Compact flash for improved performance & low power usage

[T.A.SRINIVAS]

Dear Friends

I have made the modification to my ThinkPad 340CSE by replacing the conventional hard disk drive with compact flash. I have purchased a new Laptop CF to IDE adapter from PC Engines.com at a cost of $8 and a new 2GB Transcend compact flash which exactly fits in to the hard disk tray of any laptop. I have purchased the new such accessories for better quality and compatibility.

After installing compact flash the laptop is consuming 40% less power than conventional hard disk and there is no noise as in the case of HDD. The speed of applications are also greatly improved but I do not know what will be be life of the compact flash. In total I am happy with replacement of conventional hard disk drive.

Regards,

T.A.Srinivas
Email: t.a.srinivas@vsnl.net

[Raceboy]

Yes, I've thought about this mod also on my 560E as I use it to calibrate engine management systems and CF sounds very good option (better battery life, faster, quieter).

But how's it by now, any signs of CF getting tired due to writing operations?

[T.A.SRINIVAS]

The compact flash is still working satisfactorily and the performance of the read and write capacity is not decreased. I am notced real improvement with compact flash like speed of accessing data and write operation. Before making this attempt I was also having similar doubt on the durability but is working very well and at this stage that I am confident that it will not give any problems in future also. Even if it fails after the use of about 2 years still it is better option for me considering the speed, vibration tolerence, power consumption and weight.

Sorry for delay in my reply. May please always communicate with my email tasrinivas@gail.co.in

Regards

T.A.Srinivas

[TomKroscavage]

You have to shut off page filling or you'll burn up the card quickly

[Raceboy]

You have to shut off page filling or you'll burn up the card quickly

Could be more specific? What do you mean by page filling?

[mgo]

You have to shut off page filling or you'll burn up the card quickly

Could be more specific? What do you mean by page filling?

I believe he means to turn off the pagefile (virtual memory) funtion, since it is no longer needed on a solid state drive.

right click my computer
right click properties
left click the advanced tab
in the performance area left click settings
in the performance options menu left click advanced
in the virtual memory area left click change
left click no paging file and then click set

This turns off the page file so the solid state drive is not written to as much in the same area.

[nomo]

has anybody ever had success with booting a 240 from cf-to-ide adapter?

i tried with many different cf cards, including 32mb, 128mb, 2x 256mb and a 4gb, from all different kinds of manufacturers. I just can't make the BIOS detect the cards as a harddrive.

Any ideas?

[thinkpad adrian]

i put one in a 240x, (450 celeron) and it works. i would suggest you test the card in a desk top computer first. you can purchase a lap-top ide to desk-top ide adapter very cheaply. my problem was that the
adapter is not marked as to the oriantation of adapter as to how it hooks up to the laptop adapter (i put it in upside down, and the pins
out of sequence, and ende up burning up the fist card i tried)
make shure the jumpers on the cf adapter are set to master,
then hook it up to the laptop/desktop ide cable adapter, hook the ribbon cable adapter to the master on your desk-top motherboard.(remove all other ide
drive cables from the motherboard) boot the desktop computer
into bios, and it should detect the cf card as a hard drive. if it does not, the wires are on wrong, backward, upside down,
or out of sequence, or the cf card is bad/damaged. if it detects it, continue by booting with a 98
or ME floppy disk. use the f-disk utility to partition and format the drive in fat 32 (allway re-partition and format the drive to insure
compatibility with the computer, if used in a camera, the partitions
and formats could be different) after that, its just a matter of removing the cf card adapter from the desk-top computer, installing
the 240 hard drive adapter on it, and putting the whole thing in your
lap top. use the 98 boot disk on your laptop to start it, and it should detect a "c" drive present. install your o/s normally from that. adrian

[nomo]

Yes, I exhaustingly tested it.
Just to confirm it, I just tried the following:

I took a bootable cf card, put it in the cf-to-laptopide adapter, attached this to a laptop to desktop ide adapter, and attached this to a desktop mainboard.
The flash card was fully identified as master drive and i was able to boot from the card.
Then I built out the TP240's harddisk and attached the adapter, exactly like the harddisk was attached.

There weren't any selectable options in the 240's BIOS, just as if there wasn't any drive installed at all.

Here's a picture of my test equipment.
http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/493/tp240cf1yh2.jpg

BTW, i also found this thread http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=30768. The author seems to have the same problem.

I think it could be a BIOS problem. I vaguely remember that the 240 has had problems with harddisks, here is a page discussing this issue: http://www.citi.umich.edu/u/rees/openbs ... ad240.html
The last option for me is to test if I can boot to DOS, then hotswap the harddisk with a cf card and see if I can read it.

What would be the best source for the newest or most stable BIOS for the 240?


//update:

still no luck whatsoever. here's what my BIOS looks like:
http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/4057/tp240cf2lu7.jpg

[thinkpad adrian]

the 240 realy doesnt have much of a bios, you only know if you got it right by having the windows start up disk detect it when you do fdisk. if it says "no disk present" than bios is not seeing it. i have not tried it in a 240, but i would think it would be almost the same as a 240x.
you may have to look in your "setup" utility (f1 at boot) and make shure that you have selected to boot from hard drive as first choice
along with the floopy as #2. one last thought, the hard drive to
laptop adapter (the one ibm puts on the end of the hard drive to
allow it to interface with the computer main board) is kinda touchy,
it seems hard to get it fully seated in its socket. i had to put it in
first, without anything attached to it (and without a hard drive attached to it, it can easly be put in upside down, not allowing
the hard drive to be recignised), and then i attached the cf adapter,
with the cf card allready seated. (on my card it looks like its mounted upside down) i used a piece of tape, along with some cardboard and foam to prevent it from moving, and keeping it centered in the bay. i then put the back cover on, without the metal tray. let us know how you do. adrian

[thinkpad adrian]

i re-read your last post, and dont know what "built out" the drive means. you can format and partition the cf card drive in another
computer, but you MUST install the systim files and install
the operating systim on the drive only when its installed in the 240. you will need a usb cd rom, along with the xp install floopys.
your only other option is to install a complete image of the windows install cd in another disk partition ("d" partition).
adrian

[nomo]

i re-read your last post, and dont know what "built out" the drive means.

i wanted to say that I just exchanged the harddisk with the cf-to-ide44 adapter and a compact flash card.

The cf is definitely bootable. I don't believe that you have to set the MBR of a drive from the 240 itself. Actually, I received it with a formatted hdd. I had to take it out and attach it to my pc, then install win98 from there. After re-inserting it into the 240, it booted just fine.

So that can't be the problem.

By now, I do believe that it is a specific 240 issue, because I have never read about a working conversion, just reports that it doesn't work.

I was thinking about abandoning the 240 for more than one time before I read your report. I wouldn't mind having to live with 192meg of ram if it had a flash disk. In fact, a 240x with flash disk would be a killer machine for me; because that is what I originally wanted when purchasing my 240.

Anyway, I'll evaluate what would be the best solution for my needs. Until then, I am happy for any ideas how to make my 240 flashdisk bootable.

[thinkpad adrian]

you can format and partition the cf card in any computer, but
the instalation of sys files (sys c:) and the actual instalation of
windows must be in the 240. any other computer, including a
240x wont work. the only exception would be another computer with the identicle chipset.if you try, you will get an imidiate lock up, or the "ntldr missing" error mssage. but either way, if you put the drive in your 240, and booted from the floppy (making the floppy FIRST on the boot order) you should be able to go from the "a" drive to the c
drive, and verify its size and contents. after that, its just a matter of re-formating the drive, and installing the O/S.
adrian