Can't format CF card

For people with technical questions about their CFFA Interface card. You can use this forum to communicate with me and with other CFFA users. If you are posting a problem, please be as detailed as possible, including any necessary sequence needed to cause the problem, your system information and any error messages.

Moderator: rich

Postby groink » Fri May 30, 2003 10:05 pm

Hi! I just received my CFFA! Looks pretty slick.

Here's my problem... I'm using a SanDisk 128MB Ultra CF. Inserted the CF card into the CFFA, then popped the CFFA into slot 7 of my platinum Apple IIe. Booted off of slot 6 using ProDOS 2.0.3, then ran Apple II System Utilities 3.1. Selected "Format a Disk", "Slot and Drive", slot 5 drive 1, ProDOS, volume "CFFAVOL1". When attempting to format, I see the green LED on the card flash, then the display shows the "An attempt to read or write data on a disk was unsuccessful". To be sure the CF is good, I took some pictures with my digital camera and the CF card. Re-formatted it in the camera, same result on the CFFA. Mounted the CF card on my Windows PC using a CF card reader, and re-formatted it as FAT. Same formatting problem on the CFFA.

Everything on the card is set as it was out of the box. Checked the compatibility list and it lists the SanDisk 128MB, however my card is the series "SDCFH" and not the "SDCFB" that was listed.

Is it more likely that my CF card is not comaptible with the CFFA?

--- Bryan
groink
 
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Joined: Thu May 29, 2003 6:00 pm
Location: Pearl City, Hawaii

Postby groink » Fri May 30, 2003 11:33 pm

Hey!!!! This is weird... Even though the System Utilities reported a problem formatting, booting into Copy II Plus 9.0 verified the drive to be fine. I also re-formatted the drive with C2P and it formatted/verified fine. :smile:

Onward to more thorough testing...

--- Bryan

On 2003-05-30 23:05, groink wrote:
Hi! I just received my CFFA! Looks pretty slick.

Here's my problem... I'm using a SanDisk 128MB Ultra CF. Inserted the CF card into the CFFA, then popped the CFFA into slot 7 of my platinum Apple IIe. Booted off of slot 6 using ProDOS 2.0.3, then ran Apple II System Utilities 3.1. Selected "Format a Disk", "Slot and Drive", slot 5 drive 1, ProDOS, volume "CFFAVOL1". When attempting to format, I see the green LED on the card flash, then the display shows the "An attempt to read or write data on a disk was unsuccessful". To be sure the CF is good, I took some pictures with my digital camera and the CF card. Re-formatted it in the camera, same result on the CFFA. Mounted the CF card on my Windows PC using a CF card reader, and re-formatted it as FAT. Same formatting problem on the CFFA.

Everything on the card is set as it was out of the box. Checked the compatibility list and it lists the SanDisk 128MB, however my card is the series "SDCFH" and not the "SDCFB" that was listed.

Is it more likely that my CF card is not comaptible with the CFFA?

--- Bryan
groink
 
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu May 29, 2003 6:00 pm
Location: Pearl City, Hawaii

Postby rich » Sat May 31, 2003 11:51 am

Bryan,

You are in new territory here. I have not used that series of SanDisk cards yet. Please let me know what happens.
rich
 
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Location: Wisconsin

Postby h.katz » Tue Jun 03, 2003 2:51 pm

Besides the issue of the cf you're using being the "ultra" series (Wonder what they did to change the standard SanDisk SDCFB to the "Ultra" version?), the other is one that is covered somewhere else on the boards here: Under ProDOS, you can't do a reliable format of all 4 partitions from slot 7--move the card to slot 5 and do it from there (this is for Copy II+ and the Apple System Utilities.--Dave Lyon's Davex doesn't have this problem.) I'd suggest taking the Ultra back and swap it for a standard CF model (or check the compatibility list here for non-Sandisk brands that work) and move the card to slot 5 for formatting . Moving it back to Slot 7 after you format it for copying and usage works fine.

Later...........Howard
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Postby rich » Wed Jun 04, 2003 12:12 am

Hi All,

I talked with Bryan about the SanDisk Ultra cards and he told me that his ultra card is working fine. The problems he was having, he now thinks may have been due to a corrupt version of ProDOS.

Rich

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: rich on 2003-06-04 01:13 ]</font>
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