Windows XP SP1 installed on Compact Flash System Disk

Notebook: Toshiba Portege 3110CT
Processor: 300Mhz
RAM: 192MB
HDD: ATA-4, Ultra ATA/33, UDMA/33 2.5" Disk.
CD: n\a
USB: non-bootable via BIOS
FDD: 1.4MB floppy disk which is bootable.

I am attempting to install a Compact flash card in a CF-IDE adapter with a 4GB SanDisk into a Toshiba 3110CT as the system HDD.
This replaces the original 6GB IDE HDD.

I have formatted the Compact flash card as two partitions, C and D, both formatted as FAT16.
Partition D which is ~800MB housing the Windows XP SP1 distribution.
Partition C which is ~3000MB will be the system disk when completed.

I can start the windows XP SP1 install (i386\winnt.exe) and it loads the setup files, it then reboots.
The system reboots on the Compact Flash and continues until is gets to the partition section of the install of Windows XP SP1.
It can go no further as is says the existing partitions are not part of a known disk drive.

The wording indicates that the Compact flash is seen as a removable disk and that the installation is looking for a conventional HDD.

Anybody installed a Compact Flash card as a Windows XP SP1 system disk and overcome the obstacle that Windows XP thinks the Compact Flash boot disk is a removal HDD?

I think it just needs some sort of driver for the Compact Flash card to 'fox' Windows XP into thinking it's dealing with a HDD.

Or is there some flag I can set on the 4GB Ultra SanDisk Compact flash to says it's a HDD?

Thanks for any help on this.

 

Interesting topic, as I've just completed installing a CF-IDE adapter with a SanDisk Ultra 4GB 200x Compact Flash card in a Toshiba Portégé 3110CT myself.

OK, to start with you're falling for a lot of beginners traps.

Don't bother partitioning the flash card. It's not required, won't work on pseudo removable media and the dist. can be loaded from a local folder.
I notice you mention Windows XP SP1. Don't use it, use Windows XP SP2.
WinXP SP1 doesn't support the flash card well and your I/O will almost be reduced to nil during most of the install.

When you complete the install, don't let windows create a pagefile.sys. This will lock you out of the system as removable media doesn't support paging.
You can create paging on the Compact Flash card, but first you'll need to update the Compact Flash 'disk' drive in Device Manager to 'force' it into fixed drive state.

On the Portégé 3110CT you mention the original Toshiba IDE/ATA-4 6GB 4200RPM HDD, this is NOT a fast drive and the 200x Compact Flash will easily out preform it.

This is quite important when using Windows XP as the Portégé 3110CT can only support a max. 192MB RAM. This means that a pagefile.sys is mandatory and with the CF access time of 0.8msec compared to the Toshiba 6GB HDD's access time of 21msec, you will notice the different.

It's like swapping out a 7200RPM HDD for an SSD in modern terms.

The only ongoing consideration is the longevity of the CF card and it's integrity and potential corruption due to excessive read/writes.

Also when installing Windows XP one should look at an unattended installation in conjunction with a distribution assembler like nLite.

The following shows an original Toshiba IDE 6GB HDD and the SanDisk 4GB 200x CF 'fixed' drive.

 

Wait, what? Did you just answer your own question?

 

I'm a mark II learning monkey.

Left hemisphere asks questions and draws stick figures while right hemisphere solves problems. Found this useful as it keeps the left hemisphere busy and thus out of the way, such that it doesn't annoying the right hemisphere while it's working on solving the problem.

/________ Left brain.
\

I now have more questions, but figure I can solve them before anyone else gets around to answering them.

I sometimes writing down a question to help in better identifying the answer.

Just for a laugh since I got my CF card, pseudo fixed disk set up with paging and all, I now find all 56K modems (USB V92 and/or builtin V90) on the notebook seem to think their COM port(s) are already in use (error 633), even when you re-assign the COM port. Something is bound to something else somewhere and thus conflicting. I can reinstall the original HDD to rule out hardware issues and then focus on software links between COM processes in the new CF environment.

 

Having the modem locked out like this is not a common occurrence, but it does happen. There is no real answer to this that I am aware of, but in most cases, it's NOT hardware related.

You'll be hard pressed to locate the offending application that has now obtained a read/write lock on some part of the 56K modem environment.
COM ports all look OK, and if you have a built in 56K modem, it'll reload it's drivers if you uninstall it, before you get a chance to see what is effected, when the 56K modem is remove. i.e. what has hold of the 56K modem.

As I was loading software to observe CF-IDE CompactFlash drive activity at the first chance after installing Windows XP SP2 it is possible some file became locked out in the conventional 56K modem environment.

I just took the easy way out and did a Windows XP SP2 'Upgrade', thus retaining existing programs and user environment, but restoring the OS.

Another option is to go back to a known working system restore point before the 56K modem went bad.

When completed, I configured and 'fired up' the 56K modem connection and everything was OK, with no problems.

You will have to re-apply the Hitachi microdrive driver to the CompactFlash drive to 'fox' the Windows XP OS into thinking it's a HDD.

So now I have a CompactFlash drive supporting the complete raft of Windows XP SP2 operations(Now Windows XP SP3). It all works. All good.

It's a vast improvement on the original 6GB HDD at an average ~9.1MB/sec throughput, 21msec access time. Although the 21.5MB/sec burst rate of the HDD is almost acceptable in the current maximum 33MB/sec environment.

The CompactFlash gives an average ~19.5MB/sec throughput, 0.8msec access time and 18.3MB/sec burst rate.

The only REAL outstanding problem is the ~1 million read/write operations before the CompactFlash card/drive goes bad.

Because of the limited 196MB RAM maximum of the Portégé 3110CT, a pagefile.sys is mandatory and because it's located in a fixed spot read/write to this area of the CF is going to be exhausted quickly.

A CompactFlash drive is not really a long term answer for a Portégé 3110CT which relies on a fast storage device for pagefile.sys access.

Other options available to the Portégé 3110CT are.

• Use an ATA Microdrive. Oddly, I have one in my iRiver H10 MP3 player which I could test Not sure of it's throughput and access speed at this time.
• Use a 2.5" 80GB IDE 5400RPM HDD which gives ~26.4MB/sec throughput, 19.5msec access time and 23.3MB/sec burst rate.
• As the Portégé 3110CT has a PCMCIA slot, one could use a combination of 5400RPM HDD and PCMCIA ATA adapter for ReadyBoost on a Windows XP OS using eBoostr. Best of both worlds, but check PCMCIA ATA adapter throughput first. It may not support 33MB/sec speeds.

Remembering the maximum throughput the Portégé 3110CT can handle is ATA 33MB/sec.

Update - Boot times from power up until the Avast virus application is active in a client account are as follows:

• Toshiba MK6411MAT 6GB 4200RPM HDD boot time : 2.21Min
• Hitachi HTS541080G9AT00 80GB 5400RPM HDD boot time : 1.32Min
• Western Digital WD800BEVE 80GB 5400RPM HDD boot time : 1.23Min
• SanDisk 4GB 200x CompactFlash boot time : 1.14Min

These boot times include a boot time defrag of system files with loosely the same start-up environment where client accounts have no password but are selected to enter the account from a list of accounts (human response give a second or so).

Update - Decided to go with the 4GB CompactFlash at the moment.

Have strip Windows XP down to the basics. (approx 1.5GB)

Removed uninstall files, servicepack files, dllcache files and etc, so now able to install Adobe PDF, Thunderbird, OpenOffice writer and a other basic day to day tools.

Still have approx 900MB free on a 4GB CompactFlash card.

Toshiba Portégé 3110CT 300Mhz, 192MB RAM is just used for reading mail and documents included in mail.

Tried installing a Western Digital IDE 80GB HDD (WD800BEVE) but it doesn't boot the HDD at power on.
To get it up and running you first have to go into the BIOS, save and exit and then the WD 80GB HDD spins up and the system starts. Not the most Ideal working solution.