iPAQ and PC card Hard Drive?

[nosmohtac]

I know that many people use their PC card expansion pack, with something like a Toshiba 5GB PCMCIA hard drive.
What I would like to know, has anyone tried, with success, to use an external hard drive, with a PCMCIA adapter with an iPAQ?

[CoreyJF]

I used a pccard expansion pack and a 2 gig hd without any problems. It was a battery hog, but worked fine. I wish the 4155 had an option for it...

[ctmagnus]

I know that many people use their PC card expansion pack, with something like a Toshiba 5GB PCMCIA hard drive.
What I would like to know, has anyone tried, with success, to use an external hard drive, with a PCMCIA adapter with an iPAQ?

I haven't tried it persoanlly, but info can be found here (http://www.tjotala.com/hardware/storagebrick/default.htm).

[dhettel]

I know that many people use their PC card expansion pack, with something like a Toshiba 5GB PCMCIA hard drive.
What I would like to know, has anyone tried, with success, to use an external hard drive, with a PCMCIA adapter with an iPAQ?

I have done it. I've used an IBM Travelstar Model DARA-212000 and a CMS EasyBundle card with a PCMCIA Plus pack. What would you like to know?

[nosmohtac]

I guess the main thing that I was wondering is whether or not an additional driver was necessary, and what models/brands that driver supported.

I'm looking at getting a 20GB drive with a PCMCIA cable for less than a 5GB Toshiba PCMCIA drive, but I don't know, yet, what the brand is.

I'm assuming that you are using the driver mentioned in the previous thread that ctmagnus provided. BTW thanks all.

[dhettel]

That driver might work for PocketPC 2002 devices. My experience is it DOES NOT work for Windows Mobile devices. I am using the built in driver for Windows Mobile 2003. When I load the storage brick driver in my HP 5555 it prevents my unit from working.

I am using an IBM 2.5" drive, and I have heard these work better than Toshiba drives. Not sure if their is any truth to that or not.

[nosmohtac]

Well, that's good to know.
I didn't even think about the different OS's.
I'm using a 5550 as well.
I assumed that the driver would be needed for all iPAQs.

[ctmagnus]

The article I referenced was written in the iPaq 3600 era. :oops:

If you happen to have an external enclosure or any other means to hook up a high-capacity drive to your iPaq, I would try it without loading the referenced software first just to see if WM2003 overcomes this limitation.

[dhettel]

The CMS EasyBundle PCMCIA card will just plug in and be detected. You don't need to do anything else, unless you want to. The CMS EasyBundle PCMCIA card does not come with a case, so it would not be a good choice for day in and out use. I believe that perhaps any card listed for the storage brick will work. The key seems to be if it will plug into Windows XP and work with out needing to load drivers, I **think** it may work on your 5550.

I have an old Iomega 250 Zip drive with the PCMCIA interface. My 5555 picks this up, and spins up the disk, but then powers it down, and will not use it. So not everything works.

I have been playing with my registry, and have changed my Storage Card names to, CF Card, SD Card, and Hard Disk. I find this way I have a better idea of where my programs are when the correct memory device is not plug in.

Writing speed to the hard disk is not to bad, but reading speed does not appear to be to good.

[nosmohtac]

Ok, Next question for all of you seasoned iPAQoneers. Has anyone tried a PCMCIA\USB card in their iPAQ connected to a USB hard drive?

I'm just wondering, to determine the best deal in portable hard drives.

[nosmohtac]

OK, I picked up a portable hard drive, and when I insert the PCMCIA adapter, the power LED on the drive comes on for a second, then goes out. A window pops up on the PPC saying unknown device in socket, choose driver.

Any ideas?

Again, I'm using this on a 5550.

[dhettel]

If you plug the drive into a PC what happens? Is it recognized? Or do/did you need to load drivers for it? Is it formatted? Does it have an IBM disk or a Toshiba disk in it?

Does it work if you answer with ATADISK.DLL or ATADISK?

[dhettel]

I noticed that your next to last post was about PCMCIA USB cards, to the best of my knowledge there are no PCMCIA USB cards, they are all CardBus USB cards. CardBus cards are NOT supported by PocketPCs, and will not work.

It is possible to get a CF USB card that might work.

[nosmohtac]

The drive is an EXP HD Traveler.
When I plug it in to the PC, the drive powers up and spins.
No drivers or USB pop up comes up saying that a new USB device was found. I don't see it in "My Computer", as a drive.

No, ATADISK.DLL doesnt work on the PPC in any way.

[dhettel]

Well it looks like it should work. The spin-up power is a little on the high side, but it was suppose to work for the storage Brick.

In your first post you said it asked for a driver and in your last that it doesn't. Have you tried soft resetting in between?

Do/did you have the iPAQ connected to AC?

Did you load the Storage Brick drivers on your iPAQ?

When I loaded the drivers on my 5555 the drive would spin up and shut down, and I would NOT be prompted for new drivers.

When you test a driver if it does not work you need to soft reset. Before you try a new one.

You are using the PCMCIA card correct? And not the USB connection.

[dhettel]

And one other thought, did you format the drive? When I first tried this I did it with a drive that was not formatted as a FAT32 drive. The PocketPC did not tell me the drive was not formatted.

Again like what you are describing the drive would light and then spin up, and shut down.

When I plugged it into my laptop, and it was not assigned a Drive letter I figured out I needed to format the drive.

[nosmohtac]

And one other thought, did you format the drive? When I first tried this I did it with a drive that was not formatted as a FAT32 drive. The PocketPC did not tell me the drive was not formatted.

Again like what you are describing the drive would light and then spin up, and shut down.

When I plugged it into my laptop, and it was not assigned a Drive letter I figured out I needed to format the drive.

I'm sorry, I was talking about two different things. I have two interface cables with it. I am using the PCMCIA interface cable with the PCMCIA expansion pack, and I am using the USB interface cable on my PC.

I have not installed the storage brick drivers, because I heard they don't work with WM2003. It does not recognize it, and acts as you described yours with the storage brick driver.

When I hooked it to my PC, it did not load drivers initially, but then it did, and I was able to format it. After formatting (FAT32), it still did the same thing when inserted in my PC card expansion pack. (unrecognized card)

[nosmohtac]

I have tried it connected with AC, and without.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the ROM image I'm using?

I am still on 1.00.13. I think the latest is 1.00.18.

[nosmohtac]

I didn't have to load any drivers manually on my desktop, but it didn't recognize a USB external drive at first, then when I restarted my PC, and plugged it in, it did recognize it as a "scanlogic USB storage device"

[dhettel]

I have tried it connected with AC, and without.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the ROM image I'm using?

I am still on 1.00.13. I think the latest is 1.00.18.

I have the 1.00.18 update installed on my 5555, it doesn't change the main ROM version number. It still shows as 1.00.13.

Are you comfortable using a registry editor on your iPAQ?

[nosmohtac]

I was reading on HP's web site, that it would still show 1.00.13, but my wifi, and BT drivers aren't the latest either, so I'm assuming that the person I bought this from didn't update either beyond 1.00.13.

Yes, I'm comfortable using a registry editor. I use Resco Explorer's.

[dhettel]

Might be worth your time to update then. Turn off the WLAN and soft reset, dock your device and update. Note that you may need to remove the battery and press the reset button 5 times to get the WLAN working again after doing the update. So you might want to do a backup first.

Also you may want to look at this key;
\HKLM\Drivers\Active

you will find a number of keys under this, go to the last one and look at it, with the card in your device. It should be a number after 33, I believe.
You should see PnpId with a name related to your hard drive.

What you do not want to see is Key \Drivers\SDCA.... or \Drivers\SDCAR.... this would suggest to me that perhaps the card is being shut down do to it drawing to much power.

If I plug in the CMS card it is listed as the last number here.

If I plug in the Iomega card, it is listed briefly then is removed. Which I take as a sign that it has drawn too much power. Plugging in a CF memory card after the Iomega card results in the CF card not being read, until I soft reset my device.

[nosmohtac]

It is listed the way you said. \Drivers\SDCARD\ClientDrivers\Class\SDMemory_Class

Is there a setting I can change to get this to work?

[Trimac20]

Excuse my lack of knowledge, but could you explain to me what a PC Expansion Card is or what a PCMCIA slot is? I assume it has something to do with Compact Flash? I don't suppose there are any SDIO/SD Card Hard-drive connectors?

[Janak Parekh]

PC Card is the new term for PCMCIA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCMCIA); the latter stood for "Personal Computer Memory Card International Association", which developed the standard for laptop expansion slots. CF is a miniature form of PC card -- it's a subset, to be precise, that can be adapted to a PC slot via a CF-to-PC card adapter.

SDIO, on the other hand, is substantially different, and no, I haven't seen any SD-to-IDE or SD-to-CF adapters.

--janak