CF in a 2300c

[beachycove]

I am having some trouble installing a system on a CF card installed in a 2300c via an IDE-CF adapter (Chinese & utterly generic).

The attempt thus far, which has now been repeated three times, has been to install MacOS 8.5, from an OEM G3 desktop software CD. The installation, via a Duodock with a scsi cd-rom attached, goes just fine. No problems are encountered in initializing the CF card as an HFS+ drive, no problems in installing the system, and finally you shut down and all seems well.

Then on ejecting the 2300c and rebooting, the system freezes just before extensions begin to load. It will boot with extensions off (via Shift key), and that way it works just fine. However, and here is the peculiar thing, even if then you turn off all extensions manually via the Extensions Manager Control panel and reboot normally, it freezes at the same point as before. Behaviour is just the same in the Dock as well.

Is the trouble the software CD I am using, which maybe is engineered in such a way as not to allow a usable system installation on anything other than a G3? Or is the CF card somehow confusing the system? I am baffled.

Any ideas?

 

[porter]

8.5
...

Any ideas?

8.6?

 

[beachycove]

I am trying to get 8.6 on it now, in the form of the "core" system only, so as not to waste time. I can repeat the experiment for a full install if it works.

The way of doing this was a bit convoluted, as I only have the upgrade 8.6 disk, and it assumes that a functional system is already installed. However, on the 8.5 install cd, there is an option of making a floppy boot disk (yes, really, an 8.5 floppy boot disk). Did that, made a ram disk on the duo, copied the system folder across and the cd-rom extension to the system/ extensions folder. It complained on booting but booted, and now I am using my 8.6 upgrade disk to install the core software. We'll see how that goes.... I fear that the trouble may be the CF drive, but will persevere. Perhaps another initialization utility would do the trick? The one on the 9.1 install disks, perchance?

Will report back anon.

 

[Bunsen]

Extensions Manager doesn't show all extensions or control panels. Try Symbionts if you can find it, or perhaps Conflict Catcher

 

[beachycove]

Virtual memory is, of course, on by default after an installation of OS8. On a hunch, I installed 8.5 again, booted with extensions off, opened the Memory Control Panel, turned virtual memory off, and rebooted. With virtual memory off, the machine booted normally from the CF drive.

Interesting. Apparently some check for/ of virtual memory must be made early on in the boot process, and just before the extension icons begin to appear. But why would virtual memory make the machine freeze? Does it look for something on a drive that a CF card cannot emulate? And is virtual memory off when you boot with the shift key down (extensions off)?

New territory for me, at any rate. As for speed, I had a reasonably modern 3GB Toshiba in the machine before. The CF seems a little slower in booting, but I will need to get some applications etc. installed before making any final judgments, as the 2300c with the Toshiba drive had 7.6.1 on it with Speed Doubler, and this is now a stock 8.5.1 on a CF card. I may see if I can get it up to 8.6 tomorrow, as it is the better system; for some reason, however, my attempts to install 8.6 today have one and all failed.

 

[porter]

You don't want to use swap file or virtual memory on flash cards on any operating system.

 

[beachycove]

Following repeat problems, I replaced the ram chip, and now there is no trouble with Virtual Memory enabled or off. Ram must have been bad, though the particular component has given me no problems in the past.

 

[Bunsen]

Great! Love to hear your impressions on speed, battery life, etc

 

[beachycove]

Impressions on speed and battery life.

Speed:

There are broadly comparable start-up times; the system, however, seems marginally slower in saving a file for some reason, but not so that it is problematic. I only want the machine for text work, so speed is not especially important - the Duo fits in my briefcase very nicely (a 2300c is even smaller than a 2400c!), and, because it is basically worthless, it is expendable if dropped, stolen while on a pee break in a library, etc. (unlike my PBG4, which would not be so disposable). Ref. F Duo keyboards are also not too bad to work on - really.

I am using Word 2001, and while the performance is no match for my Pismo, it is not at all unpleasant. The spell check is very fast. Finds, on the other hand, are a bit slow. Explique-moi.

Battery life:

Here I find significant improvement.

With a spinning drive before, the battery (recelled with fresh NiMh cells) gave 1:20 or so (contrast this with 2:05 on the same cells with spinning disk in a PB 270c with the processor clock halved, and around 3:15 with drive spun down - can't beat a 68030 for some things). It was possible to spin the 2300c hard drive down, of course, and by doing so I could get up to 1:50 max. on the gauge. Unfortunately, however, you can't reduce a 603e processor's speed, though I gather that by design, it "naps" when inactive.

With the CF card in the 2300c, the battery gauge presently registers 2:10 on a full charge with constant drive access. (In the control strip, oddly enough, you can still "spin down" the drive, but I am not sure what effect that could have, but come to think of it, I'll have to give it a whirl.) A charge of 2:10 would not be bad; 3:00 on the 2300c would be even better, but I'll likely never get it. It seems that those 100MHz clock cycles really do suck the juice out of the cells. However, the battery has as yet not been completely cycled in the 2300c, and as this is a new OS install, it is hard to say how much it will get in the end, as the battery life has to be "learned" by the system through use. At present, the machine is best-guessing, and it could be more, or it could even be less.

Some of these differences may, of course, be due to using different OSes: 7.6.1 was on the conventional HD; 8.5.1 is now on the CF card.

I'll trial the system a little more, and post again if the details change significantly. The IDE-CF adapter cost all of $3 on eBay, and a new 4GB CF card cost me $20. This is a cheap hack, and I am very pleased with the results so far. Lovely and quiet too.

 

[Bunsen]

basically worthless

[!] !]'>

/me hugs Duo collection.

No, don't cry my pretties, he didn't mean it

 

[sambapati87]

I have a 2300c and the hard drive just died.

http://cgi.ebay.com/COMPACT-FLASH-CF-TYPE-IDE-CF-ADAPTER-DOUBLE-EEGED_W0QQitemZ380037457893QQihZ025QQcategoryZ41994QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1638Q2em118Q2el1247

Is this all I would need to accomplish what you have? Is the connection (40pin) correct?

Of course I would need a CF card too but thats no problem.

Thanks

 

[Bunsen]

For Desktop Devices

So no.

You want one for a 2.5" laptop IDE/ATA connection, which is a much smaller 44 pin connector.

And I'd look for a single ended one. At least one seller I've seen specifies that the double ended ones don't work in Macs.

 

[sambapati87]

Right -- thanks. Very interesting piece of kit -- didn't know this was possible until running across this thread.

http://cgi.ebay.com/CF-to-44-Pin-LAPTOP-IDE-Hard-Drive-Adapter-bootable-K03_W0QQitemZ290243414683QQihZ019QQcategoryZ41994QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

[sambapati87]

You don't want to use swap file or virtual memory on flash cards on any operating system.

Can you elaborate?

 

[russman]

You don't want to use swap file or virtual memory on flash cards on any operating system.

Can you elaborate?

What he means is that flash cards are not meant to be subjected to the constant reading and writing of a swap file. They may not last very long due to this. A hard drive on the other hand is meant for this sort of thing.

 

[sambapati87]

What about a CF Microdrive?

 

[porter]

What about a CF Microdrive?

They are real spinning disks and hence have different behaviour to flash memory, slower, but can be treated as a traditional harddisk.

 

[Bunsen]

And the Seagate ST1 series (like the one I just picked up) have 2MB of onboard cache RAM. They won't do much for your battery life though - a bit better than a 2.5" disk, but not as good as flash, from what I read.