CF / Hard Drive Problems

Altera_Forum · ‎11-09-2006

I've been struggling to get the altcf module to work in the latest uClinux-dist environment (with hippo's patches), and I've run into two problems.

1) When I build the cf sample project (from cf_5.zip) for my evaluation board (the 1S40) and boot uClinux, it recognizes the compact flash card as hda and prints out it's identification, but then says "No drives found" and I'm unable to access /dev/hda. I scoured the forum last night and I found one other thing to try for this; by the time I had simplified everything down to this I was setting the kernel parameters from memory and I think I left out "Use multi-mode by default". I will try this as soon as I get back to work, but I just thought I would ask if anyone had successfully used this with the latest build and 2.6 kernel.

2) My end goal is to use the altcf module to access a hard drive. It appears that the compact flash socket is also pinned out to one of the 40 pin headers, and when I put an IDE bus analyzer on the header I can see the Nios interact with a compact flash. The wierd part is that if I connect a hard drive to the connector and boot linux it sees nothing, but if I connect a hard drive AND insert a compact flash card it sees the hard drive! Do I need to do anything to "fake out" the compact flash portion of the altcf core to make it work with a hard drive? Everything I've seen on the forum and the wiki made it seem like it all just worked... Can anyone give me any advice?

Altera_Forum · ‎11-09-2006

1. I heard someone had the altcf working with the latest uClinux-dist.

2. I had displayed the IDE pin assignment using altcf core in CompactFlash wiki page.

.addr_from_the_cf_0 (da),

.cs_n_from_the_cf_0 (cs),

.data_cf_to_and_from_the_cf_0 (dd),

.detect_n_to_the_cf_0 (1'b0),

.intrq_to_the_cf_0 (intrq),

.iord_n_from_the_cf_0 (dior),

.iordy_to_the_cf_0 (iordy),

.iowr_n_from_the_cf_0 (diow),

.reset_n_cf_from_the_cf_0 (reset)

Remove unused pins of altcf.

The key issue is the detect_n_to_the_cf_0 , which should be forced low for IDE.

Altera_Forum · ‎11-09-2006

Thanks hippo! I saw your entry in the wiki (it was very helpful; thanks!), I guess what I was missing was forcing detect_n_to_the_cf_0 low. Once I do that, should I expect a message at boot-up that indicates a CF card was inserted no matter what? Thanks very much for the quick response!