they should work on their PC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HiassofT Posted July 21, 2011 Share Posted July 21, 2011 Sure I'll install Linux at some stage, but my frustration at the limitations Windows imposes on removable media are intense. To be clear, I was only saying you could boot off an install disk to use linux's fdisk, not saying you should install it. For this scenario I'd recommend using a dedicated Linux live CD, as they usually won't mess around with your harddrive. There are zillions of live CDs, my favourite one is grml. It's targetted at sysadmins and contains all the wonderful tools (cfdisk and sfdisk console applications, gparted GUI application etc). Most of the other popular live CDs, like Ubuntu or Knoppix, are targetting at standard desktop usage (web browsing, document/image editting etc) and don't include all the great system tools. so long, Hias Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted July 21, 2011 Share Posted July 21, 2011 To be clear, I was only saying you could boot off an install disk to use linux's fdisk, not saying you should install it. I mean, you're welcome to, of course, but I'm not going to presume to tell folks how they should work on their PC. I wasn't referring to any specific prior point about Linux. I'm aware of the bootable GPARTED CDs, etc; the point I'm making is that one can go about partitioning cards in many ways, but if Windows is your chosen OS, you're not going to be able to mount those partitions conveniently. This is why I implied that the preferred route might be to switch to a less restrictive OS - i.e. install Linux. It's Microsoft who appears to presume to tell folks how they should use their PC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stormbringer Posted July 21, 2011 Share Posted July 21, 2011 http://partedmagic.com/doku.php?id=start http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php I've used partedmagic and its pretty easy for this windows user to deal with Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted July 21, 2011 Share Posted July 21, 2011 http://partedmagic.c...ku.php?id=start http://gparted.sourc....net/livecd.php I've used partedmagic and its pretty easy for this windows user to deal with Nice - thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a8isa1 Posted July 21, 2011 Share Posted July 21, 2011 (edited) if CF card comes formatted as floppy would (no MBR with partition table) then this loader will fail to find FAT32 partition - on my TODO list (rather long list i must say ) OK. Now I am really confused. A CF card with no MBR is exactly what I have. Here is a summary of sector 0: x86 boot sector, code offset 0x58, OEM-ID "MSWIN4.1", sectors/cluster 8, Media descriptor 0xf8, heads 255, hidden sectors 63, sectors 1991997 (volumes > 32 MB) , FAT (32 bit), sectors/FAT 1944, reserved3 0x800000, serial number 0xb0723351, unlabeled 0000000: eb58 904d 5357 494e 342e 3100 0208 2000 .X.MSWIN4.1... . 0000010: 0200 0000 00f8 0000 3f00 ff00 3f00 0000 ........?...?... 0000020: 3d65 1e00 9807 0000 0000 0000 0200 0000 =e.............. 0000030: 0100 0600 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 ................ 0000040: 8000 2951 3372 b04e 4f20 4e41 4d45 2020 ..)Q3r.NO NAME 0000050: 2020 4641 5433 3220 2020 0e1f be74 7eac FAT32 ...t~. 0000060: 22c0 7406 b40e cd10 ebf5 b400 cd16 b400 ".t............. 0000070: cd19 ebfe 5468 6973 2070 6172 7469 7469 ....This partiti 0000080: 6f6e 2064 6f65 7320 6e6f 7420 6861 7665 on does not have 0000090: 2061 6e20 6f70 6572 6174 696e 6720 7379 an operating sy Your utility sees this configuration fine. Perhaps I do need "Linux for Dummies", or at least "Parted for Dummies". Edited July 21, 2011 by a8isa1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted July 21, 2011 Share Posted July 21, 2011 I think the loader now handles plain old floppy boot sectors too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a8isa1 Posted July 21, 2011 Share Posted July 21, 2011 I think the loader now handles plain old floppy boot sectors too. OK, but the results are from the version I tried initially. (Pic, however, is recent). I still can't produce an MBR and partition table that the utility recognizes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
candle Posted July 21, 2011 Author Share Posted July 21, 2011 Steve, must be a bug then haven't done a thing to get this supported yet! could you check with physical drive dump (ie using usb image tool) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kurtm Posted July 21, 2011 Share Posted July 21, 2011 I wasn't referring to any specific prior point about Linux. I'm aware of the bootable GPARTED CDs, etc; the point I'm making is that one can go about partitioning cards in many ways, but if Windows is your chosen OS, you're not going to be able to mount those partitions conveniently. This is why I implied that the preferred route might be to switch to a less restrictive OS - i.e. install Linux. It's Microsoft who appears to presume to tell folks how they should use their PC. Okay, good. I just wanted to be sure my suggestion wasn't taken as a "Install linux" one. I just know that I've used linux boot CDs to partition machines to do things like properly align drive partitions for WinXP. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a8isa1 Posted July 21, 2011 Share Posted July 21, 2011 Steve, must be a bug then haven't done a thing to get this supported yet! could you check with physical drive dump (ie using usb image tool) I don't have a Windows box but I always start with clean boot sector, thusly: dd bs=512 count=1 if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdc Here's the MBR, the one that doesn't work with your utility: x86 boot sector; partition 1: ID=0xc, starthead 1, startsector 63, 1991997 sectors, code offset 0xb8 0000000: fab8 0010 8ed0 bc00 b0b8 0000 8ed8 8ec0 ................ 0000010: fbbe 007c bf00 06b9 0002 f3a4 ea21 0600 ...|.........!.. 0000020: 00be be07 3804 750b 83c6 1081 fefe 0775 ....8.u........u 0000030: f3eb 16b4 02b0 01bb 007c b280 8a74 018b .........|...t.. 0000040: 4c02 cd13 ea00 7c00 00eb fe00 0000 0000 L.....|......... 0000050: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 ................ 0000060: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 ................ 0000070: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 ................ 0000080: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 ................ 0000090: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 ................ Let me know if you need a bigger sample or the actual dump file. -Steve Sheppard Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted July 21, 2011 Share Posted July 21, 2011 Well, I just booted into the live Gparted CD and made a 512MB primary FAT32 partition, followed by a 1.5GB primary, unformatted partition. Windows only sees the first one, but that's OK: I can fill that with XEX files, and the SDX SIDE driver will use the second partition to house all the Atari partitions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
candle Posted July 21, 2011 Author Share Posted July 21, 2011 Steve, input file = /dev/zero? shouldn't it be the other way around? anyways, here is side loader that actually loads if someone will tell me how to disable maxflash cartridge i'll make that version too word of warning - this version doesn't check a thing before attempting to load binary file, so if your readme.txt caused global warming, nuclear attack, or killed your cat - you've asked for it otoh if someone could cross test it against what loads and what not it would be of help can't do everything by myself fat32-side.xex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kurtm Posted July 21, 2011 Share Posted July 21, 2011 Steve, input file = /dev/zero? shouldn't it be the other way around? Not for what he's doing. He's writing all zeroes. Thus his input file is /dev/zero. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a8isa1 Posted July 21, 2011 Share Posted July 21, 2011 Steve, input file = /dev/zero? shouldn't it be the other way around? I just blank the first sector when I want to start from scratch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a8isa1 Posted July 22, 2011 Share Posted July 22, 2011 Steve, input file = /dev/zero? shouldn't it be the other way around? anyways, here is side loader that actually loads if someone will tell me how to disable maxflash cartridge i'll make that version too word of warning - this version doesn't check a thing before attempting to load binary file, so if your readme.txt caused global warming, nuclear attack, or killed your cat - you've asked for it otoh if someone could cross test it against what loads and what not it would be of help can't do everything by myself Candle, if it's not too inconvenient when the MyIDE version with loader is ready would you please compile a copy for an internal MyIDE ($D100)? Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
candle Posted July 22, 2011 Author Share Posted July 22, 2011 no problem, but i'm still lacking of information how to disable rom in maxflash fat32-intmyide.xex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phaeron Posted July 22, 2011 Share Posted July 22, 2011 no problem, but i'm still lacking of information how to disable rom in maxflash Are you trying to disable the ROM on a MaxFlash+MyIDE cart? Banking registers should be at $D520 with A4 controlling disable. Try reading from $D53F. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
candle Posted July 22, 2011 Author Share Posted July 22, 2011 Thanks Avery fat32-myide.xex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zaxon Posted July 22, 2011 Share Posted July 22, 2011 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W88vbO_Q5Wo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+rdemming Posted July 22, 2011 Share Posted July 22, 2011 Thanks for the video. Using a FAT32 partition makes transferring/playing games so much more easy. Will the FAT32 loader be integrated in the SIDE internal ROM so that it can be started at boot-up instead of being loaded through SDX? Robert Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
candle Posted July 22, 2011 Author Share Posted July 22, 2011 production version of side cart has nice "SDX disable" switch and "menu" button guess what for Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathy Posted July 22, 2011 Share Posted July 22, 2011 Hello guys Will FAT32.XEXonly run on SD(X) or can it be started from other DOSses too. sincerely Mathy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
candle Posted July 22, 2011 Author Share Posted July 22, 2011 why won't you just check? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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