hargle
Veteran Member
I'd say that the lack of ID string is enough of a clue that there are some serious communication issues with that card or adapter. there should *always* be an ID string displayed. Because of that, all bets are off that anything read or written to the drive will not really be written properly, which explains the disappearing partition table, or the lack of the ability to read it. Could be either the adapter or the CF card here, and only experimenting will tell.Issue 1: When I use a CF card on an adapter, the card is found (although, no ID string), I can also FDISK a 40Meg partition... but after a reboot the partition is gone.
that's odd. I suppose it's possible that the ID data won't come back til after it is spun up, but on most drives, spin up is not a requirement to get the identify device data to be returned. (SCSI for example can be set up to not spin up at all until after the drive has been identified). You need a slower computer.Issue 2: At the first boot of the PC, let's say when the harddisk hasn't spun up yet, the BIOS shows no drive installed for drive 0 and drive 1. If I CTRL+ALT+DEL, so a reboot without power loss, then the harddisk is detected as a Maxtor and everything works (otherwise, logically, I get no harddisk). The CF doesn't have this problem BTW (although it's erased after a reboot, but since it's ready in a short time I guess this is successfully polled at boot??). Since I've ordered 2 64MB DOMs (Disk On Module) that I plan on using, I guess this won't be a problem... I just hope those aren't loosing the partition after a reboot (soft or hard, as the CF does).
Seriously though, I'd think that more experimenting with different drives and newer models (even notebook drives with 44 pin adapters) and you will eventually find one that meets all the requirements you want. The DOM is of course the ideal.
universal bios I can't really help with. I think that as long as you eventually get a DOM or CF or HDD that does work properly with the 0.11HS bios you're running now, you will likely have no problems for years to come.Issue 2: WHen I use the v1.1.5 BIOS, I can't use anything at all, no disks are found, the CF won't work either. No menu shows at boot, and when booting the boot screen stays on screen for about 30secs and then it will beep and continue with reading drive A. I can see the BIOS with debug at CC00 but no harddisk/CF.