Do PCMCIA card readers work in 380ED?

[VIBM]

I have an 380ED with Win98, and would like to know if those
PCMCIA card readers are compatible with my laptop.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002J ... -1&seller=
Also, is there a limit on the memory card size for Win98?

They are inexpensive and would be great for exchanging data
to and from the laptop since memory cards are so inexpensive
now days.

Thanks

[phool@round]

It will work. One of the buyers said that the media size limit was not advertised and rather far smaller than expected.

People trying to buy this card adapter should be aware of the following capacity limitations, you may notice that for MMC, SM and MS, the adapter is actually useless,
- SD (up to 1GB)
- MultiMediaCard (up to 128MB)
- SmartMedia (up to 128MB)
- Memory Stick (up to 128MB)
- Memory Stick PRO (up to 1GB)
- xD-Picture cards (up to 512MB, none M or H)
And the card adapter also has some compatibility problem, it doesnot work with my IBM T42, but OK with my Lenovo T60 and my friend's Toshiba, but this could be a problem of my laptop instead of the adapter itself.

Personally I use a SanDisk PCMCIA CF card adapter instead here in my 760's. I then can use an Imation USB reader that allows me to plug my CF card into anything with a USB port to transfer files to all of my computers.
Size limit of a CF card recognized as a hard drive in my case is limited to the size limit imposed by the BIOS. In my case that is 10.2GB. In your case for the 380ED if it were 2635-7AU is 5.1GB.

Hope that helps.

[VIBM]

Thank you very much for the EXCELLENT information.
It looks like SD, MS Pro and CF are the best alternatives.

I have a 380ED - 2635-6AU, do you know if the CF limits would
also be 5.1GB?

Thanks again.

[phool@round]

2635-6AU
Windows 95 OSR2
September 1997
3.0GB

Even though your model was sold with a 3GB disk I still think the BIOS will cover all ED's and would set the limit at 5.1GB through EZ Setup. (Probably 6GB would be your max.)

When you insert a CF card into a system it sees it as a hard disk. The other formats I'm not sure of, maybe just removable media.

[whizkid]

8GB is a limit on old ThinkPads. Even my 750P with a 486 CPU can handle drives up to 8GB.

As it happens, I had your issue bite me just this week. I have a SanDisk Ultra II 2GB SD card and a SanDisk PCMCIA card reader. Silly me, I reformatted the card with a Linux partition while playing around, and now the device always appears as a 1GB device when in the adapter. SanDisk tech support confirmed that the adapter only handles devices up to 1GB of capacity. Time for a new reader.

Also note that anything more than 2GB in the SD world becomes SDHC, so look for that specifically if you want that kind of capacity.

BTW, Office Depot has 1GB SD cards for $7.99 today.

Also, you need Win98 Second Edition (W98SE) for memory cards to appear as drives, or special drivers that come with the card. Most cards do not come with drivers.