CompactFlash as primary drive in 560x

[ajhidell]

I have a 560x (233 mhz, 96 MB ram) that I run [censored] Small Linux on. The hard drive is starting to make a little rattle and I am afraid that it is on the way out.

I have a couple of 2 GB CompactFlash cards around and am trying to use one of them as a replacement for the 2.5" HDD. I have a CF to 44 pin IDE adapter, but when I attach it I can't get it and the CF to boot. I made BIOS changes to try and boot to it but can't get it to work.

The CF is still seen as removable media instead of a drive with the OS on it. I figured that the machine would see that there is now something mounted onto the HDD cable and read that as the drive to boot to. Am I wrong in this assumption.

Anybody done this successfully? Would love to have a step-by-step if so. If not, all suggestions are welcomed.

[ajhidell]

Anyone?

[tim S]

The fact that your CF card is seen as removable creates all kinds of booting problems on older machines, some newer ones as well come to think of it.
You'll have to Google for a utility program that allows your card be seen as a fixed drive. I had the same problem with a San Disk card on an X40 until I changed it's properties.
Tim S

[ajhidell]

Thanks for replyin Tim.

The card I have is a Sandisk Ultra II. I have discovered that Sandisk, at one time, had a tool that could change the CF from removable to fixed. The tool was the ATCFWCHG.COM. I have done an internet search, but have not come across any resources for this.

Does anyone on this forum have access to this ATCFWCHG.COM. It would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[john518]

this might help:http:
//www.dynx.net/images/prog/ATCFWCHG.COM
also look at:
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Compact_Flash_boot_drive

[ajhidell]

Thanks. Will give it a try.

[schnitzelcore]

I recently equipped my 560X with a sd2ide converter. I used a SanDisk Ultra II 4GB sdhc card. It works, but 'hdparm -t' reports a read speed of 9MB/s while the card's specs claim it should do 15. It does use UDMA2 and cached reads are fast. Using Debian Lenny. Overall speed is comparable to the 10GB drive I used before (maybe even a bit faster).
The system is solid state (no fan) but not completely quiet: I like turning the brightness all the way down and that starts a buzzing sound. Not loud, but very noticeable without the sound of the harddisk.