ICS Wizzo IDEFS for A5000/A4 (+A3020/A4000...) improves CF card support!

[steve3000]

The source has a 30 sec timeout for reads, so is it actually waiting 30 seconds before reporting the error?

Yes, at least 30 seconds. It felt like longer, but maybe I was impatient, or possibly it tries more than once...?

[sirbod]

Yes, at least 30 seconds. It felt like longer, but maybe I was impatient, or possibly it tries more than once...?

See what it does if you remove the timeout, I've not tested this but hopefully you'll get just one hit:

Code: Select all

DIM temp% 8
P%=temp%
[OPT 2
SUBS R0,R0,#1
STR R0,[R12,#504]
]
C%=!temp%
D%=temp%?6
E%=temp%?7

SYS "OS_Module",18,"ADFS" TO ,,,A%
S%=!(A%-4)

DIM adfs% S%
FOR L%=0 TO S% STEP 4
  Z%=A%!L%:X%=?(A%+L%+6):Y%?(A%+L%+7)
  IF Z%=C% AND X%=D% AND Y%=E% THEN
    adfs%!L%=&E1A00000
    PRINT "Read timeout removed ("+STR$~L%+")"
  ELSE
    adfs%!L%=Z%
  ENDIF
NEXT

OSCLI "SAVE $.ADFS "+STR$~adfs%+"+"+STR$~S%
*SetType $.ADFS Module

EDIT: There are four occurrences of Disc error 23, we need to figure out which one is being generated:
adfs13 #1
adfs13 #2
adfs14 #1
adfs14 #2

I suspect it might be adfs13 #1

EDIT 2: There's actually a bug in adfs13 #1 as the STR R5,WinTickCount should occur inside the loop which starts after the next line, labelled 10. As it stands, should the whole transfer take more than 10 seconds, it will generate Disc Error 23.

[Andrewcee]

Thanks for this post! I now have an IDE/SD card reader working on an A5000 under IDEFS booted from floppy formatted ADFS. The SD card reader would not work under ADFS.

Currently using a 512MB microSD, will try something larger with multiple partitions another time. Using the IDE tools suggested, can create a partition on the SD and format. After booting from floppy, then goes on to run original !Boot on internal IDE. One small point - the ADFS::4... drive is now IDEFS::4... so any calls in scripts to ADFS::4... have to be updated accordingly.

The SD reader is hard-wired as Master so I swapped the links on the original disk such it is the slave device. With a second hard disk bolted to the chassis beneath the floppy drive (holes line up perfectly), I can run dual ADFS drives or dual IDEFS drives with one a solid state drive. I'm using 10GB and 20GB IDE drives from HP (actually an IBM drive) and Maxtor both formatted to 502MB. A huge waste of space, but at £12.50 a pop, way cheaper than Conner drives at close on £100 each these days. Much faster too.

Will post pictures in next day or two.

Thanks again,
Andrew

[steve3000]

Thanks for this post! I now have an IDE/SD card reader working on an A5000 under IDEFS booted from floppy formatted ADFS. The SD card reader would not work under ADFS.

Great to hear that! If it works with the floppy boot disc, you can avoid this on the A5000 by finding someone to burn an extension ROM

The change in filling system name to IDEFS is expected, and yes you might need to fix up a few references to ADFS in boot files etc. if you're moving to IDEFS from a working ADFS setup.

The SD reader is hard-wired as Master so I swapped the links on the original disk such it is the slave device. With a second hard disk bolted to the chassis beneath the floppy drive (holes line up perfectly), I can run dual ADFS drives or dual IDEFS drives with one a solid state drive.

This is very interesting. I'd only tried using an SD adaptor alongside a HDD under ADFS and it didn't work (even with HDD as slave, and a working ADFS compatible SD adaptor)... never thought to try this again under the wizzo setup... I'll have to give this a go.

I'm using 10GB and 20GB IDE drives from HP (actually an IBM drive) and Maxtor both formatted to 502MB. A huge waste of space, but at £12.50 a pop, way cheaper than Conner drives at close on £100 each these days. Much faster too.

If you want to use more of your vast HDD, you can reformat using the IDEFS formatter into up to 4 partitions of 502mb each... still only ~2gb max though.

But note that a second drive or SD will count towards the number of partitions, so with a 512mb SD and a 2gb HDD, you can only have access to three 502mb partitions on the larger HDD alongside the SD card.

I run my A5000 with a 2gb SD card partitioned into 4 x 502mb, under Wizzo IDEFS.

[Andrewcee]

Great to hear that! If it works with the floppy boot disc, you can avoid this on the A5000 by finding someone to burn an extension ROM

Thanks for the update, guessed it likely 4 partitions would work. I can blow up to & including 27512 roms in the BBC prom programmer I made. I'm guessing the ide modules will easily fit in a 64 or 128, albeit we need a rom to suit the 5th col rom in the 5000. Any ideas, not having blown roms for the Arc before, save me digging out the circuit diagrams. How do I create a rom image from the files on floppy, or perhaps one is available somewhere?

All good fun!

The SD card just fits between the power supply & floppy drive,... I've a second ide drive mounted beneath the floppy, hardly needed with a partioned IDE drive

[img]

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[Andrewcee]

4 Partitions on one drive up and running... IDEDisc6,7,8 - still running solid state disk too. Interesting, the IDE disc formatter allowed me to create 6 partitions, likely could have created more. Unsurprisingly the filing system recognises the first four it finds - I presume.

[steve3000]

4 Partitions on one drive up and running... IDEDisc6,7,8 - still running solid state disk too. Interesting, the IDE disc formatter allowed me to create 6 partitions, likely could have created more. Unsurprisingly the filing system recognises the first four it finds - I presume.

I'm sure internally IDEFS could happily work with up to 8 partitions (Drives 0-7), the problem is a combination of RISC OS convention that Drives 0-3 are removable/floppy drives and (a result of that) this version of IDEFS/IDEFiler only provides Drives 4-7.

Apparently the later versions of the ICS IDEFS for their IDE upgrade podule allow you to access and use all 8 partitions successfully. If this version can be identified, it may be possible to patch the Wizzo IDEFS sufficiently to allow all 8 partitions too, but it'll probably involve a lot of time/effort to disassemble both modules to identify the necessary changes (unless the source code could be found somewhere?!).

[Andrewcee]

Found some rom images, will investigate.

[steve3000]

Found some rom images, will investigate.

Oh yes, the wizzo ROMs are further up this thread. There's a choice of either a 32kb ROM or a later 64kb ROM. I've been running the 32kb ROM in my A5000 for over a year with no issues, you just need to mount it in the lower pins of the extension ROM socket and set the links correctly.

[Andrewcee]

Small update needed to my code: prom programmer loads BBC Rom images into banks of sw ram, needs updating to load larger images across banks of ram. Rom write routines okay as they automatically switch across banks of ram depending upon size of Rom in programmer. Some assembler updates on beeb needed

[aotta]

i tried the boot wizzo posted here with my A4000 inernal ide port, after some rewiring due to corroded track by battery leakege, but i can't made it working, tested with a lot of combination of sd / cf / adaptor.

Best result with the Sandisk 256 cf mentioned above (but !format recognize it as "SaOdisk".. with all sd and cf there is one or more letters mispelled in indentifing drive, even with adfs), format program ends fine (i used the ideas utilities linked above) but after quitting the ide drive is not formatted.

Any help or suggestion?

[IanS]

If you have misspelled card identification, you probably still have some broken/shorted tracks.

[aotta]

If you have misspelled card identification, you probably still have some broken/shorted tracks.

thank you ianS, i tested continuity for all ide port pins and remade 3 broken. Now all connected pins seem ok, some idea for what check other than continuity?

[DutchAcorn]

If you have misspelled card identification, you probably still have some broken/shorted tracks.

thank you ianS, i tested continuity for all ide port pins and remade 3 broken. Now all connected pins seem ok, some idea for what check other than continuity?

A4000_MB.jpg

Those buffer chips (IC45 and IC46) may not have survived the alkali attack. After checking the continuity of all the connections, that is the most probable cause imo. If you have a logic probe you could check if the inputs lead to outputs on these chips.

[DutchAcorn]

And back on topic: I thought it was necessary to replace the RISC OS roms to implement the Wizzo IDEFS on an A5000 but re-reading this thread, you only need to add a an eprom (and change the jumper on LK15 from S to N). Which I did on my A5000 and it works wonderfully! Very pleased with this!

[DutchAcorn]

And back on topic: I thought it was necessary to replace the RISC OS roms to implement the Wizzo IDEFS on an A5000 but re-reading this thread, you only need to add a an eprom (and change the jumper on LK15 from S to N). Which I did on my A5000 and it works wonderfully! Very pleased with this!

After getting feedback from Erik that he still had issues using CF cards with the Wizzo IDEFS, I tried some different combinations. I also found that support is still limited. Sometimes it seems to work but you get broken directory errors and/or performance issues later. ZIDEFS CF card support is much better...

A combination that does seem to work well for me with WIZZO (no errors or issues so far) is using:

[sirbod]

After getting feedback from Erik that he still had issues using CF cards with the Wizzo IDEFS, I tried some different combinations. I also found that support is still limited. Sometimes it seems to work but you get broken directory errors and/or performance issues later.

Its worth testing the problematic CF cards with the pre-patched ADFS 2.68. If they work, it's a timing issue and Wizzo IDEFS will need a few tweeks to make it compatible with the later IDE spec.

[DutchAcorn]

Thanks Jon, I’ll look into that! It may take a few days though..

[philpem]

Holy necrothread, Batman!

I patched the 3V22 "A4" ROM (there were some things missing from the Chunk Directory) but had no luck at all with it. It's probably safe to say it's junk.
You can use the "A5000" version of the ROM in an A4, but you'll lose the battery manager and BMU driver, which are in the original A4 "Portable" ROM.

I've put together an A4 version of the 3V15 ROM -- program it into a 27C512 and replace the A4's Portable ROM with it.

The ICS IDE utilities from Chris's Acorns work great with this ROM.

[IanJeffray]

Thanks for the ROM image, Phil. Burned and installed in an A4 just fine. Might hack it to suppress the ugly startup detection message though.

I got some 4GB cards, which appear to work well (Transcend and Cloudisk), and can be chopped up in to 8 x 499MB partitions. Still get 2048 LFAU though - I've never had the mythical 1024 on any system, but more annoyingly, IDEFS only appears to present 4 partitions - drives :4 to :7. I'm keen to stuff as much storage in to this machine as I can (I have 8 x 499MB partitions on a 4GB CF with a Simtec podule in an A3010) - so my question now is...

Is there any initialisation trick required to get > 4 logical drives to be supported, or is this a limitation of Wizzo IDEFS (which would then be a subject for trying to hack/fix) ?

[steve3000]

Is there any initialisation trick required to get > 4 logical drives to be supported, or is this a limitation of Wizzo IDEFS (which would then be a subject for trying to hack/fix) ?

The IDEFS module just doesn't support that number, that's all. I suspect reason is thay IDEFS is following Acorn FileCore conventions, which indicate that drives 0-3 are intended for removable media and drives 4-7 for fixed media. Simtec and others ignored this in later years, as HDD sizes grew.

I imagine it should be possible (maybe not easy!) to remove the internal 4 partitions limit for IDEFS itself, by locating the partition assignment code and starting the counter at 0 rather than 4... but remember you'd also need to patch its SWI entry checks, then patch IDEFiler, !HForm, etc...

[Boydie]

Can't get this to work with my A4, no matter what. I've tried versions 3.12, 3.15, and 3.22. Unsurprisingly, 3.22 does nothing but the other two versions both fail as well.

I'm using a IDE->CF interface with CF card. This hardware works fine in my A5000 with Wizzo. I set up partitions on my A5K and they work fine - it detects all the partitions and can read/write without issue.
On the A4 (same card, same interface), it detects there's a CF card present but claims it's never been formatted. Running the ICS formatter, it claims it's setting up partitions and claims to initialise them. However on reboot it again claims the card has never been formatted.
Tried two other CF cards - no difference.

Any suggestions?

[philpem]

Can't get this to work with my A4, no matter what. I've tried versions 3.12, 3.15, and 3.22. Unsurprisingly, 3.22 does nothing but the other two versions both fail as well.

I'm using a IDE->CF interface with CF card. This hardware works fine in my A5000 with Wizzo. I set up partitions on my A5K and they work fine - it detects all the partitions and can read/write without issue.
On the A4 (same card, same interface), it detects there's a CF card present but claims it's never been formatted. Running the ICS formatter, it claims it's setting up partitions and claims to initialise them. However on reboot it again claims the card has never been formatted.
Tried two other CF cards - no difference.

Any suggestions?

Sounds like an IDE fault on the A4 - possibly a bad cable or buffer chip?

What does the IDE Identify utility on the ICS disk tell you?

And what type of CF cards are you using?

[Boydie]

Sorry, forgot to mention the crucial detail that the original HDD works fine, which probably makes it less likely to be an issue with the A4 or cable.

CF cards tried so far are a 32MB Sandisk, 2GB Sandisk Ultra II, and a 4GB Transcend 133.

I’m going to see if it likes a DOM any better…

Edit: DOM isn't any happier but I suspect that's down to the orientation of the headers on the cable. I've got a replacement on order. In the meantime, I can confirm that the original HDD is detected and works absolutely fine with the Wizzo ROM

[philpem]

That would seem to point towards an issue with the CF card or adapter.

I've had terrible luck with Sandisk cards in A4s (see viewtopic.php?t=20065) but Transcend 2GB ones worked fine.

It looks like this is the card I used: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000VY2BC0/ (Transcend TS2GCF133)
And this would be the adapter: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0036DDXUM/

It looks like the Startech IDE2CF, my usual go-to, has sadly been discontinued -- annoying as it had both IDE 40-pin and 44-pin connectors.

[sirbod]

This hardware works fine in my A5000 with Wizzo. I set up partitions on my A5K and they work fine - it detects all the partitions and can read/write without issue.
On the A4 (same card, same interface), it detects there's a CF card present but claims it's never been formatted.

Different ATA interfaces I believe, so probably not unexpected for it to work on the A5000 and not on the A4.

Once you've got it working on the A5000, see what Partition Manager makes of it on the A4 - if you run it in DEBUG mode from a RAM drive, then look at debug/txt and see what the discop's did.

You could also try using PM to partition it directly on the A4 and see if it reports an issue validating the writes - which would indicate its incompatible.