SpicyChronos Posted January 16, 2020 Share Posted January 16, 2020 Hi all, After getting the 800XL working, I am now working with the SIDE 2 cartridge. I updated the firmware to the FJC July 2019. I have tried a 4GB Sandisk Compact Flash card, split it in half with FAT32 and APT. After FDISK, I go to build the directories for 6 drives C, D, E, F, G and H. These are 256 byte sectors, 65535 sectors. After creating the directories, I go check the drives, and i kept on getting an error 148?, on several of them, so i would rebuild the directory and it was good again. So after all drives had directory structures, I started creating folders for games. inside the games sub-directory i start creating more sub-directories like A_C, D_F, etc to keep them sorted. After they were created, I do a directory listing, and hardly any of the folders show, or I get a corrupt directory information. So that is where I am. I have several more 1GB Compact Flash carts I can try, but haven't yet, because I was so frustrated, so I walked away for a day. Any suggestions? Thanks again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Posted January 16, 2020 Share Posted January 16, 2020 Which version of SDX is on the SIDE2 and is this an atari with or without U1MB? I have seen this kind of issues too, but that was with a MyIDE interface years go. Changing the CF card did help in that situation indeed. It can also be a problem with stability (combination that particular atari and the side2). I can tell the FJC stuff (like FDISK etc.) is good. Make sure you have all the newest versions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted January 16, 2020 Share Posted January 16, 2020 As Marius says: intermittent issues like these are hardware related... regardless of the fact they shouldn't happen. Disk must be partitioned OK if partitions show up even once, but if the CPU cannot reliably communicate with the CF card, all bets are off. Do not try to find any rhyme or reason in this (for instance if you observe things working in the loader and not in DOS or vice-versa): it's the path to madness. Everything should just work. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpicyChronos Posted January 16, 2020 Author Share Posted January 16, 2020 Okay, I will just try a 1GB Compact Flash, and see how my results are with APT. I have installed the U1M board, and things seem stable, I updated the firmware for it too, with a swapped CPU, which was the cause of my initial instability. I wiill still do the PHI2 stabilizing modifications. They don't seem to take that long to do. I will have to tinker after work, not enough time in the morning to do anything. Thank you for all the suggestions. I'll keep everyone updated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Posted January 16, 2020 Share Posted January 16, 2020 I believe ph2 related mods are not really a good idea with U1Mb installed. You might want to try a replacement for the 74LS08 TTL though. I believe some people had better results with the F08 ... You might want to search for that. Are you sure you are using the PBI enabled setting in the u1mb. It is not clear yet how you are using the side2. Best is using U1MB SDX and U1MB pbi with FJC firmware version 3.x ... Is this a lotharek or candle U1MB board? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted January 16, 2020 Share Posted January 16, 2020 5 minutes ago, Marius said: Are you sure you are using the PBI enabled setting in the u1mb. This is a point well worth raising. If you happen to enable the PBI HDD and somehow launch SDX from the SIDE cart, you can end up with nasty surprises. For proper operation: Put SIDE2 switch in 'upper' (nearest edge of casing) position Enable PBI BIOS/HDD in U1MB firmware menu Enable or disable SDX in U1MB menu as per your preference In point of fact, the more recent U1MB firmware doesn't particularly care what position the SIDE switch is in when ATR button is turned on, but best to do things by the book initially. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpicyChronos Posted January 18, 2020 Author Share Posted January 18, 2020 Well the PHI2 mods have been done. Things are still working. I formatted a 1GB CF card (Sandisk) as APT, and created 6 - 512 byte 65535 sectors, and I believe that it is working correctly. I have AtariMax APE software, and copied a bunch of XEX files to the root of the 1st drive. Everything copied, and I was able to run the programs and games. I'm about to format another 1GB CF card (Sandisk) and make it FAT or FAT32, and try the Side Loader setting, and see if it will load ATRs. As for settings, I believe I have the U1M set to PBI BIOS, and disabled SDX on the U1M. One final question for the SIDE loader, will it run ATX images? Thanks all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted January 18, 2020 Share Posted January 18, 2020 12 minutes ago, SpicyChronos said: One final question for the SIDE loader, will it run ATX images? No. The only ways to load ATX files on real hardware are an SDrive-MAX device, the foked beta version of RespeQt, or via a Windows machine using an AtariMax SIO2PC-USB device running APE/ProSystem software. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpicyChronos Posted January 18, 2020 Author Share Posted January 18, 2020 That's okay. I have the ProSystem and the USB version of SIO2PC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Posted January 19, 2020 Share Posted January 19, 2020 On 1/18/2020 at 2:13 AM, SpicyChronos said: As for settings, I believe I have the U1M set to PBI BIOS, and disabled SDX on the U1M. This is something you should NOT do. The SDX built in the SIDE2 has 'soft' drivers for the Side2. Those are no longer needed if you have the PBI enabled in the U1MB. The PBI driver in the U1MB turns your SIDE2 in a 'stand alone' PBI-harddrive. That is as good as a 'real' PBI-harddisk connected to the Atari. The drivers built in the SDX distribution in the SIDE2 are only needed for Atari's that do not have the U1MB installed. My experience is that those drivers are excellent too, but the PBI solution is definitely better. I am not sure that your problems were caused by this, but there is a slight chance. @flashjazzcat can tell you more about this. As written before... you might want to swap the LS08 on your mobo if problems do not go away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted January 19, 2020 Share Posted January 19, 2020 59 minutes ago, Marius said: This is something you should NOT do. To clarify: you can disable SDX on U1MB if you do not want to use SDX at all, but don't use SDX on the SIDE cart when U1MB is present and the PBI HDD is enabled. Unless you want to use ebiguy's OSS language cart ROMs for SIDE2, always enable the ATR swap button in the U1MB options and you can't go wrong (enabling the button ensures that ROM on the SIDE cartridge is always suppressed, no matter how anything else is configured). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Posted January 19, 2020 Share Posted January 19, 2020 1 hour ago, flashjazzcat said: To clarify: you can disable SDX on U1MB if you do not want to use SDX at all, but don't use SDX on the SIDE cart when U1MB is present and the PBI HDD is enabled. Unless you want to use ebiguy's OSS language cart ROMs for SIDE2, always enable the ATR swap button in the U1MB options and you can't go wrong (enabling the button ensures that ROM on the SIDE cartridge is always suppressed, no matter how anything else is configured). Of course. You are entirely right. I was under the impression topic starter wanted to use SpartaDos X. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted January 19, 2020 Share Posted January 19, 2020 Just now, Marius said: I was under the impression topic starter wanted to use SpartaDos X. Yes: I completely understand. It's not too clear yet whether he's using it or not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris D Posted February 5, 2020 Share Posted February 5, 2020 I've just bought a SANDISK ULTRA 16GB CF card for my SIDE 2, but the card isn't recognised. Older cards all work fine. Is there a compatibility issue with these cards, or does the firmware need updating? Help please. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted February 5, 2020 Share Posted February 5, 2020 1 minute ago, Chris D said: I've just bought a SANDISK ULTRA 16GB CF card for my SIDE 2, but the card isn't recognised. Older cards all work fine. Is there a compatibility issue with these cards, or does the firmware need updating? Help please. If it’s a recent Sandisk Ultra with the silver label, it likely just won’t work with the SIDE2. Ive never been able to get either of my 16GB cards to work properly. I had an older silver label 8GB card that worked but not the 16GB cards. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mytek Posted February 5, 2020 Share Posted February 5, 2020 That particular card doesn't like to be hot plugged. At least that is my experience when used in the XEL-CF3 or XLD-IDE where it works fine if powered up with the card already inserted, and I would assume the same would hold true for SIDE2. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted February 5, 2020 Share Posted February 5, 2020 3 hours ago, Chris D said: I've just bought a SANDISK ULTRA 16GB CF card for my SIDE 2, but the card isn't recognised. If you'd like to test new firmware intended to improve card compatibility (although it's not known if this will do much to help matters without the corresponding modification to the cartridge; it simply runs the card in a different PIO mode), please let me know and I'll shoot a copy across. 53 minutes ago, mytek said: That particular card doesn't like to be hot plugged. There's a (completely undocumented) feature of the SIDE2 of which the latest firmware takes advantage; it ensures a newly inserted card is in a reset state the moment it is pushed into the slot. Apparently this can help, but since I never had any problematic CF cards, I can't offer personal testimony. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted February 5, 2020 Share Posted February 5, 2020 1 hour ago, mytek said: That particular card doesn't like to be hot plugged. At least that is my experience when used in the XEL-CF3 or XLD-IDE where it works fine if powered up with the card already inserted, and I would assume the same would hold true for SIDE2. That same card (both of my examples) work great in either my 1088XEL and XLD. It does not work in my SIDE2 cart - even when inserted when the machine is powered up. As I've noted elsewhere, the older 8GB version of the same card worked in all three applications. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris D Posted February 7, 2020 Share Posted February 7, 2020 Thanks for the offer, FlashJazzCat, but I'm going to return it to AMAZON for a refund. DrVenkman says the 8GB version works OK, but can you recommend any others? I'm going to use it for archiving, so it must be reliable. Thanks to both of you for your replies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Posted February 7, 2020 Share Posted February 7, 2020 24 minutes ago, Chris D said: Thanks for the offer, FlashJazzCat, but I'm going to return it to AMAZON for a refund. DrVenkman says the 8GB version works OK, but can you recommend any others? I'm going to use it for archiving, so it must be reliable. Thanks to both of you for your replies. I have had lots of luck with Sandisk CF cards with the blue/red 'label' ... most of my cards are 512MB or 1.0GB ... I also have a few 256MB cards. I know it is outdated stuff, but for Atari 8bit (for me) it is more than enough storage space. My main CF card is actually a 256MB card, which I picked because of the easy of backing the CF card up in one image. From time to time I backup the entire card on Mac using dd command. When I used bigger carts this was a time consuming operation. (I know I could limit the amount of sectors that is actually used, but it happened from time to time that I picked not enough or not the right amount of sectors, so from now I do this only with smaller CF cards). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Posted February 7, 2020 Share Posted February 7, 2020 On 1/16/2020 at 1:26 PM, SpicyChronos said: I'll keep everyone updated. Hi SpicyChronos! Just wondering how it is going now. Did you eventually manage to fix the issues you did run into? I hope you have the a8 up and running! If not, let us know, we are here to help! Greetz Marius Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TGB1718 Posted February 7, 2020 Share Posted February 7, 2020 I use these and have no problems, the 4GB I got off ebay second hand for a few £ the other I've had for many years Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted February 8, 2020 Share Posted February 8, 2020 (edited) On 2/7/2020 at 10:06 AM, Chris D said: DrVenkman says the 8GB version works OK, but can you recommend any others? I've just purchased a SanDisk 'Extreme' identical to the one in TGB1718's photo and it works perfectly. I also have a pair of these: They are also reliable, as are these: The (forever) pending firmware update I'll be releasing soon fixes a small issue with my loader's SD/CF adapter compatibility. SD and MicroSD adapters work perfectly well and can actually outperform CF cards: Edited February 8, 2020 by flashjazzcat 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted February 8, 2020 Share Posted February 8, 2020 8 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said: I've just purchased a SanDisk 'Extreme' identical to the one in TGB1718's photo and it works perfectly You have the 16GB version? I wonder why neither of my two examples work in my SIDE2 cart? I'm loathe to spend the time chasing gremlins any further but I might image one of my cards, then wipe it and try it with my SIDE2 + U1MB 1200XL again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted February 8, 2020 Share Posted February 8, 2020 37 minutes ago, DrVenkman said: You have the 16GB version? No, just the 4GB version, which I purchased in a camera shop second hand for 3GBP. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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