Compact Flash Booting - CF Slot - Anyone ever tried?

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xtypestereotype · #1 Post by **xtypestereotype** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 4:39 am

Has anyone ever tried booting off the CF slot on an X2x or X3x ?
I know USB booting works, but my question is specific to the CF slot...
I'm looking for a laptop for a project, and it would need to boot off a CF slot...
My google efforts did not turn much useful information... One person had no success, but did not elaborate much on it...

I know even very old Thinkpads supported booting via external CD drives connect to a PCMCIA card... I recall trying that myself on an old 240 a couple of years ago...
Seeing that CF is under the PCMCIA umbrella, I'd expect it to work as well...

Has anyone ever tried it?

Any help would be appreciated...

Thanks in advance...

Max

tony6264 · #2 Post by **tony6264** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 3:27 pm

That brings up an important question I have...I just got a X22 and I REALLY like it...but I do not see an option to boot to USB or PCMCIA....Am I missing something?

Puppy · #3 Post by **Puppy** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 4:30 pm

I've tried it on X31 with no luck. I'd like to have bootable Acronis TrueImage 9 from CF but it never worked for me.

xtypestereotype · #4 Post by **xtypestereotype** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 7:46 pm

Thanks for the replies.... I just got my hands on an "almost-falling-apart" X20... I'll be buying a CF card in the next few days and I'll let you guys know how I go...
I read on thinkwiki.com that it could be that the BIOS does not see "bootable" code on the card's MBR and just skips it...

It seems some ThinkPad BIOSes don't use the code on the master boot record (MBR), or at least skip it when it is blank. These systems will need an Extended-IPL boot loader. Putting this Extended-IPL boot loader onto the disk (such as sda) goes something like this:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1 count=446
dd if=/usr/lib/extipl/aldebaran.bin of=/dev/sda

I'll also be buying a CF to PCMCIA adapter to try it that way as well

If anyone else has any experience with this, please let us know...

Thanks again...

dmitrio · #5 Post by **dmitrio** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 4:18 pm

Hi,
I had similar question but answer was not favorable.
Check those links what i have in that post, they may become handy for troubleshooting.

xtypestereotype · #6 Post by **xtypestereotype** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 7:36 pm

dmitrio wrote:Hi,
I had similar question but answer was not favorable.
Check those links what i have in that post, they may become handy for troubleshooting.

Thanks for the links.
That USB how to looks very nice...

The X20 I have boots off an USB floppy and (I am still confirming this but) it should also boot off a PCMCIA cd drive (that I have lying around somewhere)...
So I think in theory, as long as the memory is well "formated" to fool the BIOS around, it should work...

However, most of the literature on the internet has not been positive about this... But also not extensively negative

- so I still want to try it myself...

Last night I tried booting off an USB stick that had a floppy image on it and it did not work... It was late at night so I didn't explore all the possibilities...
I am getting the CF card today so we'll see how I go...

dmitrio · #7 Post by **dmitrio** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 8:12 pm

check out this link, they have few slightly different methods

seems like there is a solution to boot up from usb thumb drive - the author might be helpfull

not long time ago somebody mentioned that the bootable partition should be really small and formated as FAT16
that was in relation to USB HDD

what are you trying to load up windows? linux?

xtypestereotype · #8 Post by **xtypestereotype** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 9:12 pm

Thanks

I'm trying linux first off... If successful then I'd like to try Windows as well...
I just got the CF card and I am running the first initial tests...

dmitrio · #9 Post by **dmitrio** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 9:28 pm

what linux flavor do you use?

/me - picked gentoo long time ago.

Mephistopheles · #10 Post by **Mephistopheles** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 12:48 am

Hello, guys
Some time ago, I was able to boot my Transnote from compact flash card. Bootable CF lies somewhere. So i'll attempt to boot X31 from it and report results to the forum.

tony6264 wrote:

I do not see an option to boot to USB or PCMCIA....Am I missing something?

I think, You'll able to boot from external USB 1 cd drive. Trick is using of exactly USB 1 interface, not USB 2.

xtypestereotype · #11 Post by **xtypestereotype** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 1:56 am

dmitrio wrote:what linux flavor do you use?

/me - picked gentoo long time ago.

I haven't used gentoo since I sold my main desktop 9 months ago, but it still is one of my favorites...
Im using Arch and Debian/Ubuntu atm...

xtypestereotype · #12 Post by **xtypestereotype** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 1:57 am

Mephistopheles wrote:Hello, guys
Some time ago, I was able to boot my Transnote from compact flash card. Bootable CF lies somewhere. So i'll attempt to boot X31 from it and report results to the forum.

Cool! Let us know how you go...

dmitrio · #13 Post by **dmitrio** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 3:14 am

Mephistopheles wrote:Hello, guys
Some time ago, I was able to boot my Transnote from compact flash card. Bootable CF lies somewhere. So i'll attempt to boot X31 from it and report results to the forum.

tony6264 wrote:
I do not see an option to boot to USB or PCMCIA....Am I missing something?
I think, You'll able to boot from external USB 1 cd drive. Trick is using of exactly USB 1 interface, not USB 2.

any known good howto?

Mephistopheles · #14 Post by **Mephistopheles** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 5:10 am

dmitrio wrote:

any known good howto?

Net full of them:
http://www.google.com/search?q=bootable+flash
Common idea is using special utility to make flash drive bootable (plain hard disk formatting software is not applicable). However, in case of CF card, even special software for USB stick formatting refuced to work. So logical solution was to connect CF card to notebook via USB adapter. After that, receipes from howtos worked for me without a hitch.

WarMachine · #15 Post by **WarMachine** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 6:52 am

Hello,

I might be wrong, but OP wanted to boot on the CF, not on an USB key with CF into it. No ?

I'm also interested to know how to boot on a CF card, as I'll have an X20 on saturday.

Thx.

W.

Mephistopheles · #16 Post by **Mephistopheles** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 7:11 am

WarMachine wrote:

I might be wrong, but OP wanted to boot on the CF, not on an USB key with CF into it. No ?

You is completely right. I mean USB adapter needed to make CF bootable. After that, notebook is able to boot directly from CF.

P.S. I'm congratulate You with X20, bro

My X31 arrived about week ago. Believe or not, it previous owner was France "PSA Peugeot Citroen" (notebook comes with France keyboard and company sticker), next owner was someone from Germany, (keyboard had German key stickers), and finally it's become mine

WarMachine · #17 Post by **WarMachine** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 8:00 am

Привет,

Ooooh, yes, Peugeot has a lot of Thinkpads in their laptop fleet.

You often see them on the sites which provide refurbished laptops here in France.

Peugeot-Citröen is a great french group who makes cars.

It's our "General Motors"... And Renault is our "Ford"...

W.

Mephistopheles · #18 Post by **Mephistopheles** » Fri Aug 31, 2007 2:38 am

Pity, but seems X31 is unable to boot from CF card.

Transnote successfully boots from CF card, X31 successfully boots from CF card connected via CF-USB adapter, but unable to do it from directly attached CF card. Boot code print message "Operation system not found" and halt.

dmitrio · #19 Post by **dmitrio** » Fri Aug 31, 2007 2:48 am

can you check on bootability of the CF card through the express card adapter or PCMCIA adaper, just if you have it handy?

Mephistopheles · #20 Post by **Mephistopheles** » Fri Aug 31, 2007 5:29 am

dmitrio wrote:can you check on bootability of the CF card through the express card adapter or PCMCIA adaper, just if you have it handy?

Sorry, but i have no access to other CF card adapters except CF-USB.

dmitrio · #21 Post by **dmitrio** » Fri Aug 31, 2007 9:12 am

I don't expect express card + CF to boot, just wanted to try it.
well, anyway thankyou

xtypestereotype · #22 Post by **xtypestereotype** » Fri Aug 31, 2007 10:43 am

I haven't had much time to play with this since buying the CF card, but I did try it once with no success...

It was only a quick try with a floppy image "pasted" with dd straight onto the CF card, but it did not work...
Hopefully this Sunday I'll find some spare time to give it a "proper" try...

tehchu · #23 Post by **tehchu** » Wed Sep 05, 2007 11:37 pm

perhaps this would be of interest to you

http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/entry/425/h ... ot_windows

simply get a cf to laptop hard drive connector converter off ebay, plug the cf card into the adaptor, adpator into where hard drive goes

involves replacing the hard drive with a cf card though, something i want to try once i garner sufficient funds to do so

xtypestereotype · #24 Post by **xtypestereotype** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 7:58 pm

I guess I can safely say that it does not work...
Apparently the BIOS does not provide power to the interface, and as fas as the BIOS is concerned, the CF is only there after the Windows drivers kick in... Crap...
That is on an X20 i guess... Other models could behave differently, but I doubt...
I rest my case

cofreth · #25 Post by **cofreth** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 2:10 am

How often ppl here use CF card?

What can it be use for?

In the present maket what is the highest capacity size availble?

thank you

DVormann · #26 Post by **DVormann** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 4:18 am

CF are natural IDE devices and can replace HDDs. See here.

The largest cards are 16 GB. They use MLC-NAND and reach 21 MB/s. 8 GB cards are available with SLC-NAND and over 40 MB/s.

I am looking for a fast (UDMA4) cardbus (PCMCIA) to CF adaptor.

faberryman · #27 Post by **faberryman** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 5:57 pm

I'm booting and running XP on an X24 from a CF card inserted in a CF-IDE adapter which in turn is inserted in the hard drive slot. I'm using a Sandisk Extreme II and it runs in DMA2 mode which is the same as a CD/DVD drive and performance is about the same - somewhat slow to load programs, but once load performance is okay. HD Tach reports a 12MB/s transfer rate. A regular Toshiba CF card by comparison has a 1.6MB/s transfer rate. It works for an X31 as well. I was unable to accomplish it on an X21 for some reason..

Compact Flash Booting - CF Slot - Anyone ever tried?

Compact Flash Booting - CF Slot - Anyone ever tried?

I'm interested

Re: I'm interested

good luck

distro?

my expirience

Re: distro?

Re: my expirience

Re: my expirience

:. express card or PCMCIA adapter?

Re: :. express card or PCMCIA adapter?

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