divIDE and CF problems - Help !!!

steve lancaster

Hi all

I have recently purchased 2 divIDE interfaces (not the divIDE Plus).

I cannot get the things to work whatsoever - however I am totally new to these things.

I have a rubber keyed Spectrum and a Plus 2

Both divIDEs were purchased at the same time from the Sintech Shop in Germany. Both have FATWARE 0.12 installed as the firmware and both divIDEs have "divIDE 57c" in the corner of the board.

I have tried numerous CF cards. Firstly, two Hama 256mb cards.

When switching on - the result is:

Detecting ATA (PI) devices
0 - none
1 - none

0 Volumes found

Pressing the NMI button does nothing. Holding down the space key when switching on does nothing.

I have also tried a Sandisk 32mb CF card. This is recognised under 0 but, again, no volumes found.

I have also tried a Takiwa 1GB CF card - but the screen fills with "dirt" when switching on.

I have tried formatting the CF cards using fdisk (to get a FAT16) on Windows ME (using the PCMCIA slot on an old laptop) and setting a DOS partition. Still no luck.

The result is the same on both divIDE's I have purchased.

Any ideas, anybody?

Steve

icabod

There could be a few possible issues... I've had many issues with CF cards with my DivIDE until recently when I replaced a couple of the latches.

Have a look at this picture (from Papaya Labs) - it shows the location on the DivIDE of a couple latches (74xx245). What is the number of your latches? I ask because my DivIDE originally had HCT latches, which are susceptible to noise. I replaced them with LS latches, and things work much better now.

Another thing you could try is applying power to the CF cards. Some people say this should make no difference, but from my experience it can (some CF cards I have simply refuse to work with no power). Your CF adapter will probably have a power connected (a floppy power connector, for example). Apply power to this from (for example) an old PC PSU. I use an adapter that sits on the end of a +3 PSU, which came with my MB02 (it's supposed to power the MB02 and a couple floppy drives).

icabod

Another thing while I think about it... some CF cards don't work well on their own. I have experienced a case where a card is not recognised at all unless there is a slave card there too.

rich_chandler

At the front of the board (just in front of the connection to the Spectrum) is a jumper. Ensure it on the two left pins, when I received my DivIDE it was on the two right pins and I couldn't work out why it wouldn't work with my 48k machine but a quick email to LaesQ solved my probs.