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use CF card as IDE HD

L

lither

Member
Joined
Oct 10, 2003
Messages
30
Does anyone have an experience in using CF card as IDE HD?
i have a 386sx machine and plan to install slackware on it . however , the origin hardisk is too small . I have heard that CFcard could work as an ATA disk and there is a lot of cheap CF-IDE converter too.

Before starting the project, i have some questions :
1. does the CF card size limited by the IDE adapter (512M limitation etc)?
2. how to set the "harddisk " type on the bios (cylinder , sector , head etc).
3. how to set the primary and secondary drive , cable selection ?

Thanks a lot !
 
IDE to Compact Flash

IDE to Compact Flash

These units allow users to replace traditional hard drives with standard Compact Flash cards.
There are some real nice bennefits to using compact flash in place of a regular hard drive.
These include:
- very low power consumption (less then 0.5W)
- Fast startup, no spin up time, or USB bottleneck
- high transfer rate
- phisically very durable
- compatibility with IDE drivers, nothing special needed
- they are completely silent
- The use commodity (cheap and plentiful) CF cards

The frugal script works very nicely with CF, as it keeps disk writes to a minimum which is exactly what is needed to keep a compact flash card alive for a long time.

Slap in a CF card with a myDSL image frugally installed and you have a virtually indestructible system which will be nearly hack proof. The combination of DSL, a mini-itx board running on an IDE/CF card and power it by a fanless power supply and you have a very efficient, very foolproof system which make virtually no noise.

This might sound unprofessional of me, but to a Unix/Linux geek IDE to CF adaptors are just plain cool!

to know about more ,pls visit http://www.soarland.com. It is a Chinese menufactory that have a nice price.
 
I have recently replaced a HDD with a CF card + adaptor. on my 386sx. I'm using MSDOS 5 and FreeDOS. it works fine. You will need to find out the cylinder, sector, head for the cf card. I was using the 128mb CF Sandisk.

I think the size is limited the hdd controller or the bios.

The adaptor looks like the one on Soarland site (STCI4005).

Cookie
 
IDE-CF Adapter

IDE-CF Adapter

cookie_lu said:
I have recently replaced a HDD with a CF card + adaptor. on my 386sx. I'm using MSDOS 5 and FreeDOS. it works fine. You will need to find out the cylinder, sector, head for the cf card. I was using the 128mb CF Sandisk.

I think the size is limited the hdd controller or the bios.

The adaptor looks like the one on Soarland site (STCI4005).

Cookie
Click to expand...


we use 2G CF , they works well
 
I had such an interface running in my 286 (just for fun) and it worked.
You need to know the C/H/S (or LBA) values for that CF card you need and you need a CF card that can run in "true IDE" mode - not every can. These values can be obtained by putting the CF into an USB card reader under linux and using "fdisk /dev/sda". You could also select the Type in the BIOS which fits. If the calculated size is too large, you get bad sectors at the end; if it is too small, you cannot use the whole CF. But that shouldn't matter. What you use is up to you, as long as the size fits. =)

My adapters have got a jumper which selects between Master (with jumper) and Slave (without jumper), but there's no Cable Select option.

On most systems there's no need to connect the power cable to the interface, as the CF pulls out its energy of the IDE data wires... for 2 of my 3 cards this is enough. One of my IDE controllers don't supply enough power, though.

If you can get cheap CF cards, then you are fine. The only limitations you'll come across with your 386 is the 504 Mb limit of your mainboard BIOS. But then you could get a disk manager to use it completely (or some kind of operating system => Linux, Minix...)

Have fun,
Sorry for my bad english, it's 3 AM and I am tired as hell...

Kind regards,
Svenska
 
Anonymous Coward said:
Hey, that's awesome. Do they have one like that for SCSI?
Click to expand...

Yes but very few were ever made, does anyone here know the model and brand of the SCSI version of the CF card readers?

I saw mention of someone trying to get a scsi CF reader up in his vintage macintosh laptop but he had a great deal of trouble getting it to boot. Now where was that?
 
nice

nice

yeah using a cf card sounds like a good idea since my old 541mb hd on my packard bell is half used up... though i do like the sound mine makes. plus i dont know where to buy an adapter, but the idea is cool:rolleyes:
 
IDE-CF Adapter

IDE-CF Adapter

RichiePops said:
yeah using a cf card sounds like a good idea since my old 541mb hd on my packard bell is half used up... though i do like the sound mine makes. plus i dont know where to buy an adapter, but the idea is cool:rolleyes:
Click to expand...


maybe you can find it in the http://www:soarland.com
STIC4005.JPG
 
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