Ipaq 3600 CF/PCMCIA/IDE compatiblity

[Cybrid]

I've got an old Ipaq 3630 on PPC 2002 OS.


Would anyone know if this would work?
http://cgi.ebay.ca/4GB-OEM-Hitachi-Microdrive_W0QQitemZ7552228848QQcategoryZ50519QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Basically the IPOD mini CF cards have been either mechanically or firmware disabled from being able to to be used as CF memory cards.
My research has sent me to a couple of sites which link back to www.compactflash.org and it seems that a CF card needs to support 3 configurations. CF,PCMCIA?,ATA...
The apple branded cards have been neutered to only ATA configurations
http://www.studio2f.com/misc/2004/03/22hitachi_microdrive_removal_creative_nomad_muvo2.php

Anyone know what the Ipaq can support. Apparently the drives do work on laptop PCMCIA.

[Janak Parekh]

No Pocket PC has ATA support, I believe, and likely not the original 3600 series. I have heard reports of the iPod mini drives not working with Pocket PCs, back when they were first released and people were trying this.

You have to buy a Microdrive with "CF" support in order for it to work. Also, do note that if you don't have a battery-powered sleeve and/or a high-capacity battery the drive will suck up a fair bit of power.

--janak

[Cybrid]

No Pocket PC has ATA support, I believe, and likely not the original 3600 series. I have heard reports of the iPod mini drives not working with Pocket PCs, back when they were first released and people were trying this.

You have to buy a Microdrive with "CF" support in order for it to work. Also, do note that if you don't have a battery-powered sleeve and/or a high-capacity battery the drive will suck up a fair bit of power.

--janakGot 1800Mah PCMCIA sleeve. Will travel. :) Actually this is a DIY "IPOD video" for a 9 year old and a CF capable microdrive is nearly twice as much. :roll:

Re: CF/ATA...do you know this for sure? or simply an educated guess? Your post was somewhat unsure. Thanks.

[mscdex]

I recall using PCMCIA ATA cards in my iPaq 3635 w/PCMCIA sleeve.

[Cybrid]

I recall using PCMCIA ATA cards in my iPaq 3635 w/PCMCIA sleeve.

Hence my confusion....

Anyone one have any hardware experience? that could tell me what the differences are?

I know that it has to be 16Bit as opposed to 32Bit. Cardbus as PPC's could only support 16Bit.

I also know that the PCMCIA sleeve shipped with "extended battery" merely because PCMCIA cards are 5.5V. CF is 3.3V/5.5V

I've been tracking PCMCIA memory cards too. These are used though and might not have too many seasons left...Hence my hope to use new Hitachi's....(same price...approx. BTW)

[Cybrid]

http://handhelds.org/hypermail/ipaq/175/17579.htmlRe: [iPAQ] SD card through adaptor as ATA drive, now what?.....


News Flash
With the help of other users, I've been able to verify that the driver works with several other devices besides the Addonics device I used. Please see the FAQ for more information, and download the latest driver version.
NOTE: I am no longer actively supporting this project. I have no plans for adding support for Windows Mobile 2003, or any other future PocketPC version.
Introduction
I have created a 20GB "storage brick" from a IBM Travelstar 20GN drive mounted inside an Addonics Pocket ExDrive enclosure kit. The drive is connected to my Compaq iPAQ H3630 using a PC Card Expansion Pack and the Addonics PCMCIA adapter/cable.
Evolution
The ExDrive works fine when connected to a laptop running Windows*2000 or Windows*9x: it shows up as a "Standard IDE/ATA Drive" with no special drivers required. However, the standard ATADISK.DLL driver that ships with PocketPC operating system fails to recognize it as a valid IDE/ATA device. The same driver does recognize plenty of other removable media devices in both PCMCIA and CompactFlash (CF) form factors, for instance the IBM MicroDrive as well as various flash memory cards.
It turns out that the standard ATADISK.DLL driver is simply a bit dense as well as picky. I was able to create a new device driver based some minor modifications to the original ATADISK.DLL driver code from the Microsoft WIndows*CE Platform Builder 3.0 package. You can download this modified driver below.
Below you will see how the new drive appears on the Compaq iPAQ from software perspective. The storage brick appears named as Storage Brick simply because I overrode that default name in my driver setup. Otherwise, it would show up as Storage Card as usual.
This is a screenshot of SnoopSoft Dashboard running my FreeSpace plug-in that shows disk space available to be roughly 19GB after copying some test files onto the new drive. The drive is obviously formatted as FAT32 since FAT16 only supports up to 2GB capacity.
*
Here are screenshots of Resco File Explorer showing a view of the new drive. The first screenshot shows the drive formatted as a single FAT32 volume, whereas the second screenshot shows the drive formatted as two volumes, a 16GB FAT32 volume and a 2GB FAT16 volume.
*
Here are screenshots of Philippe Majerus' Device Manager showing how the new drive appears to the system.
Battery Life
I have conducted a simple test to measure battery life using a real-life scenario:
Copy several hundred Windows Media Audio (WMA) files to the Storage Brick. My test set was about 140 songs occupying more than 300MB of disk space.
Attach the Storage Brick to the iPAQ using the PCMCIA adapter/cable.
Check that both the iPAQ as well as the Expansion Pack batteries are fully charged.
Unplug any AC adapters supplying the iPAQ, the Expansion Pack, or the Storage Brick.*
Launch Windows Media Player.
Start shuffle play of all songs.
Turn off display.
Start timer.
Wait until either the iPAQ or the Expansion Pack runs low on power.
After about 2hr*15min of continuous playback, the Expansion Pack battery dropped to critically low level, prompting the system to shut it down completely. At that time the iPAQ battery was still about 3/4 full.
Note: I used is the single slot PC Card Expansion Pack (Compaq part #170338-B21) which houses a single Lithium-Ion Polymer battery, the same as the one inside the iPAQ itself. The battery life would likely be longer if you use the dual slot PC Card Expansion Pack (Compaq part #216198-B21) which houses two such batteries. J.*D.*Forinash has reported battery life of about 4hr*8min using the dual slot Expansion Pack with a Compaq*iPAQ*H3150 (the monochrome model).
Software
Name
Description
ExDrive.exe
Installation package for ARM, MIPS, and SH3 platforms. Note the warning about the latter two platforms.
Parts
Description
Part Number
Street Price
IBM Travelstar 20GN hard disk drive
07N4388
US$120
Addonics Pocket ExDrive empty enclosure kit with PCMCIA cable and AC adapter
AEED25P
US$75
TOTAL
*
US$195
Tests
I have run the driver through several test suites included in the Microsoft Windows*CE Platform Builder package. You can view the testing coverage and results here.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
You can find a list of most frequently asked questions and answers here.
Media Coverage
Below you can find links to media coverage of this solution.
http://www.tjotala.com/hardware/storagebrick/
..... Hmmm.... It boils down to a driver...what to do now?

[Janak Parekh]

Good catch -- I guess there is partial support for ATA in WM. Alas, I have not heard of anyone getting the "patched" driver to work with WM2003 devices.

--janak

[Cybrid]

Good catch -- I guess there is partial support for ATA in WM. Alas, I have not heard of anyone getting the "patched" driver to work with WM2003 devices.

--janak....It's a IPAQ 3630 2002 model...IPAQ VIDEO for less than $200 CDN. I hope. :)

[Cybrid]

Endnotes: I purchased and tested a notebook 44 pin to PCMCIA adapter with the exdrive app and it worked...
It has one achilles, power. You need to have the Ipaq powered during startup or else the current overdraw makes the sleeve shutdown. Once the drive spins up you can unplug it.
Inefficient but educational.... :lol:

In the end I managed to snipe a 5Gb kingston PCMCIA card for 30 CDN and have it loaded it all sorts of wierd music and video. The kid is a freak. :devilboy: