Installing an 30 GB SSD on to a RiscPC

I am trying to install a 30GB SSD into my Risc PC StrongArm with Risc 4.02 and an APDL Blitz ideA 32 bit IDE interface card. At present the card has a 38GB Hard drive connected. The main disc is the original 6GB one with the !boot programme on it using ADFS. When I remove the 38GB HardDrive and attach an IDE SATA converter card and the 30GB SSD nothing happens or the screen just gives a message of not syncing. I have tried two different cards one was working correctly when in my Windows PC where it was facilitating the use of an old IDE drive on a system which normally only has SATA.

I have read the article which David Holden wrote on the subject and he seemed to imply that an SSD should work correctly with the Blitz Card providing it was not too large. Both the interface cards are 40pin.

Can any one help me please?

We’ve tried at least six IDE to SATA interfaces and none of them worked on the Acorn IDE bus (Motherboard IDE interface on A5000, RiscPC etc), a few worked (but not 100% reliably) on an Iyonix’s IDE bus.
You may find one that works on a 3rd party IDEFS interface like the Blitz card (they tend to use a different later design of IDE controller) but I suspect it might be unreliable:-(

You would have the same problem with a rotating hard drive.

We (CJE/4D) might try and buy some more IDE to SATA interfaces to try in case later units use a different chip/firmware do you have a photo or the chip number of yours so that I can avoid that one.

n.b. It can be an expensive business trying to support old hardware!

Sorry I can’t be more positive.

Since IDE is very slow on RPC, it’s probably less risky to try an IDE to SD Card adapter.
IDE to SATA adapters rarely work on Acorn – Apple – PC hardware.

We’ve tried at least six IDE to SATA interfaces and none of them worked on the Acorn IDE bus

The RiscPC’s IDE is ridiculously slow. Does it use PIO mode or something?

As I understand you use the IDEtoSATA with the Blitz. This should work. I was using this before my RISC PC has gone.
With my adapter it was necessary to power the interface (has a cropped, only the power pins, Floppy plug)and the SSD.

I have tried two IDE to SATA interfaces and neither function. They are in working order as they work in my Windows PC where I did connect an old IDE HDD to the SATA system via the cards.

TRIXES IDE to SATA or SATA to IDE Bi-Directional Converter Adaptor ATA 100/133

Bipra Bi-Directional IDE / SATA Converter (Connect IDE Drive to SATA Motherboard or SATA Drive to IDE Motherboard)

Has any one had any luck with the two listed above?

I bought one that looks like the TRIXES IDE a few years ago for my iyonix and it didn’t work – it’s no longer sold found it. I then bought one that looks like this – the one I bought is no longer sold and it doesn’t work with an SanDisk SSD but does work with a 2.5 HDD and I’ve had no trouble with it.

The second one I tried is listed here, it works fine with a windows pc, but not with my Risc PC
www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00279MSBG?psc=1

I have given up on the SSD idea but have now tried this one SD SDHC SDXC MMC Memory Card to IDE 3.5" 40P Male Adapter Converter
see this image http://postimg.org/image/mi52en8ch/
I have installed it instead of the HDD which is usually connected to the Blitz Card, nothing happened the RiscPC just booted up as normal, but of course without the IDE drive showing. I tried to use Hform to format the SD card but nothing the card was not recognised. I also tried by connecting the card to the CD data cable and again nothing, so increased the number of IDE drive to two and this froze the PC but did reboot and had a greyed out icon for HardDrive 5 but nothing else HForm did not function so have revered the Risc PC to its original state. Can anyone help with this problem of using the card with an SDHC Card?

I had a similar problem with a Risc Developments ide interface for my old Acorn A4000 a few years ago – I think the solution for me was to use the ide formatter I found here: http://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2268.

I forget to mention that you might need to use the command line to set the machine for IDEFS i.e. *Configure FileSystem IDEFS followed by *Configure Dir (to make IDEFS the default file system) finished by CTRL – BREAK.
Then *Configure IDEFSDiscs “n” and *Configure IDEFSDrive “n”

I am definitely not an expert and have never used a RiscPC so this may be totally inappropriate for your problem.

The RiscPC’s IDE is ridiculously slow. Does it use PIO mode or something?

It does, yes. PIO under interrupts, but still PIO. While IDE supports DMA, and has done since the XT days, there are no DMA lines wired to the IDE port on the Risc PC. I can’t remember what bus timing region it was in, but seem to recall it was 8MHz or slower.

(It puzzles me why IOMD was so limited in its DMA capabilities. FIQs-for-DMA was a neat trick on ARM2, but if you’re going to have DMA I’m not sure why it was limited to so few devices. Maybe pins were the limiting factor?)

I have installed the formatter as suggested, but I does not recognise the SD Card. i have tried 2. a 4GB and an 8GB. When the original Disc in connected it does recognise it and states that it is already formatted. Are the SD cards too big?

Peter Duncan mentioned
“You might need to use the command line to set the machine for IDEFS i.e. *Configure FileSystem IDEFS
followed by *Configure Dir (to make IDEFS the default file system) finished by CTRL – BREAK.
Then *Configure IDEFSDiscs “n” and *Configure IDEFSDrive “n”

Would this not render the computer unable to boot as the !Boot is on the ADFS disc?

Sorry – the perils of responding to a post when one is in a hurry to go out (I also did say I was no expert and had no experience with a Risc PC).!HForm didn’t work with my RISC Developments IDE Podule CF card drive on a A4000 so I used the above commands to format the CF card drive from a floppy disc in an IDE environment and then booted the machine back from the ADFS hard drive after a hard reset. The !Boot file did need re-configuring from a back up, which I guess is a lot easier than on a Risc PC :) I don’t know if you can turn on a Risc pc without a hard drive like you can on an Acorn 4000. This was all some time ago so my memory of this process is not perfect.
I had heard at the time that SD cards could be tricky with some early Acorn machines so got a CF card drive.

Thank you Peter for your post, I also am not very experienced with the subject of SD cards and formatting them!! Lets hope some one will help with a post on the subject.

Unfortunately on the Acorn ADFS IDE bus as in an A3020,A4000, A5000, RiscPC and A7000 we found:
No IDE to SATA worked reliably.
Only some IDE to SD worked and they seem to no longer be made.¹
IDE to CF are dumb (No electronics) so they work it is the CF card themselves that need to be compatible and few are.

On IDEFS interfaces we found:
No IDE to SATA worked reliably.
Some IDE to SD seems to work but there are so my permutations of bus, interface and card.
IDE to CF are dumb (No electronics) so they work it is the CF card themselves that need to be compatible, 50%? are.

¹ We’ve spent many hours scouring the world and tried ordering a few a number of times from the far east and the continent of the right type only for the item that turned up using a different incompatible chip set from that advertised. An expensive fruitless exersize. To rub salt into the wound the Post Office then lost one batch on the way back to the supplier. Given the hoops the PO make you go through to possibly get compensation we didn’t have the time.

So we do now have some IDE to CF interfaces with CF card that work on ADFS & IDEFS but they are not cheap. e.g. this

Shortly before David Holden died he was selling large CF cards up to 64GB IIRR and the adaptors.
I purchased a 16GB CF and adaptor for an A7000+ with Risc os 4.39. His blurb on web about using CF cards has
pictures showing a 1GB kingston elite pro. But the card he sold me is not branded. It came ready
formatted with a boot sequence. It has a number 9930413-001.A00 P743580X02 on the back label.
It just says 16GB Compact Flash www.apdl.co.uk on front. It seems he had CF cards for mother and
IDE interfaces cracked.

Just about any CF card should work on just about any old PATA adaptor.

Absolutely not. Only ATA compliant card will work and there are very rare now.
That’s the problem here.

Just about any CF card should work on just about any old PATA adaptor. Even the very old PIO only adaptors.

The late David Holden, who as mentioned was selling CF and adapter combinations said that many (not all) CF worked with the adapters he sold. The pages he had explaining the problems were fairly extensive.

Also most of the PATA SSD’s should prove to work without issue.

According to DH SSD’s were even more problematic.

You can’t really argue with his experience. He was running a business selling adapters that worked when others had problems finding anything that came close.

We had the same experience as Dave Holden.
Our experience since I made the posting above in May has got worse:-(
Adaptors have arrived that are not the design stated on the web site we ordered from and CF cards of 512MB from the same manufacturer and series as 64MB cards that do work we found didn’t.

The pages he had explaining the problems were fairly extensive.

I had intended to provide a link to the appropriate Wayback machine reference, however someone appears to have been a tad unfriendly.
I have found apdl pages on the wayback before but now the result is:

Sorry.
This URL has been excluded from the Wayback Machine.

Yes, the wayback machine has gradually killed itself off and is now pretty useless. Let’s hope someone reinvents it!

Yes, the wayback machine has gradually killed itself off and is now pretty useless.

Hmmm, I use it fairly regularly for digging up old items, and it seems to work just fine on this er, ‘random’ risc os related site.

The message does say it’s been excluded. Not “forgotten”, not “missed”, but “excluded”. That saddens me.

So you are saying only CF cards that are compatible with the CF standard (eg ATA) will work? And they are rare? How do you make a device and call it a CF if it is not compatible with the standard for CF?

Correct. With old cards, it was 100% compatible. Today cards are more around 0% compatible.

Most of the time the problem is simple: CF to PATA interface is legacy IDE; card is UDMA; computer is UDMA and ask for UDMA transfers; card accepts it; interface doesn’t. That can’t work.

It’s very difficult to find a card that works. You must find one that is NOT UDMA compatible.

I could add that most cards are not compatible with PATA (but SATA), not compatible with the fixed disc pin, not compatible with master/slave pin, etc.