Smartbook g138 CF card problems

As a last option, i'm asking for abit of help with this one

one of my buddies bought one as a netbook (Book SmartBook G138), and i suppose he thought about one of those modern ones as these aren't really compareable with eachother, even though as i think about these as first netbooks in the market...allthough he did buy a laptop afterwards, he still wants to do some random multimedia use when he is on a trip (AFAIK, Music and videos, if even possibble)

anyways, he doesn't know about pc's that much so he gave it to me to get it done...i'm afraid i'm stuck as i have never played with CE

the problem is allready at bootup, as Start.exe cannot find itself (or one of it's components) as far as i think, it's the program called Storage Card Start, as trying to boot the program results in the same error

Second one comes after inserting the CF card (Kingston 512MB, formated in FAT) as it is identified as a PC Card (allthough they are pretty much same with CF cards, though fastly explained, different) Unidentified Pc Card Adapter; Enter the name of the driver for this PC Card

I tried a few of the quides @ HPC, but none of them seem to help (forcing ATADISC doesn't do a dime, and hard reset doesn't help)

Any suggestions?

~DreamOn

You will be surprised, but you need to enter "atadisk" instead of "atadisc". I hope it's the only problem.

Me and my minidisc... been long enough with minidisc to write everything as such even though it would be disk

Though i suppose nothing is that easy, even this... "atadisk.dll" doesn't do any more than disc, no errors, no memory card detected, still stuck
The card itself works with 3 different pc's so i don't think it's memory issue, possibble driver error with CE?

Is start.exe a Windows CE program? Or is it an x86 (desktop Windows) program?

Kingston problem sounds weird. Have you verified other CF cards work okay in the G138? Sometimes CF memory cards are recognized before the powerpin becomes active (short pins), causing this error of non-recognition. Or, is there some hidden bootblock on Kingston CF card, maybe something used to make it autobooting for another device, i.e. Camera? CF cards formatted to FAT on cameras sometimes will not be recognized, and sometimes make handheld computer offer "format card?" as an option.

Try reformatting the Kingston again...using the G138 with one of the CE applications, such as Flash Format, or Storage Tools...two good applications for difficult to recognize memory cards.

Rich, how does one format a CF card on a Windows CE device before the device even recognizes the card?

Has a hardware problem been ruled out (eg, a dirty or missing pin in the slot)? Try another CF card if you have one and see if you get the same result.

Did he get it in working condition? Are you familiar with the concept of Flash ROMs?

There are several G138 users here, but as with many things, they're only occasionally coming around what with their new toys, hobbies, etc.

So, in lieu of knowledgable advice, here's a few WAGs...

1) My gut feel is that you've got a semi-bricked G138. The OS is supposed to be ALWAYS installed -- a copy is burnt into memory. But a helpful or inquisitive soul may have erased some files from RAM. So, the first thing to try is a hard reset. Batteries out, mains disconnected, and whatever other permutations you need (stylus in a reset button, whatever). Your ROM image should be transferred to RAM and hopefully life will be good.

2) What's with the PC/CF card? Are you trying to boot off it? The G138 isn't a "dual-boot" or even "bootable" system. Are you trying to re-flash a ROM? That's more than running a .dll. Is there a .XIP or .BIN file on there? Other terms to look for are "bootloader" or some variant. But, this isn't like booting a MS-DOS, Windows, or Linux system in terms of running command.com and you're off... it's more like installing the whole OS (which takes anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes, so it's not for the impatient.... ironic since the G138 is an "instant on" machine when it is properly working). I suppose it's possible your machine was interrupted in the middle of re-flashing.

3) CMonex has a G138 ROM listed on her page: http://hpcmonex.net/romstuff.htm , but it doesn't seem to be there right this instant. Look for it in archive.org or PM/Email her directly. Proceed in good conscience only if you understand what flashing a ROM means... Doing it incorrectly can give you a G138 shaped doorstop.

4) Wait for more expert advice.

Good luck and sorry I couldn't be more helpful.

Hmm...I don't have another CF card to try with, but i don't think it's the card itself...tried a little format play with the card (allthough i am using win7) to no real success, same as before, no change

The battery with the HPC is completely dead, not charging at all, taken that i'd guess it hard boots everytime you remove the main power? i'll try to play with that next

I did check the pins when i first got the error, and as far as i can tell, from the outside they look OK, even first thought i inserted the CF card in the wrong way

The Start.exe seems to be a CE program, as far as i can tell (and i'd throw a wild guess that this is the problem itself), and is listed in CE start menu as "Storage Card Start"
it complains about it when it boots up, and complains when you click on it in the menu, it says;

"Cannot find 'start' (or one of its components) Make sure the path and filename are correct and that all the required libraries are available"

@Hmascience

To be completely honest, not really familiar with ROM's in general, as these are a completely new playground to myself

1. Semi-Bricked could be a possibility, if i understand the file architecture of the CE properly (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa459155.aspx)
i'd say the problem lies within storage manager, however that is just a hunch of my own

2. Short answer, no, not trying to run anything from it, just using it as a hard drive, or so to speak

3. I try to avoid going that far for my own reasons (ROM Flash), i am not experienced with win CE at all

By all means, there could be a some sort of a memory wipeout. As far as i can tell, this one has been used in some hospital before ending up to someone else

Actually a reflash of the ROM may well be the solution, based on what you're reporting. It's generally far less scary than it sounds.

Yeah, I have flashed my G138 with different ROMs, so it wasn't very scary.

The only real danger with flashing ROMs in general is mismatch with the hardware, but as far as I can tell, there isn't any hardware variations for the G138 (other than keyboard layout).

I would give you a step-by-step if I could, but honestly it's been way too long since I've touched my G138. Perhaps someone else can explain it so you feel more comfortable flashing it?

It's not that unconfortable, it's not like i haven't flashed other things...it's just the first time throttle brake

I checked the manual again after i loaded the UK/euro rom file from here, and it seems there's 3 ways of flashing the ROM itself, 2 ways via net and one through CF.
Obiously CF doesn't work, so that leaves me with just 2 options? as the hpc isn't connected to network

Probably sounds silly, but isn't there any way of running it without network? like sending it to the hpc via activesync or something else to boot it from the device itself, or would it wipe itself before it would be re-flashed?

Another thing is what i noticed, that while this is a Book Digital smartbook, it's branded as coxion by the finnish importer (and their site has been shutdown for a good while)...i doubt that there are any major differences between them, as wasn't it branded differently elsewhere as well?

Defo use cmonex's rom it fixes memory issues that cause g138 to crash quite a lot as it reports the wrong ram available and allows programs to overwrite parts of the is duh.

Is the cf card formatted in fat or fat32 if it is ntfs or any other format it will not work.

John

Jumping abit of a gun with this one since it's an old thread and all, but might as well tell the end of the story

Never got around to flash it while it was my buddy's so i got it off from him for free in the end, but never had the time to actually check it completely until yesterday

After learning a bit about CE and activesync, i flashed it with it's own UK rom since i didn't find cmonex's custom rom anywhere, lost the finnish keyboard settings with this, but nevertheless it seems to somewhat work now, it sometimes finds it as a memory card, sometimes doesn't (same old error) and at times shows the card but no files or corrupt files on it, could be a hardware problem this time, but for honesty's sake, haven't played with it that much to know for sure.

Allthough the battery is completely dead, it still works...might as well play with this and if i like it (that's what i'm afraid of, allways had a thing for odd gadgets), either fix this one or get myself a Nec 900c which i drooled over way back ago

Anyways, thanks for all the help!

~DreamOn

At least it's still 2011

You could just get a MP900 and reflash it to ce 4.2 and you would have a cheaper equivalent to a MP900c