Adtron SCSI Compact Flash drive?

[olePigeon]

I stopped by WeirdStuff on my way home and grabbed a 256MB Sandisk CF card from one of their bins. That one worked! So I'm relieved to report that my adapters do work, they just don't like these Team branded 2GB CF cards. I'll ship those back to NewEgg.

I'd be interested in knowing if someone has a Sandisk or other name brand 2GB that works with their Mac.

My goal is to get 2 cards and RAID them, then stick it on an Ultra SCSI Hammer card in my IIci.

 

[NJRoadfan]

When the original CFFA card came out for the Apple II, quite a few people had problems with off-brand cards working. They apparently didn't properly support "True IDE" mode.

 

[snuci]

NJRoadFan,

This is starting to make sense. The 16GB Kingston cards I bought didn't have a datasheet but one of the FAQs asks if you can boot and use this card as a drive or run an OS from it and the answer states this is not supported. I'm guessing it doesn't do True IDE or some mode that the Adtron is expecting. The Lexar 512MB 12x card I have does IDE/ATA and USB, auto-sensing. I'm assuming this means True IDE also. The Transcend 8GB 133x supports various True IDE modes also

If it's not specific to True IDE, it must be some mode that is needed for a Compact Flash to work in the Adtron.

 

[NJRoadfan]

One way to test for "True IDE" mode is to use one of those passive CF to IDE adapters. Pretty much any machine you connect it to will chock. Has anyone tapped the serial header on these boards yet? For all we know, it could be outputting debug and status info.

 

[MacJunky]

I'd be interested in knowing if someone has a Sandisk or other name brand 2GB that works with their Mac.

I have a Team 4GB, and ADATA 2GB that work in my 1400, but that is IDE to begin with, not some odd SCSI contraption.

Also, if the 4GB card is FAT formatted on a PC then 7.6.1 will not like it. but if you make it exFAT or FAT32 or something 8.6 has no issues.(one of the two or possibly both, I forget)

And of course it works when formatted HFS.

I have also been moving files around on a 256MB Transcend card as well as a 512MB Sandisk card. My other CF cards are in other computers atm and are not available for testing... Though I never got around to testing my 266x 8GB Patriot card. *shrug*

I really have not had too many issues with CF cards except in my 286, *that* is very picky.

 

[Paralel]

I've discovered another interesting tidbit that may help people that are having issues. Apparently this device needs a card that is at least 133x or has "fast initialization" otherwise the card may initialize too slowly for the Adtron, and it will report "Device Not Ready" status. I have a 75x transcend that is hit and miss because unless one hits restart at just the right time the card may not init in time and the Adtron will report a medium incompatible error.

I can say with absolute certainty that the Adtron requires SCSI arbitration.

 

[snuci]

My Lexar 12x 512MB card works like a charm so it kinda blows that theory out of the water, Paralel.

 

[NJRoadfan]

I'm pretty sure the ancient 8MB card I'm using isn't 133x (branded Canon, made by Hitachi). Its about 11 years old!

 

[olePigeon]

I formatted my Team 2GB cards to HFS using the ATA CF adapter on my G4. That made no difference for my adapter. Just doesn't like these particular cards.

 

[Paralel]

Must be the card I have then. Piece of crap.

 

[techknight]

Like i mentioned before, my Sandisk 2GB is booting my 520c without incident.

 

[snuci]

Hate to bring back this old thread (okay, not really) but I have an update. The CF cards are really hit and miss. A while back, I bought some Transcend Industrial 8GB Ultra's and I could not get them to work even though there was evidence that the normal Transcend 8GB worked. Judging by the spec sheets, these are practically identical except for the MTBF.

I have an Amiga 1200 with a CF/IDE card adapter from AmigaKit so I gave that 4GB CF card a shot in desperation and THAT wouldn't work either.

Fast forward to today. I just bought a used camera and it came with a Sandisk Ultra II 4GB and another Sandisk Ulta II 8GB CF card. They both WORK! Te 8GB is still formatting but it's working with MicroNet.

Anyway, thought I'd give a quick update in case a future search turns up this thread.

 

[AbelVincze]

I'm thinking about buying a such CF card adapter, cause 2 of my last 4 SCSI HDDs died in the past 2 weeks. What i'm curious about, is when i pull out the CF card from the SCSI adapter (already formatted, with system, etc), can i use it with a card reader on OS X 10.5 (which is able to read/write Mac Standard FS) to exchange files?

 

[hamid]

This card doesnt look like its too difficult to copy. it is using an off-the-shelf 83C96 SCSI interface IC. Then its using an AM186 microcontroller, and its firwmare is right next to it waiting to be dumped.

hi do you have firmware adtron scsi hard drive?

 

[RandomDamage]

hi do you have firmware adtron scsi hard drive?

Here is the firmware I grabbed off an Adtron SSDS-03A. Perhaps not quite the same thing as described in the original post. I used this firmware to convert an SSDS-04A (tape emulation) to the SSDS-03A.

 

[Compgeke]

Here is the firmware I grabbed off an Adtron SSDS-03A. Perhaps not quite the same thing as described in the original post. I used this firmware to convert an SSDS-04A (tape emulation) to the SSDS-03A.

When doing this, did you just flash the ROM on the board and solder in the missing jumper header? I've got an -04A here but haven't tested due to being tape firmware.

 

[hamid]

Here is the firmware I grabbed off an Adtron SSDS-03A. Perhaps not quite the same thing as described in the original post. I used this firmware to convert an SSDS-04A (tape emulation) to the SSDS-03A.

hi do you have a picture pcb board adtron scsi ? i want change capacity to 2gb or 4gb i send to you pcb board picture adtron scsi