Empty Prepped 256MB CF card image : introduction
From time to time i notice that people order a IDE interface without the accompanying CF Kit.
That is okay with me , and i'll try to explain that setting up (Prepping) a IDE device on a non autoconfig interface is a very cumbersome and challenging activity.
And a few times now i noticed that people are not equipped for that challenge, blaming the interface for not working.
I first made a guide explaining some of the steps to take, not in a very detailed manner, but enough for people that are familliar with prepping amiga media.
Empty Prepped 256MB CF card image : Motivation
But for some people that info still was not enough to get it going, and i needed another way to get them started.
let's get clear, this is all about helping myself, people try to spare a few euro's by purchasing a CF card and adapter somewhere else, and when not able to get it working they start sending me emails that the interface isn't working.
Causing me to answer those mails in details, mail after mail would costs me so much time that i rather spend on building hardware and designing new stuff.
I developed and assembled the IDE Kit to provide people with a low budget hassle free experience for their amiga machines.
Empty Prepped 256MB CF card image : guide
The image i created is an empty but already prepped copy of a 256MB Compact flash card, the Prepped 256MB CF card image is zipped from 256MB to 250KB in 7ZIP , so it has to be extracted with 7zip (Windows itself cannot handle this archive).
The Prepped 256MB CF card image should be written to a CF card (preferable a 256MB one) with the use of Win32 Disk Imager (Make sure to select the correct drive letter you write the image to, otherwise you overwrite valuable data)
If the card is not exactly the same size you could get errors and writing back is not possible , if the card is bigger than it shoudl be no problem, otherwise you could always use Balena etcher, that has a ignore option.
Same warning applies , make sure to correct the correct drive letter for the CF Card
Empty Prepped 256MB CF card image : booting and installing
Once the image is written back you will have a 256MB environment divided in 2 partitions, both partitions are empty and need to be installed. Boot with the IDEA FFS bootdisk (download section) and once the dh0: is mounted you can install or copy the workbench onto the CF card.
Installing is a big challenge if you need to boot from the install disk, this is outside the scope of this guide.
For workbench 1.3 just enter the workbench disk and type :
df0:c/Copy df0: dh0: all
Then insert the WB extras disk and type the following command
dh0:c/Copy df0: dh0: all
- To be continued -
