From: Daniel Basterfield (daniel_at_basterfield.com)
Date: Tue Feb 01 2000 - 14:52:30 EST
Folks,
Had a few questions of late that I've been unable to answer, relating to
flash cards (either PCMCIA or CF in PCMCIA adapter) being seen as 'not
ready' by PCMCIA software. I got a flash card from the States today, and
the first thing I did was try this out.
Scenario 1:
You want to copy files, perhaps operating system stuff, to a flash card
in one 'host' machine, then transfer to another such as the PC110 or
ThinkPad 730.
Problem:
The 'host' machine's PCMCIA configuration software correctly identifies
the card, but flags it as 'not ready' (or similar).
Reason:
You do not have the correct PCMCIA storage drivers loaded. Most
DOS/Windows/OS/2 PCMCIA support packages from IBM seem to install SRAM
storage card support by default, but not the ATA storage driver. PCMCIA
& CF flash cards are generally ATA devices. The card is identified by
Card & Socket Services, but no driver is present to allow you to use the
card. You see the same sort of symptoms if you insert a new network
card, for example.
Fix:
You need to obtain the PCMCIA ATA storage driver. I use the file
ATADO200.EXE from IBM's web site. The DOS driver, for example, is
PCMATADD.SYS. Add this in to CONFIG.SYS, replacing the reference to
SRAMDRV2.SYS unless you also have SRAM cards, and reboot. I seem to
recall that there was a DISKDRV.SYS DOS driver distributed at one point
by IBM that purported to be a catch-all storage driver. Check your
diskettes before downloading as you may already have this.
Scenario 2:
You have the flash card recognised in your 'host' system, and want to
make it bootable.
Problem:
SYS x: returns an error indicating that the drive cannot be made
bootable, or that the active partition cannot be set, or similar.
Reason:
SYS (and FDISK) are generally not supported for use with removable
devices, but don't always handle attempts to use them in this fashion
gracefully. The flash card is seen as a removable device, hence the
errors.
Fix:
The easiest approach is to use a ThinkPad that supports a PCMCIA option
in the boot sequence. Set the machine to boot off FLOPPY then PCMCIA,
insert the flash card and boot from a DOS floppy. The flash card should
be seen as the first fixed disk, containing one active primary
partition, i.e. C:. So now you can do a SYS A: C: and it will work. You
should still be able to see your normal hard drive as the second IDE
device, i.e. partitions starting at D:.
Hope this helps any who have puzzled over this.
Dan.
-- Daniel Basterfield "He who dies with the most toys wins" OS/2 Certified Engineer Microsoft Certified Professional ----------------------------------------------------------------------- IBM PC110 web page: http://www.basterfield.com/pc110/pc110idx.htm
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