Thinkpads Forum

I've a problem reading/accessing a microdrive using the pcmcia or cf slot on an x31 under windows (is recognized but no letter no drive), so my next step is trying under linux, using a live distro.

According to dmesg the microdrive is seen, linked, then it's failing. The irq used is 3. I've tried to exclude the irq but the pcmcia service cannot be restarted since apparently is compiled in the kernel.

Got this in knoppix and ubuntu live. Obviously restarting the whole os = losing my changes to the .conf

Any idea ? Or alternatively any other version of a live linux distro that I could use? My only goal is formatting the microdrive to try to have it recognized under windows.

Add on : the microdrive is locked in true ide mode, so in hd mode

using linux when I stick the good IBM 340 microdrive into the CF slot on
this X22, I get

> pccard: PCMCIA card inserted into slot 1
> pcmcia: registering new device pcmcia1.0
> hde: IBM-DSCM-10340, CFA DISK drive
> ide2 at 0x4100-0x4107,0x410e on irq 11
> hde: max request size: 128KiB
> hde: 700560 sectors (358 MB) w/60KiB Cache, CHS=695/16/63
> hde: unknown partition table
> ide-cs: hde: Vpp = 0.0

also essentially the same with the Hitachi 4gig microdrive. But when I
stick the known bad IBM 340microdrive in, I get only the first line,
nothing else.

what reason have you for believing the microdrive is OK?

what is the microdrive model?

I have a few seagate 5gb that were meant strictly for oem purpose *only*. they consistently misbehave in certain situations -- they are missing essential bits of firmware that apparently prevent them from working.

they do not work in the CF slot of my camera. nor on my x31. they are seen correctly in a CF-IDE adapter on a pc, but they are unable to boot embedded FreeBSD. and yet they are able to boot embedded Linux (on desktop that is, not x31 -- we already know you can't boot thinkpad from CF slot)

my best luck to use them as portable storage is with a CF-USB adapter.

Basically I get something like

> pccard: PCMCIA card inserted into slot 1
> pcmcia: registering new device pcmcia1.0
> hde: IBM-DSCM-10340, CFA DISK drive
> ide2 at 0x4100-0x4107,0x410e on irq 11
> hde: max request size: 128KiB
> hde: 700560 sectors (358 MB) w/60KiB Cache, CHS=695/16/63
> hde: unknown partition table

this part, then there are errors and timeouts reported.

The model is a Seagate ST1 2.5GB microdrive, and is very likely locked as the one tarvoke is speaking of.

I bought 2 off ebay, still sealed and part of a 500 stock. I guess they were made for some device but never used.
I wanted to try both with the cf slot of the x31, and with the pcmcia slot of the x31 (using an ibm made microdrive adaptor), to see if it was possible to use it with the Thinkpad.

I did a kind of discovery 10 minutes ago... I put in the cf slot a normal cf, then after removing it I've inserted the microdrive. Strangely if got immediately recognized, a drive has been added and the properties says it's a 2.5gb device. But cannot be formatted since the filesystem is unknown, or something like that.
Gparted is unable to recreate the boot table, and in the logs there are a lot of i/o errors.
Using parted (command line) there's a clear indication that the geometry that is seen is not correct and that the allocation ends around 500mb.

I start to guess , given what Tarvoke wrote, that this is very likely not possible. Using them with a cf to ide adapter would still be a viable option for other uses once sure that they would be recognized.

As for an external usb reader, the one I have is a bit old and simply hangs if I try to access the drive, once inserted.

yes, the errors/timeout are exactly as I see, too. in windows needs to be formatted but it never succeeds; in linux the same: fdisk always sees it as blank but saving fdisk seems to succeed but never truly does.

I also cannot use with an older usb 1.1 CF reader; only newer 2.0 reader works consistently. it may be power issue or data issue or just issue of the crappy (missing) firmware, hard to say.

at my previous company we hoped to use these (seagate) drives for embedded FreeBSD network appliance, and it never worked. probably why they are so cheap compared to hitachi.

About the usb 2.0 reader, it's probably related to the Vcc. In some forum they hinted that some of these drives are locked also at +5V.
This would put a bit of strain on usb powered readers...

I am using a lexar 32-bit CF to PCMCIA / Cardbus adaper. In the past I have used the 500MB microdrives, 4GB and 2GB CF cards in it just fine under linux.

For instance I currently have a 2GB Platinum II 80x CF card inserted in it and Linux works with it just fine. Pretty darned fast as well.

I'd suggest picking up this adapter and using it.

http://www.amazon.com/Lexar-RW021001-Ad ... B00069P6BS