PowerBook 1400 PCMCIA compact flash

[MacMan]

I'm toying with the idea of using a compact flash card and PCMCIA compact flash adaptor with my PowerBook 1400c instead of a hard drive. I am aware that there are Addonics IDE compact flash adaptors about but I'm more interested in having it running through PCMCIA so that drives can be quickly removed and swapped.

Currently I have a Sandisk PCMCIA compact flash adaptor (like this one) and have had it working with an old 32MB compact flash card that I have kicking around. My question is: what would be the best compact flash card to use as a hard drive? The capacity I'm looking at is 1GB and I'm wanting to do this fairly cheaply. I have been looking at standard 1GB compact flash but there are also "Ultra" cards out there which claim to be faster. Will these faster cards work with the adaptor that I have and boot the 1400?

I would be very interested to hear from anyone else who has done this.

 

[register]

I use a 1 GB Kingston 'Ultra' (100x) CF card in a PC card adaptor as a boot drive for a PB1400. I also have tested a recent 4 GB Intenso SDHC card in a SDHC capable PC card adaptor (manufacturer Delock, about USD 10). Both allow for booting into OS 9.2.2 within less than a minute. The data access rate seems not to improve with even faster CF cards, there might be another limiting factor. I use the drives with either virtual memory turned off or allocate another disk for swapping memory (an additional CF card in a CF-IDE adaptor in place of the internal harddisk works fine for this purpose).

It is absolutly great to have a machine that does not make any unintended audible noise.

Hint for formatting the CF-Card: use the most recent disk utility software (I use the disk utility from a recent PowerBook running OS X). Make sure to use HFS+ format and install OS 9 drivers. In case you will install OS 7.6 use standard HFS. To avoid the PC card adaptor being kicked out of the slot each shutdown, do a Sys. 8.1 installation from CD _without_ having the disk driver 'updated'. Other versions of Mac OS installers might work as well, but Mac OS 9 does not. Afterwards just copy a preinstalled System Folder of your choice onto the CF card and 'bless' it.

As far as it belongs to the Addonics IDE CF adaptor and similar devices: Be aware of the fact, that the PowerBook 1400 will use only devices identified as 'fixed media' as a boot drive in place of the internal harddisk. Access to a 'removable media' attached to the internal IDE host works only after booting into an appropriate system on another drive (PC card/CD ROM/external SCSI). A restart might be successful after overwriting the driver from internal ROM into volatile RAM, but no cold starting process.

For internal use prefer to purchase a CF card that identifies as a 'fixed media' when used in IDE mode. Recent industrial grade CF cards do so, usually. Some consumer grade CF cards (a lot cheaper) do, but most of them will not work easily. Several UDMA cards are reported to work like this.

 

[Bunsen]

audible noise.

As opposed to the other kind

 

[MacMan]

Super, thanks for sharing those details! I'll look into getting a decent compact flash card, possibly a Sandisk "Ultra II" as they seem to be selling quite cheaply on eBay at the moment (about £10 including shipping for a 2GB). The Sandisks certainly seem to be the most widely available from what I can see, though I'll look out for other similar cards from different manufacturers as well.

It would be very good to have a silent 1400.

 

[register]

audible noise.

As opposed to the other kind

:lol:

In the lab I use instruments to measure radio frequency noise. When it comes to the term of 'noise' I think not necessarily of things one can hear. Thus I stressed the audibility.

 

[MacMan]

I bought a 1GB AGFA Photo high-speed compact flash card and it arrived so I was able to try it out. Firstly I plugged it into my PowerBook 1400 using a Sandisk PC Card compact flash adaptor and the card appeared on the desktop. I formatted it using "Drive Setup" version 1.7.3 as a standard Mac OS volume then preceded to copy everything on my 1400's internal hard drive onto the compact flash card (some 400MB or so of data). Then I used the "Startup Disk" control panel to select the flash card as the boot volume and re-started. First thing that happened is the PowerBook spat the card out as it shut down so I quickly re-inserted it before the PowerBook fully lit up. It was successful - it booted up from the card straight away! The startup time was good and I would say it is on a par with the hard drive, if not slightly faster. The AGFA card is an 80x model meaning that it is quite a bit faster than standard compact flash cards.

Next thing was to remove the internal hard drive to prevent it from making a noise (it spins up on power-on by default). This was incredibly easy - the 1400's keyboard lifts up and the drive appembly can be removed by undoing two small screws and unplugging the drive. Voila - silent PowerBook 1400!

The only slight issue is the card being ejected on shutdown, however, given that my 1400 is nearly always in "sleep mode" when not in use it won't be a problem. I may try the install from an OS 8.1 retail CD, as suggested, to overcome this issue.

I have uploaded a

of the 1400 booting from the card.
Oh, just an extra note, my PowerBook 1400 is running System 7.6.1. I haven't tried this setup with other Mac OS versions yet but it will make a good future project.

 

[register]

Hint for formatting the CF-Card: use the most recent disk utility software (I use the disk utility from a recent PowerBook running OS X). Make sure to use HFS+ format and install OS 9 drivers. In case you will install OS 7.6 use standard HFS. To avoid the PC card adaptor being kicked out of the slot each shutdown, do a Sys. 8.1 installation from CD _without_ having the disk driver 'updated'. Other versions of Mac OS installers might work as well, but Mac OS 9 does not. Afterwards just copy a preinstalled System Folder of your choice onto the CF card and 'bless' it.

For system versions below 8.1 it will be necessary to use standard HFS format. To fix the "eject on shutdown issue" try to use your 7.6 installation software and install the system directly onto the CF card. Some third party disk utilities might also be able to manipulate the eject on shutdown behaviour for removable CF media. I have figured out to fix the problem with the Mac OS 8 installation CD. No success with OS 9. Other versions of system installers might work. I recommend to use the most recent driver to support compatibility with more recent machines. After fixing the eject on shutdown thing just copy a backup of your current system installation onto the CF card and 'bless' it to be the system folder to boot from.

 

[register]

I have uploaded a

Acoustic 'case modding'

The startup chime sounds not very convincing, as on most 1400s. Cause might be a kind of acoustic bypass preventing the speaker from producing some reasonable sound. Next time you dismantle the powerbook you might try to fix this speaker issue. It can be accomplished by either installing a compatible speaker of a better make fitting into the case or by sealing the speaker into it's frame in the PowerBook's housing. In each method be careful to aim at following points: the speaker membrane must not touch any other part or wire within range. The splice between frame and speaker must be sealed by the appropriate mounted adhesive rubber Apple used (you can remove this carefully and stick it again into place, if necessary), or by some kind of sealant like avrylic rubber for bath tubs.

I used this sealant to apply some damping glue into the gaps between the sheet metal and plastic housing of the PB, as well. This avoids resonant vibration of the sheet metal at several frequencies.

 

[MacMan]

Ah, very useful info - thanks! The speaker in my 1400 has always sounded like that, (I got it just over a year ago), and it is terrible when trying to play any sound files containing speech or music. I've always thought that the 1400 speaker let the model down, I'm guessing that's why Apple went overboard with the 3400's four speaker system.