Subject: Re: Compact Flash Install
To: None <port-i386@NetBSD.org>
From: der Mouse <mouse@Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
List: port-i386
Date: 08/16/2003 15:35:37
> Find an ide to compact flash adapter. They're around and cost
> $10-30. Compact flash's regular interface is very close,
> (identical?), to IDE to begin with so the "adapter" is really just
> traces on a board and a couple of connectors.
> Once you plug it in, it looks like a disk drive to the bios and to
> netbsd. From there, you just load it as you would a regular disk
> drive.
That's been my experience. I've never tried booting off one, but I did
once end up with a cheap digital camera that wrote its pictures to CF.
I found a website (something that looked authoritative, a name along
the lines of compactflash.org) that said the interface was electrically
identical to IDE-on-PCMCIA. I got an adapter (which was cheap, not
surprising if it's just two connectors, some wiring, and a housing) and
plugged it into my laptop's pcmcia, and it showed up very nicely as a
wd drive.
Now in my case I don't know whether the BIOS would be willing to try to
boot from it, since it's behind PCMCIA and the machine is designed to
boot from a wd that's connected elsewhere. But for a machine not
designed to have any other disk, I'd expect it to Just Work.
/~\ The ASCII der Mouse
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