CF cards and 701s

[calvinb]

I've heard the 701 is very fussy about using CF cards in a CF adapter, as the boot disk. From what I hear, hanging is a frequent occurrence, and that the BIOS might not be able to handle disks that are too fast. Is this true? Do you recommend any models of CF card and/or adapter?

[goldeneagle]

I've heard the 701 is very fussy about using CF cards in a CF adapter, as the boot disk. From what I hear, hanging is a frequent occurrence, and that the BIOS might not be able to handle disks that are too fast. Is this true? Do you recommend any models of CF card and/or adapter?

I've been discovering that one of the problems seems to be the way drives report their geometry to the computer. I bought 2 SSD IDE drives and found both worked, so I ordered more. Before, I couldn't get anything over 512MB to work, unless I installed the bootloader for Windows 98 SE.

Can't speak for the 701, as it's been a while since I've powered mine up, but the other ThinkPads are very fussy with anything over 512MB, unless it's a mechanical drive (of which most have already failed by now, or are getting there).

[StevieD]

The 701 doesn't support booting from CF or from CD in my experience, although someone apparently got it to work with FreeDOS from CF. You usually have to boot from floppy. You can doctor the boot floppy to load from CF, however, which helps if you don't have access to a CD drive, which itself requires the proprietary cable unique to the 701.

http://www.os2museum.com/wp/thinkpad-70 ... -cf-media/

[goldeneagle]

The 701 doesn't support booting from CF or from CD in my experience, although someone apparently got it to work with FreeDOS from CF. You usually have to boot from floppy. You can doctor the boot floppy to load from CF, however, which helps if you don't have access to a CD drive, which itself requires the proprietary cable unique to the 701.

http://www.os2museum.com/wp/thinkpad-70 ... -cf-media/

Correct. FWIW, if you want a cheap drive to use and don't mind only 1GB capacity, you could grab one of these for cheap on ebay:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/262660258219?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT

To get it to work in the 360CE I'm installing Linux on, you have to remove the master/slave pins (otherwise, I got a 174 error during POST). I'll have to try one in my 701 and see what it thinks. You can't beat the price, and I was never fond of the Travelstar DBOA drives that came with the 701 originally, anyways.