is it possible to add a hard drive to a h5455 ipaq?

[jcesar50]

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hi, i've owned 3 different ipaqs for the last 3 years, but have never tryied a pcmcia card hard drive on any of them, i have been seeing a section on -pocketpc.com-since the last year or so, where they offer [separately]a pc card expansion pack, and 3 different 5 to 15-gygabyte pcmcia hard drive cards from Kingston, toshiba and cms. has anyone tryed a hard drive card on an ipaq????? if so how does it perform??????? is it worth having anyone of them?????
- for your help thanks.
http://www.mobileplanet.com/private/pocketpc/listing.asp?cat%5Fid=202&cat%5Fname=Expand&pdept%5Fid=200208&dept%5Fid=1420&dept%5Fname=

[Jason Dunn]

Sure, they work quite well, but it's hard on the battery, so it's good that you'll have that extra battery in the iPAQ PCMCIA sleeve.

[SassKwatch]

Sure, they work quite well, but it's hard on the battery, so it's good that you'll have that extra battery in the iPAQ PCMCIA sleeve.
You' been able to get these to work?

I tried with the 5455 a couple months ago and had no luck. In fact, I started this thread about it back then.....

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12715

[Chris Spera]

I've been using the same PC Card Sleeve and PC Card hard drive with my iPAQ's since I had my 3600. Everyting works like a charm and I haven't had any problems with it.

In fact, it worked so well that I used to carry it with me everywhere I went. I stopped only because I got tired of all of the bulk. It works very well, and my 2GB hard drive allows me to carry about 45 albums with me.


Kind Regards,


Christopher Spera

[SassKwatch]

I've been using the same PC Card Sleeve and PC Card hard drive with my iPAQ's since I had my 3600. Everyting works like a charm and I haven't had any problems with it.

Well drat, now I'm stumped. I'd given up trying, but will have to give it another go.

Does the drive need to be formatted in any particular fashion. I.e., FAT16, FAT32, or.....?

[Chris Spera]

I certainly haven't done anything special... I've got my 2GB hard drive formatted with FAT32; but that's not a problem for your PDA...

If you're trying to see if there's a problem with the expansion sleeve bus, try hard resetting the device and with NOTHING installed, ensure that the PC Card Hard drive is readable via a laptop or PC Card reader on your desktop.

After that, insert your PDA into the sleeve. You should see a dialog that says the sleeve is initializing and you should here an insertion sound. after that, insert the PC Card into the sleeve, and it should be accessable as a Storage Card.

If that doesn't work, check the sleeve with another iPAQ. If it works on the other iPAQ, then your iPAQ is defective. If the sleeve doesn't initialize and the PC Card doesn't work on the other PDA, then I'd say the sleeve is bad...

Keep us posted!


Kind Regards,


Christopher Spera

[Jason Dunn]

Sure, they work quite well, but it's hard on the battery, so it's good that you'll have that extra battery in the iPAQ PCMCIA sleeve.
You' been able to get these to work?

I tried with the 5455 a couple months ago and had no luck. In fact, I started this thread about it back then.....

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12715

Oops, no, sorry I haven't - I was talking theoretically, but it seems there might be a power issue after all. I haven't tried a PCMCIA hard drive for...two years? They seem to old school - I'm all about solid state memory. :-)

[SassKwatch]

I certainly haven't done anything special... I've got my 2GB hard drive formatted with FAT32; but that's not a problem for your PDA...
I've run the gamut and am out of ideas....

* The sleeve is working fine (The dual slot PCMCIA sleeve). It does initialize when added to the 5455, and when equipped w/ an appropriate adapter, I can read/write to a CF card.

* The PCMCIA drive (Archos MiniHD @ 20GB) works fine when connected to the laptop. It's formatted as FAT32, and I added a 'My Documents' folder to it just in case that was the problem.

When I connect the Archos to the iPAQ, I do hear a very brief 'whir' as though the drive is attempting to spin up, but that lasts a second or 2, then nothing.

It would appear the biggest differences between our setups is the size of the drives we're adding. Wonder if that may have something to do with it.(?) Would a bigger drive require more power than the iPAQ (even w/ a powered sleeve) be capable of supplying?

Thanks for your thoughts.

[SassKwatch]

I'm all about solid state memory. :-)
Believe me....I would *really* like to be. But it's just too expensive for my desired needs at this point.

I wanted to get this PCMCIA drive working with the iPAQ so I could carry the setup 'in the field' with my digital photo equipt and have oodles of space to which I could transfer the .RAW files. An extra GB or 2 of CF based memory is not all that much in those situations. And for less than I would have paid for four 1GB CF cards, I wound up buying a laptop with 30GB of space...and all the other computing possibilities. Obviously this doesn't go 'in the field', but it will also be rare that I won't be able to get back to the laptop at the end of the day to do the transfer.

As big a fan of the platform as I am, I really want my PocketPC to be exactly what the name implies...a pocket sized *pc*. Unfortunately, they're not quite there yet.

[gry]

* The PCMCIA drive (Archos MiniHD @ 20GB) works fine when connected to the laptop. It's formatted as FAT32, and I added a 'My Documents' folder to it just in case that was the problem.

When I connect the Archos to the iPAQ, I do hear a very brief 'whir' as though the drive is attempting to spin up, but that lasts a second or 2, then nothing.


That's your problem...Archos MiniHD is not supported.

The Kingston and Toshiba are the only PCMCIA hard drives that work in the sleeve.

Go look up those products and you'll see they are PCMCIA hdd's. I own this Toshiba 5Gb hdd (http://sdd.toshiba.com/cda/main.aspx?Path=/818100000007000000010000659800000000/81820000010d000000010000659c000003b7/8182000000e6000000010000659c000003be/8182000000ea000000010000659c00000371).

Also, read this article and you'll see that the Archos MiniHD uses proprietary drivers to work, even in PCs let alone a PPC.
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,101661,00.asp

So I'm sure it's a driver issue for the Archos MiniHD in your PPC.

[SassKwatch]

That's your problem...Archos MiniHD is not supported.

The Kingston and Toshiba are the only PCMCIA hard drives that work in the sleeve.

Makes sense. It just confused me when Chris said he'd had a PCMCIA drive working just fine, and I knew a lot of other folks had been working with the Storage Brick Driver (http://www.tjotala.com/software/wince/storagebrickdriver/default.htm) to get external drives working with their PPC devices....and even then with limited success.

So, I'd hoped to get the Archos drive functional with that driver. But apparently that is device specific and not compatible with 54xx series devices.

[jutae]

Yeah my Ipaq Storage Brick drive works fine. I have an IBM 20GB drive in it. Yea it's a pain to lug around, but I have a lottttt of music stored and some ppc divx movies. Next I need to build up the courage to try it with Mobile 2003....n 1 have success with 2003?