I would like to know if other people had the same problem that I've had:

My brother has an IDE-CF which has 2 CF cards. Firstly he used it with a 32MB card but when I wanted to use as master a 256MB one, I had lots of problems trying to get it ready from the "slave" slot. I was booting from slot1 (CF32MB) and then I wanted to initialize the 256MB plugged in the slot2, partitioning it and having copied the 32MB card in the first partition of this 256MB one.

I don't remember the real problem back then, but it had something related to writing in the slave card.

Today I've tested the CF adapter with my ATAIDE+RS232C and similar problems have just appeared. The BIOS of this IDE is 2.40, so it can't be the problem. Right now I can create and initialize the partitions in a 1GB CF card which is started as "slave" but I can't write files there. After the first file from the master device (HD) is copied, the data is corrupted (no more free space in that partition) and I have to start FDISK and initialize the partitions again.

I've fixed it by copying MSXDOS2.SYS and COMMAND2.COM from my diskdrive while the CF was plugged as MASTER. Later I've tested the HD as slave and copying from this HD to the CF (master) it worked correctly.

I don't really know if it is common with all IDE models, I've never tested it with 2 HDs in the same IDE since I always had a CDROM installed as slave. Anyone had the same problems as me? I noticed that it happened with both of my IDEs so it is not my only problem, I pressume so. Btw, I was testing it with my turboR ST upgraded to 512KB.


Regards and sorry if it was hard to read.

Have you used fat16.com ?

Nope, even if I've used FAT16 in the past, this problem happens with FAT12, so the FAT16 driver was not loaded.

I've not actually ever tested this, but first thing to think is: Did you remember to boot your MSX after making the partitions and before you tried to copy files?

I've always partitioned my cards so, that they are master and there is no other cards connected... You know... just to be on safe side.

After that I've used PCOPY to quickly move my boot partition to new card. (Using XCOPY might give better result in the end as it also takes care of possible fragmentation but copying whole partition with it takes ages!)

I think I've tried both methods, booting and not booting. I will test it again tonight though.

I use XCOPY here, but it failed with COPY too.

As I've stated my CF is working right now and I almost copied all my partitions of my old HD in this CF, but I would like to know if a slave card will work when I write there. In fact I need to copy this CF into another one maybe next weekend, so I would like to know if it is a normal behaviour.

OK.

I could test everything today so I have some results. I updated both bios to 2.40 since I didn't want have more problems because of it.

1. Now everything works with ATA-IDE RS232C + CF adapter (copying from/to slave CF/HD). Making partitions also works.
2. With IDECF the second slot does not work properly when you write there. I can't even make partitions in slave cards. Who could confirm it then I know my IDECF is damaged?

NYYRIKKI, I've tested it booting after making the partitions. Else it says that the partition exists but is not a DOS drive, so you can't access it.

Anyway, I was testing with a Kingston 512MB card. I created 16 (autogenerating) FAT12 partitions. Then I write the partition table and everything seems ok (Initializing the card or not won't change anything). If I quit FDISK310 and restart it (resetting the MSX or not after quitting), it says that the CARD is not partitioned. If I display the partitions, the card is made a mess.

If I partition it as master or as master/slave with IDE RS232C the CF card is partitioned OK. Then I try to write files to the card (COPY/XCOPY commands). They are now copied. If I erase them the files are gone, but CHKDSK /F finds them as lost chunks. I erase these files again but even if they are gone, CHKDSK /F always create chunks. I connect the Card to the CF adapter of the IDE RS232 interface and I erase OK the files and CHKDSK /F won't correct anything because the files were erased correctly.

So these are my tests. Is my IDECF not working as it should or just all of them have the same problem? I would be happy if other IDECF users could help me. Btw, I think it works with 32MB cards in slave slot, but I did not make tests today.