Compact Flash as an Exchange Medium

Not really a linux PORTING question, but maybe of general interest? Simply, I'm pondering the ways I might use to exchange data beween LINUX and my HPC. With useful help from this site, I have now setup my CE 2.0 MC12 to talk to ethernet LAN etc. But, since I haven't (easily) found an FTP server for CE 2.0 (anyone know of one?), I've been experimenting with an internal Compact Flash reader on my SuSE linux box...

For gadget fans it's a: http://gruntville.com/reviews/controllers/coolpanel/index.php

With the reader installed, I was pleasantly surprised that SuSE 9.3 both found and (transparently!) automounted my digital Camera's SD(?) Flash Card. So, flushed with that sucess, I tried pushing my HPC's CF "Type 1" card into the other socket. Certainly SuSE can see it, but cannot read it(?). For the linux buffs, the command: "tail -f /var/log/messages" (useful incantation!) returns stuff about "very big devices", tries to use "READ CAPACITY (16)", but returns a capacity of 2199023MB(!) and then gives sundry I/O errors on "sdb"...

But, just as a GENERAL question: Has anyone ever tried sticking an HPC CF card into their LINUX box... Or even, shock horror, managed to READ it?

Two (obvious) possibilities occur to me. The CF drive doesn't work (without a driver) or perhaps Linux cannot read an HPC FAT system? FWIW, I've tried MANUALLY mounting hdb as a standard "VFAT" system, but without any real success. As an aside, does Windoze ME, XP... or Windows CE, require formatted CF cards? Does one need to *Format* CF drives BEFORE use? Not a medium I'm familiar with. Too many questions, but if anyone has any random thoughts on this...

Chris

P.S. Normally I solve things like this, by experiment, but sadly a combination of DABS and Parcel Force have contrived to loose(?) two 256MB CF cards I have on order, so I won't be able to test some of the above hypothesis just yet!

Edited by Macavity 2005-10-09 6:45 AM

yes i tried that... with a live cd linux (knoppix). automount was ok, nothing else was... i just gave up in the end because i could do what i wanted with the card under Win98 anyway.

i don't know much about linux, but you don't need to format the CF under Windows or CE, you just stick it in the reader (or slot) and off you go

It is just an fat formatted cf....getting it to work on a Linux pc isn't exactly a feat...

If it is a single cf card reader (not a multiple one like mine, which makes things annoyingly complicated (with kernel 2.4)), just add this to your fstab:

/dev/sda1 /mnt/flash (or w/e) noauto,user,rw 0 0

it was a multiple one, maybe that's why you couldn't help me with it.....
so, yes it is a feat you couldn't achieve hahaha

Edited by cmonex 2005-10-09 6:24 PM

I suspect part of the problem is my impatience. Anyway, the upshot (after a week or so) my new CF card arrived! Simply, this one CAN be read from ALL systems... WinCE, WinME and Linux. As it turned out, neither WinME or Linux could read the original 2MB(!) Ericsson CF, that came with my MC12 machine (Way back in 1997 with WinCE 1.0). Both report (variously) problems with the "super block", despite the fact the CF works O.K. on WinCE (1.0 & 2.0). All's well, that ends well!

FWIW, I/we now know that "Crucial Technology" 256MB "type 1" CFs work well in WinCE 2.0, WinME... and are even transparently mounted by SuSE 9.3. Ain't it grand when machines talk to one another? I'm still somewhat impressed, despite a certain cynicism born of experience.

Thanks for the thoughts guys.

Chris

Heh, with HAL for kernel 2.6, now my multi-reader can see everything, it even realized what is the compactflash slot, and which was SD.

HELLO !

:-)

Well, not as much fun as CF, but total commander has builtin FTP client.

I did recently come across a CE telnet server though ! :-)

Also netcat (nc.exe) can be used to transfer files.

Could always try synce

http://synce.sourceforge.net/synce/index.php
"The purpose of the SynCE project is to provide a means of communication with a Windows CE device from a computer running Linux, FreeBSD or a similar operating system."