I have a ReActiveMicro MicroDrive Turbo with slots for two CF cards. The hardware is great but the docs aren't. ProDOS can only create volumes up to 32MB although the MicroDrive comes with one 512MB CF card. Is all that extra space wasted or can I use multiple volumes on one card? If I can, HOW? Also, how do I access the second card on the board? I'd like to install Pascal 1.3 on one card and keep the other for ProDOS. Thanks for any pointers you may be able to give me!
Tom L
I haven't used the MicroDrive specifically, but if it's like similar products, you can create multiple partitions. The disk utility on GS/OS's system tools disk can do it.
OK, I figured out how to create multiple volumes on one CF card but I still can't use more than one CF card on the MicroDrive Turbo without lockup. If anyone has the secret, please share!
I also have not been able to get 2 cards going.
I was able to use a 4GB industrial transcend card, which is more than enough for me. I made 3 prodos partitions and one large HFS. If you need any help getting a bigger card going let me know. In short I cloned it with DD and then used the included utility (booted from a floppy) to rescan the drive size and make a new partition scheme.
I think I'm giving up on 2 cards for now; following the instructions for jumpers etc was useless, a second CF card locks the MicroDrive card up. Their wiki has "using 2 cf cards" under "todo"
The features of ESC to skip it on boot, or holding open apple to select a boot volume are really nice though. I use the extra prodos partitions to restore disk images to, then I can reboot to them by number.
Check with Henry to see if you need a firmware upgrade or something. They are usually very happy to help.
https://www.reactivemicro.com/product/reactivemicro-driveturbo-for-iie-and-iigs/
I went ahead and emailed, it seems some of the cards may have a bad slot. He sent me this info and picture:
"It could be the CF Adapter. I have had some units reported with a bad Adapter. Please let me know. And thanks for your patience with this issue!"
I let them know mine is the "wrong" one so I'm just waiting to see if it's an easy fix of if they'll send a replacement. Hopefully this helps OP.
Henry shipped out a replacement adapter for me already. I'll update when I have tested it.
Edit: replacement adapter works fine. as does snapping a rail off a "bad" one so you can flip the card over.
On a good adapter you should be able to move a card from master to slave without flipping it around. The "bad" adapter is wired correctly and simply physically prevents the slave card from going in the correct orientation.