Need help setting up a GigaFile with HDDRIVER

[Colleton]

I recently bought a GigaFile from Inventronik, along with their ACSI adapter cable and a registered copy of the HDDriver software package.

 

I've spent the entire day trying to get this up and running with no good result.  It's been very frustrating.  I boot the STE (rainbow TOS and 4MB ram) with the hddriver floppy to load the HDDRIVER.PRG driver for the GigaFile, then manually run  HDDUTIL.APP program. Both see the GigaFile with no problems, but when I try to create a partition or do anything in the Medium menu I get an "Out of Memory" error.  I've been through the HDDRIVER user manual repeatedly, I've watched and followed a bunch of tutorials on using the software, but I'm not getting anywhere.  

 

The interesting thing is that while I'm using an 8GB SD card, the GF is reporting a capacity of 8.67PB, a sector count of 1,110,257,713 and a sector size in Bytes of 8,389,122.  These are clearly bogus numbers and I guess that it's no wonder that I'm seeing "out of memory" errors when I attempt to partition the drive.  I don't know what to do about it though.  I see these same numbers whether I have an SD card inserted or not.  FWIW, I've tried multiple STs and several different size and mfg SD cards.

 

Any thoughts or advice other than "gee, my ultrasatan works like a champ" (I got that all day on FB) would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

 

Edited February 22, 2020 by Colleton

[ParanoidLittleMan]

This looks as SD card problem - there is lot of low quality on market, especially online.

Well, you tried diverse ones, and even without card it's same. Then - it may be broken Suskafile. Corrupted Hddriver file(s). Later seems more likely, because that Out of memory.

Btw. 8 GB card normally has capacity roughly around 7.5 GB .

Edited February 22, 2020 by ParanoidLittleMan
corrections

[Colleton]

I also downloaded the hddriver demo package just to verify that it wasn't corrupt files on my disk.  Same result.  The SD cards were new out of the package, ordered from Amazon.

[robdaemon]

8 hours ago, Colleton said:

I also downloaded the hddriver demo package just to verify that it wasn't corrupt files on my disk.  Same result.  The SD cards were new out of the package, ordered from Amazon.

 

I'm noticing that it says 8.67 PB, as in petabyte. Either that's a bug, or your card is bad.

[+SoulBuster]

Try this without doing anything extra and do not leave anything out.

 

1. Boot the computer to desktop with HDDriver.sys loaded

2. load HDDUTIL

3. Reset all settings, I believe it is under the "SETTINGS" menu

4. Run Auto Configure, under "TOOLS" I believe.

5. Quit HDDUTIL using the File menu item.  Using the File menu item writes out an updated HDDriver.sys.

6. When you reach the desktop, reboot the computer.

7. load HDDUTIL and try again.

 

This modifies HDDriver.sys to exactly what hardware it found during autoconfigure.  See if that helps any.

[Colleton]

Just an update.  After emailing back and forth with their customer service we're pretty convinced that the GigaFile itself is bad and they're sending me a new unit with a pre-configured SD card.  So, we'll see.

 

In frustration, I ordered an UltraSatan from Lotharek, along with a cable and the "Software for ULTRASATAN" SD card he sells.  Got it in less than a week, speedy shipping.  It worked with the supplied SD card, and I then used the HDDRIVER disk I bought from Inventronik to partition my own SD card on the UltraSatan.  Everything is working like a champ.  It's nice to have a working HD, hopefully I'll have another one soon when the replacement GF arrives.

[Colleton]

A final entry: Received the replacement GigaFile today. It correctly detects the size of the SD card and I am able to successfully partition the SD card and write HDDRIVER to the ? drive. Everything works perfectly. It even boots the SD card I partitioned on the UltraSatan, which is to be expected I guess. Hat tip to Wolfgang and Inventronik for the fantastic customer service!