velociraptor 1100 cf-reader

[tsmalmbe]

my cf-card wont work. Active and cardinsert-leds light up, but the rom does not find it. Tried both ide connectors, and also having to card in both slots.

what's up?

[Davesworld]

It has to be the primary slot in both cases. What did you use as a cf to ide adapter? What rom?

[Davesworld]

Another very important factor is that a lot of the cheap  (really really cheap) CF to ide adapters don't support the newer Flash drives but you need to tell us what you actually have. Also it does not have to be a CF card, it can also be a DOM module like weizen_42 uses sometimes.

The only situation I have not yet been successful with other than a cheapo adapter and a newer card is with an SD to ide adapter on a Cobalt Raq. The rom can't read sector 2 yet on a normal pc the mbr and grub will boot just fine. SD/MD to ide adapters rely on a flash chip mounted on the adapter itself as these cards unlike CF, do not have an ide interface built in so you need the flash chip to fake it.

[tsmalmbe]

i will take pictures, and spare the forum 990 words.

[tsmalmbe]

I have been using the 1G Kingston CD-card. The Compaq is not recognized either. The others I have not tried yet.

[Davesworld]

How old are all those flash cards?

[tsmalmbe]

Really no idea. I know the Compaq one is from an old IPAQ - that means at least 6 years. The others are probably not much younger.

Which is a problem, too young or too old?

[Davesworld]

That adapter I was able to find on Google and some have hinted at the adapter not liking older cards.

[tsmalmbe]

Your honest opinion: get another cardreader (any hints? the net is full with stuff, I have no way to validate them..) or get another card?

Thanks for your efforts.

[tsmalmbe]

I had forgotten about the 16GB card I purchased earlier - it arrived today. It is a TEKQ Compact Flash 16GB Ultra 133X. This hould not be that old a card I believe. I get exactly the same results.

Initializing flash: done
  Flash Bank 0: ST Microelectronics M29F080A 1024KB (20:f1)
  Flash Bank 1: not installed.
Mounting ROM fs: done
Initializing PCI: done
Initializing ethernet: 2 controller(s) found
Initializing IDE: found ALI M5229 at 00:78
  scanning ide0:
  scanning ide1: Checking Memory: done

Press spacebar to enter ROM mode
Booting default method - From disk

[Davesworld]

Silly question probably but do you have the adapter connected to ide0 ? There is no way the 16GB card is that old.

As far as a card reader, the direct insert Syba adapter is a good fit and cheap. We use them. They are the model listed in this site's store.

I have an Addonics one coming to try so I will report on it but my motivation for it was that I needed a straight ide socket on it for my Raq550 since that one has the drives plug into the edge of the motherboard directly and uses no ribbon cable. Syba's only direct insert is the plug style, their socket styles are all 90 degrees so I have a 550 running with the cover off for testing purposes.

[tsmalmbe]

I always try the cards in slot 0/1 of the reader and in both ide ports. The velociraptor has one ide-port horisontal and one vertical. No idea which is which.

I will get the reader replaced by a similar one, in case it is a case of a broken reader (I can't get it to work in my main computer either, but god only knows all the DMA/PIO/AHCI/RAID-settings available there...

I will have a look at the syba, but as I have one horizontal and one vertical I probably have to get an adapter ribbon cable in anycase.

[Davesworld]

The horizontal one nearest the edge of the board is ide0.