Uncreative Labs

Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 2:52 am

I have a Sandisk Extreme III although it may be counterfeit and so I can't ruled out this brand and model yet.

There are a number of sites which list CF cards and their specifications, especially CF cards designed for embedded or industrial purposes.

I'll post more information once I have done some more research.

I have also emailed Acard to ask their advice.

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

I've been looking at the Transcend CF cards. They look interesting. They claim to do DMA, and can autodetect between CF and IDE modes. Can't wait to hear feedback from Acard.

UPDATE:

While the information on the Sandisk website is not very complete, I found some other sources for the Ultra II. It claims it can work as an IDE drive, but makes no mention of DMA.

Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 8:49 pm

There are some links to a SanDisk utlity which allows you to change a Sandisk Ultra II card to "fixed disk" mode here:

http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/29592550/fat32-compact-flash-boot.aspx

The actual links are:

http://www.ete.com.au/downloads/dmaonoff.zip

http://www.ete.com.au/downloads/atcfwchg.zip

The Ultra II is apparantly one of the best cards to use, however it needs to be in "fixed disk" mode.

Can we test this?

I will probably buy a 2Gb Ultra II today.

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

Hey, that's really great!! Where did you find these utilities? They're nowhere to be found on the Sandisk website. Hell, you can't even count on them for good product details. Are these 3rd party utilities?

I'd really like to test my ultra II out right away, but I can't since I'm several thousand miles away from my computer toys. I have the Ultra II and a CF reader with me, but I doubt there's anything useful I could do with just those two things.

Anyway, it's really good to know that I didn't waste $35 on the CF card for nothing. Post back right away when you have results.

Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 10:13 am

There is still possibly DMA, or lack thereof, to deal with as I suspect the Ultra II does not support DMA whilst the Acard SCSI-IDE adaptor may require it (I am yet to receive an email from Acard regard CF cards etc).

The utilities were made available by the author of a post on the forum that I provided the links to. I have looked at them and I would say they are definitely from SanDisk.

I too am several thousand miles from home (Melbourne, Australia), currently relaxing around Waikiki Beach in Hawaii.

By the way, Ritz Camera currently sells the Ultra II for US$69, Best Buy for US$59 and Radio Shack for US$49!

Aloha Very Happy

UPDATE: The utilities I provided the link to includes dmaonoff.com which should allow DMA to be enabled on an Ultra II. It appears to be off by default. The command switches etc are (filename = dmaonoff.com):

NAND Athens DMA ON/OFF Utility Version 1.4.
Usage: <FileName> [Option]
Option
/P - Select Primary IO Mode.
/S - Select Secondary IO Mode.
/I XXXX
- Select 16-Byte Contiguous IO Mode.
- Where XXXX=IO Base Address in Hex.
/M XXXX YYYY
- Select Memory Mode.
- Where XXXX=Segment in Hex; YYYY=Offset in Hex.
/1 - Select Drive 1.
/D - Disable Athens DMA (default option).
/E - Enable Athens DMA.
/? - This Help Menu.
For examples, <FileName> /P
<FileName> /S
<FileName> /I 380
<FileName> /M D000 0000

Return DOS ERRORLEVEL: 0->Passed; 1->Failed

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

I'm freezing my ass off in a place that doesn't believe in using indoor heating. You need to quit teasing me with images of beaches of women in coconut bras and tall drinks with little umbrellas. Very Happy

I guess I can always run these utilities and see what they're all about. I do have my CF card with me, but I think without the SCSI bridge I won't be able to test it.

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

Well, I took a look at the utilities you pointed me to, but at the moment I am not able to do anything with them. It seems that to get them to work your CF card needs to be the primary drive on an IDE controller. All I have with me is my USB to CF adapter, and when I run the programs they return an "error #20".

I am also not entirely sure that the Ultra II will work with the utility. It seems that Sandisk stopped providing these utilities in 2004 or 2005. Bastards. I'm glad you were able to find the utilities, because it seems that Sandisk will tell you to piss off if you ask for them. I guess if I can't get the utilities going, I'll just do what everyone recommends and get a Transcend card. Damn, it's no wonder why the Ultra II didn't work with the Acard. I wonder why there is such a big conspiracy to stop us from using DMA.

Anyway, the good news is that I bought some jumper connectors and a crimping tool to rewire my IDE cable for my externally mounted CF bracket. If you plan do the external mount with the ACARD, you will need to do this as well. Simply using an IDE cable as an extension doesn't work because all the pins will be backwards.

Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 10:47 pm

1. I believe that the Sandisk utilities are designed for earlier CF cards including the Ultra II. That's at least according to several sites I have seen.

2. Yes, the CF card must be connected directly to the IDE bus and I too cannot do this until next week.

3. Transcend have an "Industrial" version of their 2GB CF card. It looks like only this version is set to "Fixed Disk Mode". However we should be okay with the Ultra II if the utility does indeed work and allows changing the card to "Fixed Disk Mode".

4. Acard have confirmed that their SCSI-IDE bridge handles both DMA and PIO devices and that "some customers have been able to use the bridge to connect to a CF card".

5. I am not sure why the IDE cable needs to be modified? If you connect the IDE-CF adaptor via a normal IDE cable you should be fine, at least with the Addonics IDE-CF adaptor.

More over the next week or so once I get access to a desktop that I can plug my Ultra II into.

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

All of this news sounds very promising. I will see about connecting the Ultra II to an IDE bus if I am able to find a system that does not use just SATA.

Concerning the modification of the IDE cable, it is only something you have to do if you decide to use an externally mounted ISA backpanel IDE-CF connector. You will find that if you want to mount this way it is not possible to attach the ACARD directly to the CF adapter, as the ACARD is taller than an ISA card when mounted sideways. Unfortunately I do not have a good image give you an example. So basically what you need to know is that this method requires and IDE extension cable, and IDE cables cannot be used like this without modification.

Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 12:11 am

I emailed Sandisk about their "Fixed Disk" CF cards and here is the response. Now we just need a good price on a CompactFlash 5000 card (I have emailed them back and requested pricing) assuming that we cannot switch the Ultra II to FDM:

"Hello,

Thanks for contacting SanDisk Technical Support.

Per SanDisk business guidelines, the tool being requested was only
available only for customers who utilize SanDisk OEM Compact Flash
product, SDCFJ-xxx-388 or SDCFH-xxx-388 under a SLA agreement. However
this utility is no longer available.

CompactFlash 5000 are available in fixed or removable configuration. For
more information, see the CompactFlash 5000 Industrial Grade Product
Brief:

http://www.sandisk.com/OEM/ProductCatalog(1324)-CompactFlash_5000_Indust
rial_Grade.aspx

Best regards,
Jonathan S.
SanDisk Technical Support
Jonathan.Stroud@sandisk.com

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 8:24 am

I'm yet to try the Sandisk utility which will change an Ultra II to "Fixed Disk Mode", however it also appears that all CF cards have a "TRUEIDE" mode which is enabled by tying pin 9 low at startup.

I'm reading up on this now and have emailed Addonics regarding their card adapters. I will also try to locate a CF to IDE adaptor with a jumper for this option.

An hour later and here's some more news from http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?s=hardware.no&showtopic=864503 :

"All CF-to-ATA adapters _already_ ground pin 9; that's what you have
to do to make a CF card operate in "True IDE" mode where you can just
plug it into a PATA cable.

This, however, does not make the card report itself as a fixed disk.
It'll still probably say it's a removable device. You need to change
the firmware to make it into a fixed disk, and the CF card
manufacturers do not release the utilities that (I think) would let
you do that with many, if not all, cards."

So it appears that we're back to the Sandisk utility or an "Trancend Industrial" CF card from EBay for about US$80.

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

Hmmm...interesting. I'll bring my CF card to work with me tomorrow and try it on my system to see if I can get this utility going...provided I can find an ATA cable.

Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 2:18 am

I have finally been able to connect my SanDisk 2GB Ultra II to an IDE bus and can confirm that the SanDisk utility works. I have now changed my Ultra II from removable to fixed disk mode. The utility only works if the CF card is connected to the primary IDE interface, the required command is:

atcfwchfg /P /F

On Saturday I will reconnect the card to my IBM Portable PC (XT) via the Acard bridge and Addonics CF bay and cross my fingers!

PS I also connected my EBay SanDisk Ultra III and this also appeared to work, we will see the result on Saturday

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

Wonderful news! I can't wait until saturday.

Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 9:04 am

Success!!

Well progress anyway as for the first time my TMC-850 SCSI card can see the Acard SCSI to IDE adaptor and indeed recognises that a fixed disk is installed.

The issue I have now is that I cannot boot the system from a 1.44 while the CF card is in the Addonics slot??? However when I remove the CF card, the TMC-850 remembers that it had a "Fixed Disk" installed and shows "0" as the capacity. The switching of the CF card from "removable" to "fixed disk" mode obviously activated the SCSI-IDE cards firmware.

Now, I "just" need to create 360K 6.21 boot disk and see what FDISK and the TMC-850 utility reports upon boot up.

2 HOURS LATER!

Booting with a 360K MSDOS 6.21 boot disk in my B: drive, I can now see a 2GB hard drive with the SCSI controller software!!!

I can also type dir c: and see a 2 GB disk and copy files to the disk.

What I cannot do is reformat the C: drive. There seems to be some type of conflict between my A: 1.44MB FDD and the hard drive (CF card).

For now, I'm happy. As a final test I plugged my CF card into my MAC and there were my 5 beautiful DOS 6.21 files that I copied from B: to C: on the XT.

So now I "just" need to:

i. resolve the FDD/HDD conflict
ii. Make sure I can format c:
iii. Install software such as Wordstart, Norton Commander and Lotus etc