Possible external harddrive for axim????

suemccartin · 11-02-03, 02:12 AM

Hi all take a look at this http://www.accurite.com/TravelHD.html according to the description it supports windows CE 2 and 3, should that not also mean that it will work on pocket pc???? It's expensive as heck but I can see where some would make the investment in this. In addition to this thing you'd have to have one of those cf to pcmcia cables and it has an external power supply or battery.

smeg36 · 11-02-03, 02:19 AM

The link isn't working for me, but CE 3.0 is Pocket PC, so yes it should work.

reid · 11-02-03, 02:40 AM

I don't understand how they can charge that much. PCMCIA is ATA compliant...you should be able to just wire a HDD to a PCMCIA slot...It's a passive connection.

Somewhere there has got to be a CF to mini-drive adapter...

suemccartin · 11-02-03, 04:01 AM

Well Ratoc is making that downstream usb 1 card but at least for now it doesn't support "host" drives even though someone apparently got it working that way with some fighting. What I want to do is hook my archos multimedia jukebox 20 (usb connection) to my axim so I can load stuff on and off it (mostly I want to carry around the whole set of maps for mapopolis, mp3's and a few movies). I doubt it would work to put a pcmcia usb card on there and hook it in as that would seem to be too much hardware in the way. That's the first gadget like that I've seen that specifically says support for pocket pc.

suemccartin · 11-02-03, 04:05 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by smeg36
The link isn't working for me, but CE 3.0 is Pocket PC, so yes it should work.

I just tried it, it's not dead. Other than being ridiculously expensive $400+ with the battery package, it sounds like a nice gadget.

Tom61 · 11-02-03, 03:34 PM

CE 3.0 is Pocket PC 2000/2002. WM2003 is CE 4.2, and the drivers might not work with it.

You can find much cheaper laptop HD to PCMCIA boxes on the market. The problem is finding one that's fully ATA compliant. (If it's fully ATA compliant it won't need drivers)

suemccartin · 11-03-03, 01:32 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Tom61
CE 3.0 is Pocket PC 2000/2002. WM2003 is CE 4.2, and the drivers might not work with it.

You can find much cheaper laptop HD to PCMCIA boxes on the market. The problem is finding one that's fully ATA compliant. (If it's fully ATA compliant it won't need drivers)

Ok, so you're saying that "if" I can find a fully ATA compliant PCMCIA to 9.5 inch notebook hard drive enclosure product that "in theory" it will work on the axim.

I've seen lots of enclosures for notebook drives but not too many that have an external power option. I'm sure that a notebook hard drive is going to need more than the 3.3V supplied from the axim's cf slot.

Do you know of any products that are fully ATA compatible? (a url would be nice if you do). Do you know of anyone that has a setup like this working with the axim? If so, what products did they use and how much of a pain was it?

I'm fairly sure that it wouldn't work to get one of those cf to pcmcia adapters and plug a pcmcia usb host card in there? (I've already got a usb connected Archos jukebox) Do you know anything about this idea?

kittymark · 11-04-03, 12:54 AM

notebook HD requre 5v

so that isn't too good but if there is an external power source, would it work with axim or any ppc?

Tom61 · 11-04-03, 08:45 PM

Quote:

Ok, so you're saying that "if" I can find a fully ATA compliant PCMCIA to 9.5 inch notebook hard drive enclosure product that "in theory" it will work on the axim.

Yep.

Quote:

I've seen lots of enclosures for notebook drives but not too many that have an external power option. I'm sure that a notebook hard drive is going to need more than the 3.3V supplied from the axim's cf slot.

Hmm... not sure. I've seen it used on other PPCs powered directly from the CF slot. There are CF to PCMCIA adapters with power inputs, if the Axim's port can't supply enough. http://www.accurite.com/CFPCAdapter.html

Quote:

Do you know of any products that are fully ATA compatible? (a url would be nice if you do). Do you know of anyone that has a setup like this working with the axim? If so, what products did they use and how much of a pain was it?

I don't recall of any axim user using an external box and laptop HD, but there are several using the Toshiba 5GB PCCard drive(should be very simular). I don't know of any fully-ATA compliant drive kits off the top of my head.

Quote:

I'm fairly sure that it wouldn't work to get one of those cf to pcmcia adapters and plug a pcmcia usb host card in there? (I've already got a usb connected Archos jukebox) Do you know anything about this idea?

There was a thread about this not long ago, basically your only option for the X5 is the Ratoc CF to USB card for USB HDs. Would be cool if there was a cheaper option though.

suemccartin · 11-05-03, 12:09 PM

Well....if you go to google and search on "ipaq storage brick" you'll find an article from a guy that modded the pc2002 system driver to recognize a notebook drive in an "addonics" pcmcia to notebook drive drive case. (www.provantage.com carries this device) (According to him the stock ms driver is just picky as hell, other than that it should work as they wrote it.) Before you get all excited I've found threads on other forums that confirms it won't work under 2003 (peeps are writing to the author of the brick trying to get him to make a new driver).

Apparently the ipaq has a add-on gadget that will add one or two pcmcia slots to the ipaq (the newes ipag model I'm thinking only).

The addonics setup has an external power connector (adapter include I believe) and better yet you can get interchangeable cables (so you can do pcmcia, usb, or firewire with one box).

This guy was able to power his setup off the ipaq pcmcia slot extension that has its own power supply (but that one must be able to supply 5 v if notebook hard drives are all 5v; why do I think someone told me that some are 3v??).

Heck I'm not so concerned about self powering it, if I can plug it into the AC or DC from the rental car that's all I need. Now if we can just get a driver that works with pc2003 this will be the answer.

Tom61 · 11-07-03, 07:25 PM

Just re-found this thread at Brighthand: http://discussion.brighthand.com/sho...threadid=93339

Contains drivers to let you use many drive enclosures that aren't fully ATA-compliant. The PPC2002 drivers have been out for a long time, but the WM2003 drivers are quite new. There is a list of compatable drive enclosures on the second page listed.

Edit: Missed your post suemccartin, where are the Addionics enclosures like the one on the site? The only ones I could find were $80+ hybrids that also connected to USB and Firewire.

suemccartin · 11-10-03, 09:39 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Tom61
Just re-found this thread at Brighthand: http://discussion.brighthand.com/sho...threadid=93339

Contains drivers to let you use many drive enclosures that aren't fully ATA-compliant. The PPC2002 drivers have been out for a long time, but the WM2003 drivers are quite new. There is a list of compatable drive enclosures on the second page listed.

Edit: Missed your post suemccartin, where are the Addionics enclosures like the one on the site? The only ones I could find were $80+ hybrids that also connected to USB and Firewire.

http://www.provantage.com/buy-220742...a-shopping.htm

I found that thread too, thanks. Follow the above url to provantage addonics pocket ex drive. Yes, this is a drive enclosure with interchangeable cables and there is also a desktop bay option available for it to really make it useful. I think it was like 74.00 at this place and the shipping was a very reasonable $5 and change. This is what you pay for a good one, if you want to take a chance witha taiwan special you can look on ebay but I don't think you'll find one with an included ac adapter and pc card for much less.

I've supposedly got one of these coming tomorrow or the next day, now I just need my cf/pcmcia adapter from ebay that I won back on the first but hasn't arrived yet and a notebook drive that I think I can pick up at the show next weekend. I'll let you know how it all works out.

suemccartin · 11-15-03, 08:42 PM

Well, got all my pieces togehter finally, got the addonics externally powered enclosure, the cf to pcmcia adapter off ebay, a hitachi travelstar 20 gig drive, and the drivers for the ratoc (mass storage only).

First I loaded just the Ratoc mast storage drivers, when I hook the drive up and turn on the power the drive light goes orange (read/write) and stays that way and the ax locks up. Then I tried loading up the storage brick guy's 2002 driver and with that nothing happens at all so I think the Ratoc might be at least part of the solution but perhaps Dell's bad implementation is striking again or there just aren't enought connections made with the cf adapter, i.e. some connection it needs isn't available but that doesn't explain to me why a pcmcia hard drive card will work with this gadget and an external notebook drive enclosure won't work. I wish I had more hardware to test with to be sure it's not a bad adapter card.

I think the adapter card is ok because I also tried to get a iomega clik/pocketzip pcmcia drive working with the ax and on that device it says "unrecognized card" when it's plugged into the adapter. (the iomega drivers and utility for win ce 3 loaded and seem to be running but it can't see any drive). Agg this incompatible crap is for the birds, I wish Dell would provide a sanctioned method for downgrading back to 2002 for times such as this or ms would write an emulator. Gods after this I fear what 2004 is going to bring.

suemccartin · 11-20-03, 08:35 PM

Out of curiosity, mostly because I was trying to prove that the cf to pcmcia adapter could work with an external hard drive, I dug out my old audiovox maestro/toshiba e570 with pc2002 and tried the brick out on that machine.

I almost fell off the couch, the damn thing works perfectly on the maestro with that guys driver for 2002 and the addonics enclosure.

Sigh, I guess if I'm desperate I can drag the maestro along and use it to move stuff on and off sd cards but I'd really rather get it working on the axim. At least now I've proved the cf to pcmcia adapter provides all the needed connections. It's as I thought, the problem on the axim is driver related. A lot of people have been asking that guy to write a new driver for 2003 but he hasn't yet.

Any ideas on how to put my axim back to pc2002 without doing anything illegal?

porteus69 · 06-14-04, 05:21 AM

To suemccartin
I just completed installing the drivers and all for my axim X5 with wm2003. I connected a 80 gig HDD. I used the RATOC USB Host CF Card to connect it. I initially had problem with the driver not wanting to load when the card was inserted. To make a long story short, I pulled both main and backup batteries out which caused a complete loss of software and files. Had to because something I had installed was keeping the drivers from loading. Anyway, as soon as I reloaded just the Ratoc Drivers, first the Host driver then the USB Mass Storage then the HID Drivers It connected immediately and have been cruising ewver since. It'll be a few days before I can post pictures but it is working and I am in heaven.