Atari MEGA STe Technical Information download pdf (Page 31)

Chapter 5. PC Utilities

This chapter describes few programs that can be useful in relation with Atari Hard disk. For example to

partition, display content, and work with images of hard disks to be used on an Atari System.

5.1 Accessing Multiple Partitions from SD Cards

To access the SD card you will need a SD card reader on your PC. This can be for example an USB

card adapter. On this kind of adapter Windows allows access to only one partition even if your card

has multiple DOS&TOS partitions. To be able to read multiple partitions on Windows system the trick

is to force Windows to think that the removable media is a fix disk. Interesting article on the subject

Filter Drivers – Removable Media as Fixed Disk in Window

5.1.1 32 bits Windows - Hitachi Microfilter

There several solutions to access multiple partitions from an SD Card plugged into a PC card reader.

Here I present the solution I am using with the Hitachi Microfilter driver. You can find it from many

places like here. The Hitachi Microfilter is a card reader driver that allows seeing the card reader as a

hard drive.

Setting up the driver is very easy. You first need to extract the two files cfadisk.inf and cfadisk.sys in

a directory. Then start the Device Manager by executing the devmgmt.msc command.

 In the device manager locate the card reader in the disk drive list, right

click on it and select Update driver software...

 Select Browse my Computer for driver software.

 Select let me pick from a list of device driver on my computer.

 Click have disk button and locate the directory where the two driver files

are located.

 Select the cfadisk.inf file and in the Install from disk window click OK,

ignore the fact that the driver not digitally signed message and click Next.

The driver is now installed for your SD card reader and let you access

multiple partitions on any SD card plugged into it.

Note that the procedure described above is for Windows 32 bits version only. The driver has been

tested on Windows XP, Vista, and 7 (all 32-bits pro editions).

 Warning: When using the Hitachi driver your SD cards are now seen as hard disks. The

consequence is that if you delete files on a partition, Windows will automatically create two

invisible folders (marked with system and hidden flags): The System Volume Information folder

and the $Recycle.bin folder. Information about deleted files will be placed into these two folders.

5.1.2 64 bits Windows – Diskmod from Karyonix

The Hitachi filter does not work in the Windows 64 environment. There are several solutions available

to access Multiple Partitions from SD Cards on Windows 64 system. The Diskmod device driver is not

signed and installing it on a 64 bit systems is somewhat dangerous. Therefore I have decided to only

provide reference links that offers information about installation of this driver.

 Flip removable media bit on windows 7 x64 - make a removable drive fixed

 Multiple partitions & UEFI bootable SD card (Windows 8.1) and HERE

 Diskmod 0.0.2.2

5.1.3 64 bits Windows – Access through virtual 32 bits machine

If you want to access Multiple Partitions from your SD Cards on a 64 bits system you can use a much

safer solution based on running a 32 bits version of windows on a virtual machine. For example you

can run an image of Windows 7 x86 with VMWARE. In the VM tab under removable devices you

should see an entry for your card reader you just need to connect it to the VM and the default driver is

installed. After that you just need to follow the procedure describe above for the Hitachi Microfilter.

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Atari MEGA STe Technical Information Page 31

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