PCMCIA/CF boot - legacy Thinkpads

[SMA]

I have been through my legacy Thinkpads to test which ones can boot
from a Compact Flash card attached to the Thinkpad through a PCcard
PCMCIA/CF adapter.

Here is the findings:

340, 345, 360ce and 755ce
Can boot from PCMCIA/CF.
The boot order must changed in EasySetup. Add PCMCIA before HDD1.

760el, 760ed, 760xl, 600, 600e, 600x, 770 and 770x
Can boot from PCMCIA/CF.
PCMCIA must be added to the Startup sequence in EasySetup and ide2 must be disabled.
To disable ide2, the Thinkpad Configuration Utility must be used.
in the dos version, the command is
PS2 IDE2 DISABLE ULTRABAY
in the windows version the steps may vary, but it will be something like
Device Bay -> Warm Swap Devices -> disabled

750c
Can not boot from PCMCIA/CF.
There is no PCMCIA icon in EasySetup's Startup screen

390 and 390e
Can not boot from PCMCIA/CF.
BIOS is not EasySetup.


Additional findings:

600, 600e and 600x can only boot from PCMCIA/CF if a hard drive (HDD1)
is present.

Thinkpad 600 can boot from a PCMCIA/CF card inserted into an attached
docking station.

Thinkpad 600 can only provide bios support for a single PCMCIA/CF card
The proirity amongst the pcmcia slots are:
1. Thinkpad upper slot
2. Thinkpad lower slot
3. Docking station upper slot
4. Docking station lower slot
In this context "bios support" means that the CF card will get a drive
letter assigned if booting into dos from a diskette.

[fatkatsupra1]

WOW!

Thanks for the testing on the 760. I tried (unsuccessfully) to boot from CF and will give your config a shot!

[Bondi]

Did you actually boot the 760 series? Or just checked if the option is present in BIOS?
I Have successfully booted 360CE, 330C, 755CD models. But 760EL and 760LD did not boot, although the option is there.

EDIT:
Disabling IDE2 did the trick. It's booting now on 760LD! Thanks a lot for posting this.

[andromeda92]

Hi,
I have thinkpad 600,
What type of memory do I need to use?
I think the max is 288mo
I already know it's PC66 so dimm but I don't know if it's 144 pin or 168 pin, maybe the PC100 will work too?
Thanks for your help.

[axur-delmeria]

Hi,
I have thinkpad 600,
What type of memory do I need to use?
I think the max is 288mo
I already know it's PC66 so dimm but I don't know if it's 144 pin or 168 pin, maybe the PC100 will work too?
Thanks for your help.

It's 144 pin.

From thinkwiki.org, the 600 unofficially supports:

416MB = 256MB low density PC100 SODIMM + 128MB PC66 SODIMM + 32MB PC66 on-board. It matters which SODIMM you put in which slot. This was first reported working on the Thinkpad Mailing List, and it worked error-free for me.

[andromeda92]

thank you for your response.

[Dustin82]

Hi,

I own a Thinkpad 560 with 72MB Ram, TFT Display, 4,1GB HDD. Bios is 1.20

These are my experiences with booting from PCMCIA :

2GB TRANSCEND CF in CF ATA FLASH ADAPTER --> *EDIT* BOOTS (USED TO PRODUCE 9990302 error), DOES WORK IN DOS WITH PCMCIA DRIVERS
4GB SANDISK in OTHER CF ATA FLASH ADAPTER --> DOES NOT BOOT FROM IT (non-system disk error), DOES WORK IN DOS/WIN98 WITH PCMCIA DRIVERS
256MB SANDISK ATA FLASH CARD --> *EDIT* BOOTS, (USED TO PRODUCE 9990302 error,) WORKS IN DOS WITH PCMCIA DRIVERS
64MB CISCO ATA FLASH CARD --> *EDIT* BOOTS, (USED TO PRODUCE 9990302 error,) DOES WORK IN DOS WITH PCMCIA DRIVERS
16MB SANDISK ATA FLASH CARD --> BOOTS. MUST BE FORMATTED IN FAT12 FOR SOME REASON OTHERWISE IT PRODUCES I9990302.

There is a size limit in the standard PC CARD Drivers for the TP560. The utilities that are included are not able to produce a bootable PCMCIA card. After testing the first 4 cards I had on hand, I consulted some of the PCMCIA driver manuals and they mentioned a 4MB and 10MB intel flash card. I then purchased the smallest PCMCIA card I could find, and that card did boot from PCMCIA. It is not very useful due to the small size. Thanks to the advice from Bondi further on in this topic I was able to successfully format larger PCMCIA cards with some of the PCCARD drivers and utility from the TP310.

*EDIT* SMA was right : TP560 also boots from PCMCIA with up to 2GB of space. Creating a bootable PCMCIA card is possible with the utility PCMFDISK.EXE from the PC CARD Drivers from the TP310 in DOS.

Grtz Dustin82

[SMA]

Try disabling IDE2.
To disable ide2, the Thinkpad Configuration Utility must be used.
in the dos version, the command is
PS2 IDE2 DISABLE ULTRABAY
in the windows version the steps may vary, but it will be something like
Device Bay -> Warm Swap Devices -> disabled

[Dustin82]

SMA, thx for the response.

In a 560 this command does not work to my knowledge.

I'm just adding information, my system BOOTS from PCMCIA, but only from a 16MB card. Anything larger does not work.

Grtz.

[Bondi]

I'm pretty sure my 560 booted from a 512 Mb card.
I think it's a matter of which tool you use to create a partition on the card.

[Dustin82]

Hi,

What tool would you recommend then? I tried a bunch of them.

Windows XP Disk Management / Windows 10 Disk Management / DOS 6.22 FDISK / DOS 7.10 FDISK / IBM FFORMAT / IBM FFDISK / EZPLAY / PQMAGIC 7

With the 16MB card all of the above tools work (except DOS Fdisk and PQMAGIC as it does not see PCMCIA cards), but with a larger PCMCIA card none to them work....

Grtz

[Bondi]

I use the tool that comes with this http://greyghost.mooo.com/pccbbs/mobiles/pc31dos.exe PCMCIA driver set for TP 310. It's called pcmfdisk.exe and is basically a part of Phoenix card manager software. Not sure it works unless the apropriate driver is loaded, though.

[Dustin82]

Well, I'll BE dam#ned. I just tried this. It actually works.

I had to mix the PC CARD drivers from the TP560 with a few specific ones from the TP310 but it worked. I will list what you need to get this working.

Load into config.sys :
'FROM TP560 PCCARD DRIVERS"
IBMDSS04.SYS
IBMDOSCS.SYS

'FROM TP310 PC CARD DRIVERS"
ALTCOM.SYS
DPMS.EXE
CNFIGNAM.EXE /DEFAULT
PCMRMAN.SYS
PCMSCD.SYS
PCMATA.SYS

After that the card loads and the utility that Bondi mentioned works on the TP560. PCMFDISK does produce bootable PCMCIA cards for the TP560. I think the OEM PCMCIA ATA drivers from the TP560 are older (1995ish) and do not work with larger PCMCIA ATA Drives. The drivers in the PC31DOS.EXE file are newer (1997)

Anyway THX BONDI !!!

[Bondi]

I'm glad it worked!
AFAIR 1 and 2 Gb cards worked as well.

[Dustin82]

I will report back on this soon. I have a 256MB PCMCIA, a 2GB CF and a 4GB CF and 2 different adapters to work with.

[Dustin82]

TP560 is booting fine now from PCMCIA. It is however sensitive about how the bootable PCMCIA is created. The Phoenix PCCard manager from TP310 is the only tool I know that does the trick. (so far) The 4GB CF card does not boot (but that was to be expected (32bit )) (Creating smaller partitions does not resolve the problem) . So 2GB seems to be the maximum.

Thx to everyone that contributed !

Grtz Dustin82

[andromeda92]

Try disabling IDE2.
To disable ide2, the Thinkpad Configuration Utility must be used.
in the dos version, the command is
PS2 IDE2 DISABLE ULTRABAY
in the windows version the steps may vary, but it will be something like
Device Bay -> Warm Swap Devices -> disabled

with this command booting CF card 4GB work well on thinkpad 600.
PS2 IDE2 DISABLE ULTRABAY
thanks.

[Edward Mendelson]

A variation on the method described in the first post, in a message from almost twenty years ago:

https://web.archive.org/web/20060912042 ... /0369.html

[Bondi]

A variation on the method described in the first post, in a message from almost twenty years ago:

https://web.archive.org/web/20060912042 ... /0369.html

And how do you assign a different IRQ to the PCMCIA? There is no option for that in ps2.exe, at least on my 760LD. At the same time IDE2/CD-ROM has only one IRQ option, which is IRQ 15.
Once I disabled IDE2 PCMCIA boot worked, which means they are just on the same IRQ 15.

[Dustin82]

Maybe you have to edit that "secret" Bios option screen that can be accessed through the bios? I found a guide about disabling the mouse on some models, but not much else. Maybe IRQ's are also included in the code?

Anyway, while reading the posts by Edward Mendelson who was figuring the same thing out 20 years ago, i found that the links are still active on http://www.basterfield.com/pc110/ATAinit.htm. That is pretty cool. I'm going to give those tools a try.

[Edward Mendelson]

A variation on the method described in the first post, in a message from almost twenty years ago:

https://web.archive.org/web/20060912042 ... /0369.html

And how do you assign a different IRQ to the PCMCIA? There is no option for that in ps2.exe, at least on my 760LD. At the same time IDE2/CD-ROM has only one IRQ option, which is IRQ 15.
Once I disabled IDE2 PCMCIA boot worked, which means they are just on the same IRQ 15.

In the 600X, the Windows-based configuration utility did the job of assigning IRQs. I don't remember if it works in the 760 series, but presumably it does. I don't have an old model where I am now, so I'm reporting this from memory, and I could be all wrong.

[Bondi]

And how do you assign a different IRQ to the PCMCIA? There is no option for that in ps2.exe, at least on my 760LD. At the same time IDE2/CD-ROM has only one IRQ option, which is IRQ 15.
Once I disabled IDE2 PCMCIA boot worked, which means they are just on the same IRQ 15.

In the 600X, the Windows-based configuration utility did the job of assigning IRQs. I don't remember if it works in the 760 series, but presumably it does. I don't have an old model where I am now, so I'm reporting this from memory, and I could be all wrong.

Thank you for your respond. I'll try the Windows tool to see if it has the necessary settings.

[Edward Mendelson]

In the 600X, the Windows-based configuration utility did the job of assigning IRQs. I don't remember if it works in the 760 series, but presumably it does. I don't have an old model where I am now, so I'm reporting this from memory, and I could be all wrong.

Thank you for your respond. I'll try the Windows tool to see if it has the necessary settings.

And see post #8 in this thread:

in the windows version the steps may vary, but it will be something like
Device Bay -> Warm Swap Devices -> disabled

You may find IRQ settings somewhere deep in the menus.

[solidpro]

So far I am treating this section with sceptism:

340, 345, 360ce and 755ce
Can boot from PCMCIA/CF.
The boot order must changed in EasySetup. Add PCMCIA before HDD1.

There are a few issues I have with the notion that the 340 (as one example) is capable of booting from a correctly formatted CF card in the PCMCIA card slot and that's because to the best of my knowledge the startup sequence of available boot devices happens well before any drivers come into play.

I have 2 correctly formatted compact flash cards with a very versatile and proven adaptor and the 340 I have will not boot from it.

The 310 drivers for PC cards was tried and completely incompatible with the 340.

I have thumbed through the HMM and there is no mention of boot devices for the 340 - limitations or otherwise. I also can't find an owners manual, but I strongly suspect the PCMCIA is available with booting one or two very very specific IBM devices (perhaps certain network or CD-ROM drives) or storage with drives once boot from another standard hard disk drive. If you can point me to anything to test or show otherwise, I'd appreciate it.

[solidpro]

Ok, I would rule out the 340 from the list. I think this was just an assumption from the OP.

If you check the relevant PC Card Director files for DOS, they start with compatibility for the 345 upwards. I can't find anything for the 340.
If you go into EasySetup and put the boot order as floppy, PCMCIA, HDD0 then:

1) Booting with floppy, you can boot to a DOS prompt and see C: and D: as both the internal HDD as C: and the PCMCIA CF card as D: AND browse files on them from the DOS prompt, but I could not boot from CF card as I was getting a I999302 error from the bootable CF card.

If you tried to run FDISK from my W98/DOS boot disk, you had the additional option 5 which allowed you to toggle between the HDD0 and CF/PCMCIA card, but whilst FDISK recognised the CF card as drive D: it doesn't show the correct formatting and you could not repartition it. It was just confused.

So effectively, doing this specific boot order and using the floppy to get some basic most recent DOS functionality did 'see' the CF card, but was limited with what you could do with it.

2) Booting from CF card you'd get the I9990302 error before it switched to option 3. I was testing using two of my most reliable industrial 'fixed disk' compact flash card with basic DOS 6.22 installed on it. It's possible (as I say below) that a differently formatted CF card will boot, but it would be somewhat unique to the 340).

3) Booted from internal HDD0.

So I'd be inclined to try the on my 345CS because if I could get PC card director installed, I think i'd have a formatting tool which would be able to make the CF card more likely to be bootable. I guess I could revert back to trying that CF card formatted via the 345 PC Card Director back in the 340.

It's difficult to find any 'power user' manuals or documentation for the 340 but if anyone has anything which might prove useful, let me know.

[solidpro]

In a completely different experience, my 345 has developed issues, so I went to a 360CE, set the boot order as Floppy, PCMCIA (my reliably formatted CF card) and HDD0 and it booted straight away to the PCMCIA card.

Pulled the PCMCIA adaptor and it booted to the hard disk.

So I can confirm without issues the 360CE will happily boot from PCMCIA/CF card by just changing the boot order to above.

**edit**

Also tested the same PCMCIA / CF combo with the 355C, 365XD and 370C and all boot from the PCMCIA/CF just fine if you put the boot order as floppy, PCMCIA, HDD0.

My guess is that the 355, 360 and 370 are all clearly based on the 755 architecture, and the 365 is just more modern and able, whereas the 340 was a completely new, early, ground up design from anything that came before or after and was less developed with it's bootable options. At some point in the future, I'll have my 345 working again and can re-test with or without a PC Card Director and it's formatting software.

**edit2**

I've updated https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Supporte ... red_Series with the 3xx machines I tested.

[SMA]

solidpro wrote

Ok, I would rule out the 340 from the list. I think this was just an assumption from the OP.

I didn't just assume that 340 can boot from PCMCIA/CF. I tested it (using a 32 MB CF card).

I guess that your problems with your 340 is caused by the size of the CF card you are using.

BIOS will threat a PCMCIA/CF card as an ide device.
I guess that the size limit on CF cards is the same as those for real HDD's.
I cannot tell the size limit for a 340, but it might be as low as 128 MB.

[solidpro]

I will retest with a 32Mb card. I was using a 256Mb card and a 1gb card. Seeing as the 360 came out the same year as the 340 and as the original IDE hard drive was 125Mb, it wouldn't be lower than that.

I remain cynical about it's ability due to the omission from the PC Card Director readme notes and the lack of documentation.

I'm still dubious about drivers to boot from any PCMCIA / CF card. The boot process would be way before any drivers were read into memory.

[solidpro]

I used a 64Mb industrial card on the 340 and it boots, so you're right it has a limit of either 64 or 128 (because it failed to boot from my 256Mb CF card). I ordered a 128Mb card to test.

FDISK doesn't bug out or anything. And you don't need any specific drivers of course because the boot process is nothing to do with drivers.

755C, 755CV, 755CX all work fine booting to PCMCIA CF with no issues. My 755CD was having issues with CMOS clock so have to go back to that.
760L does not requre IDE2 disabled, it just works the same as the 755CX.
760ED will not boot, as you say without disabling IDE which I haven't tried yet.

Updated wiki again.

760ED I had to use the DOS based Thinkpad Configuration Utility, which is really just an updated version of the old PS2 program for older PS2 style machines. As an update to the above post, the command to disable IDE2 in order to get PCMCIA booting is not PS2 IDE2 DISABLE ULTRABAY it's PS2 IDE2 DISABLE

**edit** another note is that when you use the DOS based PS2 / TCU tool to disable IDE2, it's lost, just like any other BIOS settings if you don't have a CMOS battery. Felt this was important to mention.

[solidpro]

Just another update and will update the wiki. The 535E will boot from PCMCIA and the Easy Setup is clever enough to not allow you to enable both the HDD0 and PCMCIA at the same time (presumably as they conflict).

It will boot happily from up to a 4Gb CF card but on whatever card you use Win98 fails at 11 minutes to go. Tried this several times - it just can't cope. So you can boot from PCMCIA and run DOS and Windows, but you can't install Win98!.