IDE -> CompactFlash

[GT]

I have an IDE -> CompactFlash converter. I have it plugged into the master
IDE cable. I have a 2GB CompactFlash card plugged into the device and am
trying to build a silent system - the only noise will be the CPU cooler,
which once I have undervolted the Athlon 2400+ by 10-15%, should be pretty
silent. I have 2 DIMMS - a 1GB and a 256MB.

Problem I'm having at the moment is getting an OS installed and working. I
want MS Windows, not UBuntu or similar. Both Win98 and WinXP install without
a glitch, but on reboot, Win98 will only boot when I install and restart
with just 256MB memory. Once all is working I can turn off swapfile and
insert other DIMM and reboot, but it intermittently crashes and seems
unstable. WinXP installs without mentioning any problems, but after reboot
it just gives me a BSOD - I didn't note the error number as I was annoyed
and fed up by then!

Anyone know what the minimum hard disk capacity is for Win98 or WinXP
installations? Has anyone ever tried this kind of thing, or a setup with a
small hard disk? I suspect that the compactflash card might be faulty, but
it has been working just fine for a couple of years in my Canon 350d
(upgraded that to 4GB now and demoted the 2GB to this job).

 

[Mike Walsh]

I have an IDE -> CompactFlash converter. I have it plugged into the master
IDE cable. I have a 2GB CompactFlash card plugged into the device and am
trying to build a silent system - the only noise will be the CPU cooler,
which once I have undervolted the Athlon 2400+ by 10-15%, should be pretty
silent. I have 2 DIMMS - a 1GB and a 256MB.

Problem I'm having at the moment is getting an OS installed and working. I
want MS Windows, not UBuntu or similar. Both Win98 and WinXP install without
a glitch, but on reboot, Win98 will only boot when I install and restart
with just 256MB memory. Once all is working I can turn off swapfile and
insert other DIMM and reboot, but it intermittently crashes and seems
unstable.

Most versions of Windows don't like running without a page file and will eventually crash without one.

WinXP installs without mentioning any problems, but after reboot
it just gives me a BSOD - I didn't note the error number as I was annoyed
and fed up by then!

Anyone know what the minimum hard disk capacity is for Win98 or WinXP
installations?

2 GB is near the minimum for WinXP. Try it with the 4 GB card.

 

[GT]

Most versions of Windows don't like running without a page file and will
eventually crash without one.

That is not true. I have been running without page file for years with 2GB
RAM without trouble. If you run without a page file and run out of RAM, then
you will hit problems, but there is no problem running without a page file,
so long as you can be sure you always have enough RAM!

2 GB is near the minimum for WinXP. Try it with the 4 GB card.

The install takes less than 500MB, so I didn't see a problem. This is a low
use PC (IE + Word) and the RAM usage will never get anywhere near the 1.25GB
of RAM, so I'm happy to run without swapfile. I didn't like to use new card
in case it gets damaged, as I think the 2GB card might have been!

 

[kony]

I have an IDE -> CompactFlash converter. I have it plugged into the master
IDE cable. I have a 2GB CompactFlash card plugged into the device and am
trying to build a silent system - the only noise will be the CPU cooler,
which once I have undervolted the Athlon 2400+ by 10-15%, should be pretty
silent. I have 2 DIMMS - a 1GB and a 256MB.

Problem I'm having at the moment is getting an OS installed and working. I
want MS Windows, not UBuntu or similar. Both Win98 and WinXP install without
a glitch, but on reboot, Win98 will only boot when I install and restart
with just 256MB memory.

Win98 needs a tweak applied to the system.ini file, the
vcache setting (google will find it). Even this is merely
to run at 512MB or more, I don't recall if win98 is stable
at 1GB and/or beyond that, but try the vcache setting
change with 1.25GB, then 1GB memory installed.

Once all is working I can turn off swapfile and
insert other DIMM and reboot, but it intermittently crashes and seems
unstable. WinXP installs without mentioning any problems, but after reboot
it just gives me a BSOD - I didn't note the error number as I was annoyed
and fed up by then!

Remember the BSOD next time, it could be important. You
didn't mention the rest of the system (not that it would
necessarily help but it might - it's a place to start) but
I've ran WinXP from a 2GB CF card, dont' think that is the
problem. Proceed as if it wasn't a CF card, a HDD instead,
looking at bios settings and drivers, general system
stability like memtest86+ testing and try pulling out any
extra cards and temporarily disabling bios settings and
unplugging any external media (like USB interfaced,
including printers with card reader slots, etc).

Anyone know what the minimum hard disk capacity is for Win98 or WinXP
installations?

Smaller than most people claim, basically you can just start
out with nLite or 98Lite and make it small then after
installed, whittle away at it by deleting some things
(windows patch undo/backups, the dllcache folder, things
like that). Ultimately it might be best to put a second CF
card in the system, one you put the swapfile, system temp
folder (%SystemRoot%\TEMP) and per-user temp folders on (or
in system properties advanced, reassign all user temp
folders to %SystemRoot%\TEMP), and the browser cache all
on the 2nd CF card. Not only will it speed up things a bit,
it puts most of the wear writing to the second card so if
worst came to worst and someday you wore it out, simply
plopping in a new 2nd card will replace the greater worn
memory cells.

Has anyone ever tried this kind of thing, or a setup with a
small hard disk? I suspect that the compactflash card might be faulty, but
it has been working just fine for a couple of years in my Canon 350d
(upgraded that to 4GB now and demoted the 2GB to this job).

For all intents and purposes both win98 and xp should run
fine from IDE-CF adapted CF card, though if the card is old
or below CF3 or CF4 spec then it'll run in PIO mode which is
also pretty slow, if you'll use this system regularly I
suggest getting a 266x, CF4 spec'd, 4GB or larger CF card...
as it'll be at least 3X as fast as the present card.

Even so, I think both versions of windows have some problem
unrelated to using a CF card, but for XP you could always
image the CF card onto a HDD and see if that boots, or put
the installation on a HDD first and once it's confirmed
working, do the opposite imaging that onto the CF card.

I've heard people say that if windows sees the card as
removable media that will be a problem, but I'm fairly sure
that XP did see one I used as removable media and worked
fine still.

There's no secret capacity limit, just that it all fits and
leaves enough room for the pagefile, log files, etc, to
grow. Suppose you left at least 200MB free space or more,
that should be plenty to get it running for awhile till you
see if it's filling up further. That's for WinXP, Win98
I've had running from mere 512MB CF cards and it wasn't even
modified much if any to do so.

Even though both of these should work, I would think about
splitting the difference and using Win2k instead. Granted
you can't disable it's swapfile but given modest uses and
that you planned on having enough memory per your needs that
swapfile won't actually hold data, would only be allocated
memory space, it wouldn't need much of that so you could
just make a small ramdrive and put the swapfile on that.
Contrary to the more popular opinion, it does help to put a
pagefile on a ramdrive because even when windows isn't out
of real memory it still writes to the HDD or CF card (If not
to a ramdrive) regardless of having plenty of real memory
available.

 

[GT]

I have an IDE -> CompactFlash converter. I have it plugged into the master
IDE cable. I have a 2GB CompactFlash card plugged into the device and am
trying to build a silent system - the only noise will be the CPU cooler,
which once I have undervolted the Athlon 2400+ by 10-15%, should be pretty
silent. I have 2 DIMMS - a 1GB and a 256MB.

Problem I'm having at the moment is getting an OS installed and working. I
want MS Windows, not UBuntu or similar. Both Win98 and WinXP install
without a glitch, but on reboot, Win98 will only boot when I install and
restart with just 256MB memory. Once all is working I can turn off
swapfile and insert other DIMM and reboot, but it intermittently crashes
and seems unstable. WinXP installs without mentioning any problems, but
after reboot it just gives me a BSOD - I didn't note the error number as I
was annoyed and fed up by then!

An update:

I've blanked the CF card a few times and tried a few things:

A normal 6.2 DOS install and that boots OK.

Ubuntu won't boot at all from the CF card. The data all seems to be present
on the
drive/card, the partition is set active, it just gets to the boot screen
(screen immediately after POST) and does nothing. it doesn't say 'insert
boot disk', it doesn't hang, it just does nothing.

Following an apparently faultless XP install, first boot produced BSOD is
"c0000221 - unknown hardware error". I have MSDN'd this and didn't gain
anything!

I have tried a different CF card (4GB Sandisk Ultra II) - same results.

I don't think there is a fault in the CF adapter or 2GB card, as DOS
installs and boots just fine and I have never experienced a single error on
the card in over 2 years of use in my canon 350d. Also to support this
theory - the brand new sandisk card displays the same behaviour.

I therefore assume there is a fault / feature in the BIOS on the PC or in
XP, which prevents a boot from a removeable device (as Kony suggested). I
dont really understand why this restriction is in place as the BIOS 'sees'
the CF adapter + card as a hard disk.

System is Shuttle FX41 (SK41G). A barebones, small 266 Socket A based system
(http://global.shuttle.com/servlets/download?file_id=4464)
In there I have:
Athlon 2400+
2GB Compact Flash card in an IDE adapter as main system drive on IDE primary
IDE DVD drive on secondary IDE channel
1GB DDR + 256 DDR (experimented with combinations here)

These 3 devices are currently removed, but have tried with and without them
80GB HD
Wireless PCI card
AGP Radeon 8500 passive

 

[kony]

An update:

I've blanked the CF card a few times and tried a few things:

A normal 6.2 DOS install and that boots OK.

Ubuntu won't boot at all from the CF card. The data all seems to be present
on the
drive/card, the partition is set active, it just gets to the boot screen
(screen immediately after POST) and does nothing. it doesn't say 'insert
boot disk', it doesn't hang, it just does nothing.

How did you get Ubuntu onto the card? Did you start out
treating it as a hard drive and install to the card? I wish
I remembered now if that was what I did or if I installed to
a HDD then transferred it to a CF card but I think it was
installed direct to the CF card.

That is odd, I've installed the 7.1 LiveCD to a CF card and
server to one, both worked. Not an exotic flash card or
adapter either, was some generic IDE adapter and a PQI 2GB
CF2.x spec'd card, IIRC. I also installed 7.1 server to a
USB thumbdrive, certainly a removable device and it also
worked. I ran into some snag trying to install 7.1 LiveCD
to a USB thumbdrive, or it might've just been 7.1 full to
one (can't remember now) and it wouldn't boot when all the
others would on the same system.

Just to confirm, you are always using a CF-IDE adapter,
never a USB card reader? CF-IDE adapter should universally
work.

Following an apparently faultless XP install, first boot produced BSOD is
"c0000221 - unknown hardware error". I have MSDN'd this and didn't gain
anything!

I have tried a different CF card (4GB Sandisk Ultra II) - same results.

I don't think there is a fault in the CF adapter or 2GB card, as DOS
installs and boots just fine and I have never experienced a single error on
the card in over 2 years of use in my canon 350d. Also to support this
theory - the brand new sandisk card displays the same behaviour.

I would wonder if you have a bad PATA cable and try another
just in case... Also if Ubuntu seemed to install to the
card ok you might try it in another system to see if it
boots further than before.

I therefore assume there is a fault / feature in the BIOS on the PC or in
XP, which prevents a boot from a removeable device (as Kony suggested). I
dont really understand why this restriction is in place as the BIOS 'sees'
the CF adapter + card as a hard disk.

I don't recall suggesting it meant quite what you're seeing,
generally the limit on being able to boot it if a removable
device is if that meant it was on an unsupported controller.

I wish I remembered what system I installed Ubuntu 7.1 to CF
from, it was either nForce2 or nForce4 based.

 

[GT]

How did you get Ubuntu onto the card? Did you start out
treating it as a hard drive and install to the card? I wish
I remembered now if that was what I did or if I installed to
a HDD then transferred it to a CF card but I think it was
installed direct to the CF card.

That is odd, I've installed the 7.1 LiveCD to a CF card and
server to one, both worked. Not an exotic flash card or
adapter either, was some generic IDE adapter and a PQI 2GB
CF2.x spec'd card, IIRC. I also installed 7.1 server to a
USB thumbdrive, certainly a removable device and it also
worked. I ran into some snag trying to install 7.1 LiveCD
to a USB thumbdrive, or it might've just been 7.1 full to
one (can't remember now) and it wouldn't boot when all the
others would on the same system.

Just to confirm, you are always using a CF-IDE adapter,
never a USB card reader? CF-IDE adapter should universally
work.

The CF card has always been in the CF-IDE adapter (I don't have a CF card
reader). In everything I have done so far, I have treated the CF card as a
hard disk. Used FDISK for DOS partitions etc. Everything exactly as though
it were a conventional hard disk.

I had not considered the cable as it works perfectly with the 80GB drive. I
have just tried another and its just the same. The original cable only had
connector for 1 hard drive, the second cable had the normal 2 connectors, so
this doesn't seem to make any difference.

Something I didn't mention as I see it as irrelevant and I assume they are
all like this - The CF adapter can take 2 CF cards and assigns them as
master and slave (according to a jumber). Perhaps this has
implications/requirements for the cable?

Oh and Ubuntu was an install from CD - boot on live CD, then install to hard
drive (CF).

 

[kony]

The CF card has always been in the CF-IDE adapter (I don't have a CF card
reader). In everything I have done so far, I have treated the CF card as a
hard disk. Used FDISK for DOS partitions etc. Everything exactly as though
it were a conventional hard disk.

I had not considered the cable as it works perfectly with the 80GB drive. I
have just tried another and its just the same. The original cable only had
connector for 1 hard drive, the second cable had the normal 2 connectors, so
this doesn't seem to make any difference.

Something I didn't mention as I see it as irrelevant and I assume they are
all like this - The CF adapter can take 2 CF cards and assigns them as
master and slave (according to a jumber). Perhaps this has
implications/requirements for the cable?

I've used both single and double slotted with same system,
same CF card, same Ubuntu installation. Essentially I
usually start out with the dual adapter so I have misc.
files on one, installing OS to the other. They are
eventually interchanged so the single slotted adapter is
used instead, I've never noticed any difference in single or
dual adapters except the two obvious things:

Single adapter should be on the end of the IDE cable as
master, jumpered as master.

Dual adapter should be on the end of the cable and the card
in the master slot, or if there are two cards installed it
just needs the board bios able to specify the slave as a
boot drive.

Oh and Ubuntu was an install from CD - boot on live CD, then install to hard
drive (CF).

I would wonder about the board drive controller, since I did
install from CD to CF in an IDE adapter, but I installed
Ubuntu 7.1, is that what you're using? The thing I couldn't
get to work was installing the LiveCD version to a USB
thumbdrive. I would try another system to see if the
problem is still present. Maybe also turning off IDE DMA or
Bus Mastering in the bios if it's present.