Q68 support thread

[Martin_Head]

like Martin_Head, that I was unable to create a FAT16 partition on a 4GB SDHC card.

I see that he asked for an idiots guide to do this in September. I Tried every Windows variant suggested in the forum without success. Has anyone managed to create an SDHC FAT16 secondary partition on an SDHC card using either windows or DOS.

I pretty much gave up trying to do it in Windows. I found various things online that said how to do it in Windows. But none of them worked for me.

I ended up downloading the GParted and Mint ISO's, as suggested here. And run them as live distros.

I was thinking about making a how-to guide with screen shots, but I was having trouble trying to get screen dumps with drop down menus showing. The PrtScreen key does not seem to work with drop down menus showing. And I was not sure if anyone would be interested, as no one else seemed to be having trouble.

From some notes I made for GParted it went something like this for a 16GB SD card with one 13GB FAT 32, and 3 x 255MB FAT 16

In the drop down in the top right corner - Select your SD card (be careful here to get the right one)

Repeat for all partitions on the card
Select a partition you want to remove
--Unmount Partition
----Unmount
----The key symbol disappears

--Delete Partition
----Partition
------Delete


To create the 4 partitions, repeat 4 times
--Partition
----New
Set New size as required, 14066 for the first FAT32, then 255 for the FAT16
Primary partition
File system, FAT32 for the first one, FAT16 for the rest
Label, as required

--Partition
----Manage flags, set for LBA
Note for the above, you may have to come back and do this later.

Exit and apply all operations.

Close GParted, remove and reinsert SD card.

As noted above, you may need to go back into GParted to do the LBA bit. I can't quite remember from my scribbled notes.

To get stuff onto the FAT16 partitions, I copied it from a USB stick to the SD card in the Linux distro. I don't know how Derek gets QPC2 to see the FAT16 partitions, unless he's running QPC2 in Linux.

If there is any real interest, I could try to do a proper write up, with screen shots.

[Tinyfpga]

No! Non! Nein! I have tried GParted both in live bootable form and within a live bootable Linux Mint.
Nothing so far has produced a Q68 readable FAT SD card.

The whole process is a real pain. Creating a live bootable Unix and getting my laptop to boot from USB is exceptionally tedious.
I am not even sure if a FAT card is going to be useful.

The main reason for trying is because there are two SD card slots on the Q68 and so I feel I must find a use for the second slot.

At no point was I presented with a choice of FAT16 setup. Currently I have a partitioned card that can be read
by Windows 10 but not Windows 7 or the Q68.

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi,

I use Linux Mint 21.2, and I map the WIN, DOS, NFA drives in QPC2 and SMSQmulator to the location where the Q68 SD Card is mounted, which on my Linux system is:

/media/derek/WIN1
/media/derek/FAT1
/media/derek/FAT2
/media/derek/FAT3

Since the SD Card is a MBR type filing system, only 4 primary partitions are allowed. The emulators I use are define the WIN and DOS/NFA drives at boot up, with:


QPC2:
WIN_DRIVE 7,"/media/derek/WIN1/QLWA.WIN"
WIN_DRIVE 8,"/media/derek/WIN1/QL_SMSQ.WIN"
DOS_DRIVE 1,"/media/derek/FAT1"
DOS_DRIVE 2,"/media/derek/FAT2"
DOS_DRIVE 3,"/media/derek/FAT1"

SMSQmulator:
WIN_DRIVE 7,"/media/derek/WIN1/QLWA.WIN"
WIN_DRIVE 8,"/media/derek/WIN1/QL_SMSQ.WIN"
NFA_USE 1,"/media/derek/FAT1"
NFA_USE 2,"/media/derek/FAT2"
NFA_USE 3,"/media/derek/FAT3"

I supose I could make the DOS and the NFA device the same name, with the DOS_USE or NFA_USE commands.

If I was using Windows, the partition would be mapped as a drive letter, except the FAT16 partitions which can not mounted in Windows 7 onwards.

I can make a Linux Distro that will boot from a USB drive with all the tools necessary, if required.

[Tinyfpga]

Derek and Martin Head, I thank you both for your replies. They are bit too technical for me but they have proven useful.

Are Martin and I really the only Q68 owners wanting to use a FAT card?

Thanks to your clues I have already created two bootable Linux Distros with the Unix
tool required to create FAT16 partitions, and although I am not sure what I have done I seem
to have created an SDHC card partitioned as required for the Q68.

The FAT partition is not readable in windows 7. This seems to be correct.

The problem is that my Q68 will not read it in slot 2.

I have only just discovered that Derek's SDHC card supplied with Q68 has a FAT16 partition.
I put it in my Windows 7 laptop, my Quasi QL Windows 10 machine and my Q68 slot 2, and just like
my partitioned card, it was only readable in the QQL.

So... I must have something wrong with my Q68 configuration. I have checked the Q68 setup and it seems OK.

What must one do to read Derek's FAT16 partition in the Q68's slot two?

[tofro]

Are Martin and I really the only Q68 owners wanting to use a FAT card?

I have been using FAT partitions for data exchange for the whole time I owned the Q68 - I did, however, create the FAT16 partitions on the Mac, which worked like a charm first time.

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi,

When a new SD Card is inserted into the Q68, the CARD_INIT command must issued.

With an SD Card in Slot 2, do:

CARD_INIT 2

Then setup the FAT drive with the FAT_DRIVE command:

FAT_DRIVE no, card, partno

If there are 4 FAT16 partitions on SD Card in Slot 2, to access partition 2:

FAT_DRIVE 1,2,2

Will setup FAT1_ as Card 2, Partition 2

Make sure that the SD Card speed is not faster and set to NO, this can selected i the SMSQ/E setup.

I usually configutre this to NO, it is worth checking.

To configure SMSQ/E, with Q68 SD Card in slot 1, do LRUN WIN8_BOOT

[Tinyfpga]

My Q68 was set up as per Dereks instructions. I was hoping that I had missed something.
One thing that is different is the version of SMS/QE that I have. The options shown by Derek do not exist
on my version which appears to be 3.34.

How does one clone the Q68 SDHC card and how can I grab a screen image on the Q68?
Has anyone tried to read Derek's FAT16 partition in slot 2?

I don't own a Mac but what program was used to create SD partitions?

[NL_QL_Usr]

I have made a batchfile for making the partitions drives for windows..

Just be careful selecting the right disk!!

download the zip en extract to a directory on c:

run CMD as administrator
cd to the directory where you have unzipped the file.
you wiil see a list of connected drives first! drive 0 = always your Harddisk so never use that!

run: make_q68.bat
if you got an error the first time
just run the batchfile again

It will make a fat32 partiition and 3 fat16 partitions

or run diskpart as administrator:
and select the right disk
and use the commands as follows:

list disk

select disk X
clean
create partition primary size 20000
format fs=FAT32 quick
create partition primary size 244
set id=04 override
format fs=fat quick
assign
create partition primary size 244
set id=04 override
format fs=fat quick
assign
create partition primary size 244
set id=04 override
format fs=fat quick
assign

exit

you can then copy files to the drives
and use them with the Q68

the sizes are examples and will work for a 32 gb sdcard you can alter the size as you like. off course the fat16 must < 255 mb

[Derek_Stewart]

My Q68 was set up as per Dereks instructions. I was hoping that I had missed something.
One thing that is different is the version of SMS/QE that I have. The options shown by Derek do not exist
on my version which appears to be 3.34.

How does one clone the Q68 SDHC card and how can I grab a screen image on the Q68?
Has anyone tried to read Derek's FAT16 partition in slot 2?

I don't own a Mac but what program was used to create SD partitions?

Hi,

If you think there is something wrong with the Q68 you have, please return it and I will have a look.

I looked at SMSQ/E v3.34 can you check that the FAT drive is enabled:

If the FAT drive is as shown the FAT Device is disabled.

The speed option for the SD Card came in after v3.34

The current version of SMSQ/E is v3.38

[Tinyfpga]

Again, thank you all for your help. I have finally managed to create a correctly partitioned SD card and have it recognised in slot 2
of the Q68.

The process of learning to partition and format as FAT16 an SD card was certainly time consuming but the problem of getting the Q68
to read from slot 2 lay elsewhere.

It turns out that I was mislead by a literal reading of the instruction FAT_DRIVE on page 12 of SMSQ/E for the Q68 as follows:-

Paragraph 3.2.4 clearly states that there can only be 4 primary partitions on an SDHC card and that the first must be a FAT32 partition
which will be unusable as a storage medium by the FAT driver. There are thus a maximum of three usable FAT device partitions.

FAT_DRIVE drive,card,partition

where "partition" is the partition number of a primary FAT16 partition; stated as any number between 1 and 4, so I took
this to mean that 1 was the first FAT16 partition.
It did not occur to me that 1 refers to the FAT32 partition. 1, in fact, makes no sense because 1 can't be used as a storage medium.

I was aware that manual was suggesting that there were 4 FAT16 partitions when there are only 3. I just ignored this as being a
typing error.

The first FAT16 partition is partition 2 and I had been using the instruction FAT_DRIVE 1,2,1 to read the first FAT16 partition in slot 2.
Once I used FAT_DRIVE 1,2,2 to read the first, and in my case the only, FAT16 partition in slot 2 everything worked.

Clearly I am the only person using the Q68 not to understand that FAT_DRIVE 1,2,1 makes no sense although it is accepted as a valid setting.

Might I suggest, even though no one but me has had a problem with this instruction, that manual be modified to read:- ( if this is correct!)

"partition is a primary FAT16 partition number (2-4)"
1 refers to the FAT32 partition and is not usable as a storage medium by the FAT device.

I notice that in the FAT device settings, partitions 1 to 4 is given as an option for FATn_ and is set by default to 1.

Now that I know what I am doing I can create a usable card from scratch and read it in slot 2 of my Q68 in 10 minutes. Discovering how do
do this, even with help and lots of trial and error, has taken over 8 hours.