Satandisk - Best HD driver to use for this?

[mamejay]

Hey guys,

I have a Satandisk on its way from sunny Poland.

I have been looking into it and found 2 different HD Drivers I can use but wanted opinions on which is best.

I see that most people refer to HDDRIVER.

I have seen another one which is listed on this site

http://atari.8bitchip.info/pphdr.php

 

I see that the second one mentions only 2GB partitions available with a Satandisk but on the eBay auction it mentions supports upto 4gb.

 

Any advice on which to get or advantages of each?

 

Basically just want to play some games on the beast and also convert MSA images to disk.

Thanks

 

[ParanoidLittleMan]

I will not answer to question which driver is Best, since I'm who made PPhdr

And there may be that there is no clear/simple answer - for some users one may be best, for some others another .. All depends on config, what SW using, habits, and even taste .

 

But I write here mostly because of incorrect: "second one mentions only 2GB partitions available with a Satandisk but on the eBay auction it mentions supports upto 4gb."

Mamejay: you or/and eBay advert confused some things: Satandisk (not UltraSatan) can handle max 2GB SD cards. And can not handle HxC SD cards. In theory it could up to 4GB, but there are no non-HxC SD cards above 2GB. Atari TOS supports max 512MB partitions (talking about TOS versions in ST, STE machines) . So, you must create min. 4 partitions on 2GB card. Additionally, only my driver supports over 1GB accessible with Satandisk - other can max 1GB.

Now, I'm not sure what you really ordered, what device was on eBay ... There is UltraSatan, which is much faster than Satandisk, and can use HxC SD cards, in theory no size limit, so 16GB should work fine - but don't see that anyone uses such card. And there is good reason: because on ST, STE you simply can not utilise 16GB, since there is mentioned 512MB partition limit, + max 14 partitions. So, 8 GB is what has sense, above that can be accessed only if using Mint for instance.

[mamejay]

I will not answer to question which driver is Best, since I'm who made PPhdr

And there may be that there is no clear/simple answer - for some users one may be best, for some others another .. All depends on config, what SW using, habits, and even taste .

 

But I write here mostly because of incorrect: "second one mentions only 2GB partitions available with a Satandisk but on the eBay auction it mentions supports upto 4gb."

Mamejay: you or/and eBay advert confused some things: Satandisk (not UltraSatan) can handle max 2GB SD cards. And can not handle HxC SD cards. In theory it could up to 4GB, but there are no non-HxC SD cards above 2GB. Atari TOS supports max 512MB partitions (talking about TOS versions in ST, STE machines) . So, you must create min. 4 partitions on 2GB card. Additionally, only my driver supports over 1GB accessible with Satandisk - other can max 1GB.

Now, I'm not sure what you really ordered, what device was on eBay ... There is UltraSatan, which is much faster than Satandisk, and can use HxC SD cards, in theory no size limit, so 16GB should work fine - but don't see that anyone uses such card. And there is good reason: because on ST, STE you simply can not utilise 16GB, since there is mentioned 512MB partition limit, + max 14 partitions. So, 8 GB is what has sense, above that can be accessed only if using Mint for instance.

 

Thank you for the information.

There are non-HxC 4gb cards. I recall using one on an old PDA unit years ago.

Just check eBay and found these

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/TOPRAM-4GB-4G-SD-Card-non-HC-V1-1-Secure-Digital-Memory-Card-for-older-devices-/330894687595?pt=US_Memory_Card_Readers_USB_Host_Adapters&hash=item4d0adc3d6b

 

Would these work?

[ParanoidLittleMan]

...

There are non-HxC 4gb cards. I recall using one on an old PDA unit years ago.

Just check eBay and found these

....

Would these work?

 

That's pretty risky to buy such things on eBay . I had in hands one SD card marked as 4GB, what one user posted me to recover his lost/corrupted data. First abnormal thing what I saw with that card was that it reported full 4GB of capacity - all usual 4GB cards have above 4-8% less than 4GB because excluded bad cells. Further exam. showed that there is actually 2GB storage chip in card, with capacity of some 1.8 GB. Data loss happened when user reached that capacity limit, and new data started to overwrite data located at card's start - so unrecoverable loss happened. I played little with that fraud card later, and it died completely after some 5-6 writings onto it.

As I looked, there are no non-HxC 4GB cards in shops, so whole thing is very suspicious.

[GadgetUK]

Personally I use PP's driver, because it has a low memory footprint regards buffers etc and I've had exactly zero problems using it with dbug games and pp's HDD conversions. Everything runs just fine. I am using TOS 1.04 and I have 7 x 256Mb partitions and 1 x 129Mb on the first drive and 6 x 314Mb on the second drive. PP's is also much cheaper. I did try an do a deal with the author of HDDriver but he wouldnt move from his ridiculous price, despite more people coming into the scene and picking up these drives. I've got no doubt that HDDriver is very comprehensive in that it supports CD drives and lots more but personally I prefer efficiency and overall functioning games, especially at a realistic price in todays market.

[mamejay]

Personally I use PP's driver, because it has a low memory footprint regards buffers etc and I've had exactly zero problems using it with dbug games and pp's HDD conversions. Everything runs just fine. I am using TOS 1.04 and I have 7 x 256Mb partitions and 1 x 129Mb on the first drive and 6 x 314Mb on the second drive. PP's is also much cheaper. I did try an do a deal with the author of HDDriver but he wouldnt move from his ridiculous price, despite more people coming into the scene and picking up these drives. I've got no doubt that HDDriver is very comprehensive in that it supports CD drives and lots more but personally I prefer efficiency and overall functioning games, especially at a realistic price in todays market.

Yeah I am leaning towards pp's version. 44 euro just seems steep for hhdriver.

I did more research and there is definitely 4gb non-hxc cards out there. I understand the risks of buying from china but I use a program that fills the card then reads it back to ensure it is legit. If not a paypal claim goes in and I get a refund.

In this age where the cards are so cheap there is no reason for selling a rebranded 2gb card just to make 50 cents.

[IainGrimm]

I got PP's driver, had a few teething issues on my side though getting things setup so Windows would see all the partitions.

 

Once I had the Windows thing sorted ready to go within an hour or so after transferring all the files etc.

 

PP's driver is extremely easy to use, one screen that does everything for you on the ST and it sets the card up in minutes. Its also A LOT cheaper than HDDriver. From personal experience I would recommend PP's driver, lovely guy, if you get stuck you can give him a shout via email.

 

To setup Windows to see all the partitions have a look at the thread I created a little while back, combined knowledge of a few people and we worked out a pretty quick easy way to do things :

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/222020-help-with-ultra-satan-disk/

[STuck]

I use hddriver, mainly because it came with my Falcon. I bought the upgrade, and I must say Uwe had been fantastic. The price is steep, but you get a seriously well coded professional suite of software, not just a driver. I would recommend it.

[rabindranath72]

With the UltraSatan I used the free ICD pro tools. Not sure they would work with Satan, though, but it might be worth a try as it is free.

[+CyranoJ]

We offered to work with him and integrate it directly into ULS, but he wasn't interested. Wouldn't even give us a serial so we could add native support for it without buying the thing. Given its 2014, his attitude is, frankly, ridiculous.

 

I'd go use the ICD driver. It's free and it works.

 

I did try an do a deal with the author of HDDriver but he wouldnt move from his ridiculous price, despite more people coming into the scene and picking up these drives.

[ParanoidLittleMan]

When we talk about gaming and hard disk drivers, and especially something like integrating driver into gaming shell - I can say that then Hddriver is not best idea. It is too sensitive on proper TOS work - like need for standard Timer C function, then some TT, Falcon specific calls ... Ideal driver for games is which work 100% on its own. So, no usage of any timers and similar. Core should be complete PC-relative, so can just move it in high RAM. All it is already done ... And gives best performance.

You can try it for free: http://atari.8bitchip.info/ppsd.html