Can I hook a USB hard drive up to an Axim?

[GoldKey]

I have a 40 GB external Maxtor hard drive that I got a screaming deal on at Staples. Bought to use for backups and for transporting large files back and forth between work. Was thinking that hooked to an Axim or other PDA would make a cool portable jukebox for in the car/at work. Looking for a creative solution.

[Gremmie]

Definatly no way through a USB host like on the E200 or e740, but I suppose a CF to PCMCIA adapter may let you use a PCMCIA drive to swap out PCMCIA Hard Drives. It's not USB, but hey, I've seen it work.

Possibly you could use a USB PCMCIA card in the CF-PCMCIA adapter and use USB.

I don't know about the latter, it'd involve drivers, but the former has been done and articles exist out there of how to do it.

[bkerrins]

Personally, I can't wait until I can just carry around a pocket full of SD or CF cards, plug them into my car radio and have it play MP3's directly from the card. I don't think this should be rocket science. I can't even tell you what a cassette tape looks like anymore and since I have kids, too many of my CD's are scratched. How hard is it to design a car radio with AM/FM and a CF slot?

[Gremmie]

Sony does it with Sony memory sticks.

[Fzara]

True, but that doesnt count, since Sony has propietry memory. :roll:

[maestrobill]

I too am interested in this question. I have been looking at different hard drive oprions for backing up the CF cards from my digital camera. I have a hard time deleting the photos from the card without some "proof" that they were really successfully downloaded to the hard drive. Only the more expensive ones ($399)have a small LCD viewing screen, although these also play MP3's and even video's. THe small 1.8" screen size and the drastically lower battery life for the viewing enabled units both make me think that I would rather have the option of viewing the photos on my PDA. Also the non screen mofels are much less at under $200. The existing USB connector would make the hookup, but the PDA would have to manage the link, since there is no processor or program to do so on these units, at least for now.
Has anyone tried this? :?:

[maestrobill]

Found on site search - posted by johncruise - Thanks John!:lol:
Copied here for you.

... at DeJe's website:

http://www.deje.gmxhome.de/software.html

With that driver, you can connect your generic USB hard disk, an IOmega 250 USB zip drive, a generic storage card reader (ms, mmc, cf, sd, mmc, etc), and even digital camera (mine works... Sony DCR-PC110).

[Janak Parekh]

Found on site search - posted by johncruise - Thanks John!:lol:
Good catch, but note that this still won't work with the Axim, as it has no USB host capability. Plus they warn that the driver may cause data corruption...

--janak

[maestrobill]

Thanks for your post, it sounded too good to be true. Which , if any PDA's have such USB host capability? And if they have such capability, why would they need a software patch? I assume then, that you would suggest that the mere presence of a USB connector, which all PDA's have (or most) only allows for the Hosting to be done by the computer. I thought the purpose of this programming was to allow the PDA to assume some hosting duties, but there may be hardware issues also of which I am not aware. The USB connection does allow for two way data transmission, and the USB hard drives we are discussing have some built in controller functions, so where is the missing link, and how do we overcome it? In addition, the compact flash cards we use on many of these units are treated by the PDA (and a host laptop via the PCMCIA adapter) as an external drive, so it would follow logically that a CF USB adapter would allow for such a connection, if such a card were available. Enough digression. ANyone out there have a solution? :roll:

[maestrobill]

Thanks to: enemy2k2
Pocket PC Intellectual
I found this link from his post Joined: 15 Oct 2002
Posts: 221
Location: Vancouver
PostPosted: Mon Dec 09, 2002 12:45 pm

Post subject: Reply with quote
http://www.netac.com/products/View.asp?CodeNo=00000008

For a compact flash mini usb port solution.

ALthough this does not sound like a host adapter to me but rather just another possible connector.

[RedFlash]

The CF to USB is a nice find, and I'd be interested if anyone has used one of these devices. I'm wanting to use a USB flash drive (http://www.flash-memory.org) on my HP 548, and the idea of being able to connect a mobile hdd sounds great.

OK, so you might ask why -- simply because I use a 128MB drive all the time at work and would like to plug it into my HP as well.

Any experience? These things are driverless for most OS, but I expect there might be a problem on the Jornada and other PDAs.