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SCSI2SD 5.1 and SD card with TOS/Windows compatibility


tjlazer

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I figured I would start a new thread.  So I have a Mega STE with built in ACSI to SCSI adapter.  Since I couldn't find a small SCSI drive, decided to try the SCSI2SD 5.1.  Was having issues prepping it with AHDI 6.  Got the new version of HDDriver 11 and was able to see the drive and format it.  But I had a weird issue.  At forst I was playing with a 4GB SD card.  Got it prepped fine, then I bought a 1GB SD card and tried to play with that.  (Had it set to 4GB in settings)  When I tried to set the device to 1GB for the new 1GB card, it would not work at all, would not see it.  Put it back to 4GB on the device and it now sees the 1GB card.  I got it formatted to a 1024MB partition in HDDriver (because I wanted to use TOS/Win mode) but then the C drive was not able to open up in TOS 2.06.  Spent a few hours trying different things but then I realized my error.  I am limited to 512MB per partition on older TOS.  I set two 510MB partitions and now it works.  I have C and D drives.  Everyone works great.  BUT.... I really wanted to be able to pop this SD card into my PC to transfer files.  Any way to do that with it partitioned like I did?  Or do I need TOS 3/4+ and use it with 1 partition?

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Some notes:  now is really hard to find SCSI driver what works with MSTE internal adapter. And it may be larger capacity that 1 GB - of course will be able to access only 1 GB on it. Condition is that can disable parity on drive, and that's rare. I used for longer time IBM drive of 2 GB, and it worked fine. There is jumper to disable parity.

TOS 1.04-3.06 and even 4.02 all have limit of max 512 MB for partition. Only 4.04 has 1 GB limit (Falcon).

 

I don't know about exactly how it goes with creating TOS/DOS(Win) compatible partitions with Hddriver.

I have own driver where it goes really simply:  http://atari.8bitchip.info/pphdr.php

And there is new feature Virtual Floppy. Special versions for 1 GB limited MSTE internal adapter. And for UltraSatan, for instance.

I'm mentioning UltraSatan becase I think that it is better solution that this internal adapter + SCSI2SD. And price is similar. No 1 GB limit, 2 SD cards, RTC .

And can even work together with internal SCSI drive (not that it is really needed for regular usage, but is good for saving it from internal drive).

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I don’t believe the SCSI2SD partitions the SD card in a Windows compatible format. Keeping in mind, your SCSI2SD utility sets up virtual drives across the SD card, and your Atari HDD driver will then create partitions within those. Would be interesting to see if it’s extended partitions the SCSI2SD utility is creating.


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3 hours ago, vattari said:

I don’t believe the SCSI2SD partitions the SD card in a Windows compatible format. Keeping in mind, your SCSI2SD utility sets up virtual drives across the SD card, and your Atari HDD driver will then create partitions within those. Would be interesting to see if it’s extended partitions the SCSI2SD utility is creating.
 

Completely wrong. And really, instead 'believe' should look around the subject before posting.

I mean, surely is not SCSI2SD who 'partitions' - was it for card self or for SCSI2SD utility ?

 

It's not hard disk driver who creates partitions, but partitioner program. What can be Atari program, and can be for instance Windows program. But only 2 Atari programs can create TOS/DOS or TOS/Windows (if you like it better, but that's misleading) since those partitions will be accessible (even better) in Linux, MACOS ..

Both are mentioned here, so I will not name here.

Atari ST serial has own partition type, what is FAT16 too, but not exactly same as DOS FAT16.  It is even possible to use pure DOS FAT16 partitions, larger sizes, on Atari, but it needs program BigDOS, what is some kind of TOS filesystem extension.  But I can not recommend it this years - program works well, but there is lot of SW what don't like it, + of course eats plenty of RAM.  More can read here: http://atari.8bitchip.info/astams.php

 

Nothing sets in this case 'virtual drives' . Wrong terminology. There is only 1 drive in case of 1 SD card. Proper name is partition or logical drive. But that was 'set' by partitioner SW.  Hard disk driver just mounts partitions, or here " 'sets' logical drives " is close enough. And those logical drives - C : -  P : even must not be in same order as physical partitions on drive (Flash card) .

 

I don't know is there any partitioner on SCSI2SD utility. What is certain is that it will not create partitions usable with Atari ST, only if want to use BigDOS .

And it's irrelevant will it be  'extended partitions' - what is again just bad terminology.

 

For the end:  read this please:  http://atari.8bitchip.info/atdoscp.html

 

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Actually SCSI2SD does use some kind of internal partitioning. Although arguably the term "partition" might be not exact.

 

SCSI2SD can emulate up to 4 SCSI hard disks off a single SD card, each using a different card section. There is no partition table, each drive just has its own sector offset. So technically they are not exactly partitions, but the card is partitioned, so to speak.

 

The point is that the first partition/section/disk on the SD starts at sector 0 on the card by default. This means that it should be as easy, or as difficult, to access it on a PC as when using other devices like Jookie ACSI adapters. The other partitions/sections/disks , if you use them, are hidden on a PC, but of course, there are ways to access them.

Edited by ijor
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OK, so there is possibility to have up to 4 emulated SCSI disks - then even term virtual disk is OK so-so. I really don't see why would someone need 4 SCSI disks, especially not at once. That even needs some special SW support.

And same can be achieved with pure SW on Atari side.

Well, since here is case of internal MSTE adapter, limited to 1 GB, it maybe can be of use, if it works well. So, can utilize whole 4 GB card. But, again, it can be done with SW too - for instance just by replacing MBR on SD card with other one, which points to other section of card.

 

Considering access on PC: there is already lot of it hidden for Windows - only first partition on removable is accessible, so it needs special driver to override it.

And yes, that with not simple access of all sections (virtual disks) is another argument against.

TOS can handle up to 14 max 512 MB partitions, so the real limit here is MSTE internal adapter.  Or in other word - better to use some of by Jookie designed adapters, which surely  cost not (much) more than SCSI2SD adapters.

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  • 4 weeks later...
Completely wrong. And really, instead 'believe' should look around the subject before posting.
I mean, surely is not SCSI2SD who 'partitions' - was it for card self or for SCSI2SD utility ?
 
It's not hard disk driver who creates partitions, but partitioner program. What can be Atari program, and can be for instance Windows program. But only 2 Atari programs can create TOS/DOS or TOS/Windows (if you like it better, but that's misleading) since those partitions will be accessible (even better) in Linux, MACOS ..
Both are mentioned here, so I will not name here.
Atari ST serial has own partition type, what is FAT16 too, but not exactly same as DOS FAT16.  It is even possible to use pure DOS FAT16 partitions, larger sizes, on Atari, but it needs program BigDOS, what is some kind of TOS filesystem extension.  But I can not recommend it this years - program works well, but there is lot of SW what don't like it, + of course eats plenty of RAM.  More can read here: http://atari.8bitchip.info/astams.php
 
Nothing sets in this case 'virtual drives' . Wrong terminology. There is only 1 drive in case of 1 SD card. Proper name is partition or logical drive. But that was 'set' by partitioner SW.  Hard disk driver just mounts partitions, or here " 'sets' logical drives " is close enough. And those logical drives - C : -  P : even must not be in same order as physical partitions on drive (Flash card) .
 
I don't know is there any partitioner on SCSI2SD utility. What is certain is that it will not create partitions usable with Atari ST, only if want to use BigDOS .
And it's irrelevant will it be  'extended partitions' - what is again just bad terminology.
 
For the end:  read this please:  http://atari.8bitchip.info/atdoscp.html
 

You probably need to leave more of your emotions out of your posts, Petar. English is also my first language and I write professionally so qualifying my answer as it’s an opinion is fine. As it appears, you haven’t used the SCSI2SD product yourself to make any personal observations.
Once readers get past your critical language of the person you’re replying to, you do generally have something worth contributing to the discussion though.


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Emotions are good. And here, I see lot of shallow, made without proper research posts. It's attitude 'I believe' what is wrong. Do that in church, not in computer science ?

And I used SCSI2SD, so have experience with it. You just got offended instead practicing self-critic and learn from some with more knowledge. Critical language ? Stupid phrase. Yes, I was critical - better said constructive critical. It's on you will use it for your own good, or act like some 16 years old spoiled child.

There is no nice way to say someone that is wrong. Especially to those who don't like to be corrected. There is no 'opinion' in this things. You just can not use terms so wrong. Like 'creating' in completely wrong place.

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Are these devices considerably different in the way they behave compared to one of

Lotharek's Ultrasatans?

 

I'm using HDDriver v11.01 with a 2 gig and 4 gig Sandisk SD card. I set them to

TOS 1.04 and Windows compatibility and divided them up into 4 partition and 8

partitions, respectively.

 

I can transfer either card to my Win7 box and they are recognized there, although

it's only the first C partition on each card that is seen. That's good enough for me

though, make transfers very easy.

 

I also have a 2 gig card that on my STacy that I use with my Kubuntu Linux laptop,

using Mtools for easy access, but it is command line driven and that puts some

people off. However, using a config. file, you can access all the partitions on the

card. For example, C, D, and E on the card translate to S, T, and U at the command

line, so "sudo mdir s:" will show you the C partition directory, etc,...

 

HTHs.

 

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I will write here some facts (not opinions and like) about how ACSI and SCSI adapters on Ataris work:

ACSI and SCSI are very similar. No wonder - ACSI is basically old pre-SCSI protocol based, what was named SASI. It has limited number of commands, and limited disk area (capacity) access. Therefore we have 1 GB limit with old type ACSI-SCSI adapters like Mega STE internal adapter. ICD made good solution to override that limit, and that protocol is used now, with new devices like UltraSatan and GigaFile.

 

What is common in all it (and stays for IDE disks, adapters too) is that hard disks, their adapters, disk controllers on motherboards don't deal with filesystems, not even with partitions (logical drives). There is only transfer of given count of sectors, at given absolute address from disk to computer or versus. All about accessing specific partition is on OS and hard disk driver SW.

The sad thing in this is how some people comes out with wrong ideas. For instance Simbo at AF claimed that Satandisk deals with FAT16 filesystem on Atari. And nothing convinced him - well, he could just look some sites where all it is described in details.

 

TOS/DOS, or as some say TOS/Windows compatibility is special thing, done only with 2 SW, Atari SW - Hddriver and mine (PP driver). Why DOS rather than Windows ?

Because that type of partitions, FAT16 is from DOS times, and became standard, so is supported by Linux, MacOS, etc. Unfortunately, Atari uses different parameters for partitions larger than 32 MB, so is not really BigDOS FAT16 compatible.  More about this can read on my site.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 4/2/2020 at 8:29 PM, DarkLord said:

Are these devices considerably different in the way they behave compared to one of

Lotharek's Ultrasatans?

I have 4 of the v 5.0b as these use micro SDs.  I think they work great, but you will need termination power if you want to use it as an external device. Or pair it up with something that provides termination power, like a SyQuest drive or physical hard drive. This is what I do.  I believe there is another version that provides termination power.

 

I cannot compare it to Lotharek's  device as I do not own one.  These are fast though.

 

I am not sure about using it to transfer from PC to Atari.  I tried to test with HDDriver 11, but apparently you have to run Mint or Magic to access PC partitions?  I do not run either, so was not able to test. I may also be doing something wrong with setting the partition up too.  I use a NetUSB and the UIPTool to transfer files and therefore do not need to transfer via the SD card.

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On 2/26/2020 at 11:46 PM, ParanoidLittleMan said:

Some notes:  now is really hard to find SCSI driver what works with MSTE internal adapter. And it may be larger capacity that 1 GB - of course will be able to access only 1 GB on it. Condition is that can disable parity on drive, and that's rare. I used for longer time IBM drive of 2 GB, and it worked fine. There is jumper to disable parity.

TOS 1.04-3.06 and even 4.02 all have limit of max 512 MB for partition. Only 4.04 has 1 GB limit (Falcon).

 

I don't know about exactly how it goes with creating TOS/DOS(Win) compatible partitions with Hddriver.

I have own driver where it goes really simply:  http://atari.8bitchip.info/pphdr.php

And there is new feature Virtual Floppy. Special versions for 1 GB limited MSTE internal adapter. And for UltraSatan, for instance.

I'm mentioning UltraSatan becase I think that it is better solution that this internal adapter + SCSI2SD. And price is similar. No 1 GB limit, 2 SD cards, RTC .

And can even work together with internal SCSI drive (not that it is really needed for regular usage, but is good for saving it from internal drive).

OK so I was able to write your 1GB image to a card and it seems to work well on my Mega STE!  I can then pop card onto my PC and see the C drive.  Just curious where the HD driver is on it?  I don't see a file in there.  Also this one has older version .9.  How can I update it to newer version?  Or don't bother?

http://atari.8bitchip.info/DiskImgPP1.html

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9 hours ago, tjlazer said:

OK so I was able to write your 1GB image to a card and it seems to work well on my Mega STE!  I can then pop card onto my PC and see the C drive.  Just curious where the HD driver is on it?  I don't see a file in there.  Also this one has older version .9.  How can I update it to newer version?  Or don't bother?

http://atari.8bitchip.info/DiskImgPP1.html

You can see all partitions with Windows if install special driver what makes it possible (because Win normally allows access only to first partition on removable).

http://atari.8bitchip.info/profb/cfadisk_x86_x64.zip

 

HD driver is on special place, not as regular file. And that's demo version, so you can not install driver. Not to mention that for normal usage need more complex program - partitioner (or as some call it formatter). That is what creates TOS/DOS compatible partitions. And that's commercial.  http://atari.8bitchip.info/pphdr.php

 

 

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  • 1 month later...
On 2/27/2020 at 1:46 AM, ParanoidLittleMan said:

Some notes:  now is really hard to find SCSI driver what works with MSTE internal adapter. And it may be larger capacity that 1 GB - of course will be able to access only 1 GB on it. Condition is that can disable parity on drive, and that's rare. I used for longer time IBM drive of 2 GB, and it worked fine. There is jumper to disable parity.

TOS 1.04-3.06 and even 4.02 all have limit of max 512 MB for partition. Only 4.04 has 1 GB limit (Falcon).

 

 

There are caveats for MSTE & Stacy with an Atari internal SCSI adapter when using the SCSI2SD products as a result of the limits of the Atari SCSI adapter.

 

Git Hub link for SCSI2SD page:   https://github.com/rabbitholecomputing/SCSI2SD

 

Atari MEGA STE
        needs J3 TERMPWR jumper
        1GB limit (--blocks=2048000). The OS will fail to read the boot sector if the disk is >= 1GB.

 

I struggled with this when I installed SCSI2SD into my Stacy.

?

Bama

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Yep. If I had already committed to upgrading this far, I'd

go ahead and spring for one of Lotharek's internal adapters:

 

https://lotharek.pl/productdetail.php?id=49

 

https://lotharek.pl/productdetail.php?id=47

 

Or one of Alan H.'s internal adapters, if you can find one. I've

got Alan's in my STacy and Lotharek's in my Mega STe. 

 

No more 1 gig limit.  :)

 

Edited by DarkLord
Added additional information.
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  • 1 year later...

Just to add my 2 cents I just got all my Atari stuff working again and have an original UltraSatan when it first came out (although latest firmware now), used HDDRIVER 11.01 to partition a 4GB sandisk SD card into 5 200MB partitions (TOS 1.0 and windows compatibility), just partitioned no autoboot or anything as will be used for just backup/data transfer. 

 

Changed the UltraSatan to have ID's 3&4 so no need to change Id on my old megafile, put the SatanDisk AFTER the megafile in the chain (wouldn't recognise if SatanDisk was connected into ST first) booted all (Mega 4 Tos 1.04) HDDRIVER from megafile (also HDDRIVER v11.01) saw SatanDisk booted fine.

 

Copy everything on megafile to one of the SD card partitions (breath a huge sigh of relief as now have a complete backup of it - very old stuff on it) repeated with older Mega 1 (TOS 1.02) and its megafile.

 

Once done popped it into my W10 PC all 'partitions' came up fine, first partition is the 'SD Card' the other appear as mapped drives in order (nothing additional was done just native W10).

 

Now how to get the SD card to interface with the SCSI port of my Falcon (already have CF card in it in non windows partitions) I presume a standard SCSI card reader from fleabay is the only option in this case unless anyone has some better ideas . . . . ?

 

 

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