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[AmigaBruno]

After all I've been through not being able to do transfers for about 2 weeks, last night I got the same old error message about not being connected and retrying!!!! This means I'm currently not able to do any more ADF transfers.

First of all, I asked myself what had changed since the Arkanoid ADF transfer. The answer was that I fitted a GVP hard drive. Of course, I disabled it so I could boot from the Paradise floppy disk, but that wasn't enough. I then disconnected the hard drive, but that made no difference. Neither did changing the port address or using the new PCI parallel port.

My theory is that any little change can somehow reset the parallel ports connection, turning it off. This happens at the PC side, where the console messages appear, but on the Amiga side the floppy disk just says "Establishing connection..." I think I now need to explore absolutely everything to do with the Paradise software to overcome this. I hope it doesn't take me another 2 weeks. I'd appreciate any suggestions.

[AmigaBruno]

Good news! I've got the ADF transfer kit working again.

I reread the documentation and it seems that it's very important in what order you do things. I ran the Paradise software on the Amiga first and inserted a blank Amiga floppy disk before running the ADF transfer software on the PC.

I used my original parallel port with the address of 0x378. I was able to transfer the set of 4 ADF files which make up the Aztec C v5 compiler. I managed to install these onto my hard drive as well. Unfortunately, the compiler keeps generating various error messages, such as multiple input files and can't find various include files which are where the configuration file aztec.sh says they are. This means I haven't managed to produce an executable C program yet, only object files.

[ikonsgr]

So everything concludes to the "classic": RTFM! (Read the @#$@ manual!)

Anyway, as i note on the presentations of adf transfer kit (and ebay listings too), paradise utility can do MUCH more than transferring adf images. I decided to use it for adf image transfer only, as this is what most amiga users want, but most important,by doing this, i manage to automate the hole procedure to be as easy and simple as possible!
As paradise it's a very old cli utility on both amiga and pc it has some "oddities" and also ,in some cases, even the creator of paradise doesn't now how the util behaves with specific hardware configs.For example i recently found out that if you have a second floppy drive it's better to disable it because sometimes paradise seems to "hung up"! Also if i'm not mistaken somewhere in the paradise manual noted that author of the program doesn't know if it works with external drive at all!

Reading AmigaBruno's experiences, i sum up the following conclusions:

1) Eventually, it turns out that unplugging the cable while amiga is turned on, doesn't cause any problem to amiga's parallel port (nevertheless ,all cables i make from early april, have the secure screws for anyone want to use them)
2) Paradise can indeed make transfers on external drives or hard disks too
3) For manual using paradise (e.g. for transferring files/directories or transfer from Amiga HD) it;s VERY important to follow exactly the order of procedures.

AmigaBruno you can correct me if i'm wrong on the above conclusions or you can add more if you want.
Also, i think it would be a great idea to present all your findings in a "Troubleshooting/faq guide for adf transfer and paradise" in a new thread or adding them in the first post of this thread.

I also want to thank you for sharing your experiences, as i'm sure they will be very helpful to Amiga community!