[OB] OB 800 Compact flash as a hard drive

[Ron Beckley]

Reed,

Glad to see you got it working. You will probably notice some delay
especially in the writing to disk. If you don't need a special MS
application, DSL (Damn Small Linux) works very well on the OB and is speedy.

Ron

> -----Original Message-----
> From: omnibook-bounces at lists.elektro.com [mailto:omnibook-
> bounces at lists.elektro.com] On Behalf Of Reed Turner
> Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2008 12:26 PM
> To: HP Omnibook Notebook Computer list
> Subject: Re: [OB] OB 800 Compact flash as a hard drive
> 
> Success - the problem was because of the Sandisk compact flash. Rather
> than mess with rejigging the Sandisk internals, I bought a generic (and
> inexpensive) noname brand off ebay, did a disk clone from my omnibook
> disk to it, plugged it in and away it went, Windows 95 and all. I redid
> it from my win98 Omnibook and it ran fine too.
> 
> My reason for pursuing this is needing to be able to read and write
> with impunity while the computer is shaking and bouncing, attached to a
> tractor in the field undergoing vibration testing.
> 
> We will see how it works,
> Reed
> 
> 
> On 7/19/08, ARTHUR DAVIS <art_52 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 	I found (and downloaded, and a/v scanned with AVG Free) what
> appears to be the CF utility here:
> 
> 	http://www.dynx.net/images/prog/ATCFWCHG.COM
> 
> 	...haven't tried to use it, so I'm only assuming it's the right
> one. Let us know if you do and it is.
> 
> 	I did come across a few threads that suggested that you'd rather
> more quickly than not "wear out" a CF card if you used it for your XP
> system disk (which threads seemed to imply that you might want to move
> as much caching as you could to an alternate drive, to make your CF
> system drive last longer) ...no idea what "longer" means ...did see
> something like 1x10^26 write op's as the EOL point though (which seemed
> like a lot of zeros to math-challenged ol' me).
> 
> 	Regardless: they're so cheap these days, I dinna think 'tis a
> downside. YMMV (but, of course).
> 
> 	-------
> 	brandon
> 
> 	**EOL = end of life
> 
> 	> -----Original Message-----
> 	Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:49:19 -0600
> 	From: Reed Turner
> 	Subject: OB 800 Compact flash as a hard drive
> 
> 	I know more about this now - it turns out to be somewhat
> dependent on the compact flash you are using. Im my case it is a
> sandisk and the error comes because the bios sees it as removeable.
> Sandisk used to offer a utility, ATCFWCHG.com, that would reset the
> bits in the flashcard identifier to make it appear as a fixed disk and
> then it would be recognized. Unfortunately they no longer offer it and
> I haven't been able to find it on the web either. Some card brands do
> not have this issue - others do, and there is no guide I can find - it
> is apparently a trial and error.
> 
> 
> 	Reed
> 
> 
> 
> 	> -----Original Message-----
> 	> From: Ron Beckley
> 
> 	I currently have a 800CT with 4G flashcard on IDE to CF Adapter
> that is
> 	working. I have Win98 and DSL working with two 2 G partitions. It
> has been a
> 	while since I made the setup but I think I made a Ghost image of
> a working
> 	Win98 drive and restored it to the CF card. Don't recall using
> ATAInit. I
> 	probably used an adapter to connect the CF to my desktop or used
> an OB
> 	floppy to start up the OB with CD support.
> 
> 	> -----Original Message-----
> 	> From: Reed Turner
> 	> Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 10:04 AM
> 	> Subject: Re: [OB] OB 800 Compact flash as a hard drive
> 	>
> 	> Hi:
> 	> Just wondering if you ever got this to work. We would be
> interested in
> 	> doing something similar with a 2 gb flash card and ide to CF
> adapter on
> 	> our 8000ct's. Currently, when installed, if you F2 into the
> bios, it
> 	> shows a hard drive of the correct size but when you let it
> attempt to
> 	> boot, the startup progresses through the two " Configuring
> [Bridge
> 	> Controller]" messages, then restarts and shows three lines
> 	>
> 	> 166 Mhz Pentium CPU
> 	> External Cache: 512K enabled
> 	> Invalid or damaged Bootable partition
> 	>
> 	> and stops. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
> 	> Reed
> 
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