Magicstor Microdrive and Linux

MuVo A microdrive is a hard drive of a Compact Flash size and similar use: digital photography, handheld PCs, PDAs, etc.

The Magicstor 2 GB Microdrive is a CF+ Type II device. That means it can be used in the CF+ Type II slot with an ejection mechanism or you can use an adapter plugged into USB port or PCMCIA slot. I have tested the microdrive with both adapter types on 2.4.25 kernel.

USB Adapter

The USB adapter that came with the drive is USB 2.0 capable and therefore you should load the ehci-hcd module first. Make sure that SCSI drivers are compiled in the kernel or as modules. In my case, I loaded the following modules:

modprobe ehci-hcd
modprobe sd_mod
modprobe usb-storage

The log shows following information when the microdrive is connected to the USB port:

Jun 10 20:25:35 lepjmlap kernel: hub.c: new USB device
          00:1d.7-1, assigned address 3

          Jun 10 20:25:35 lepjmlap kernel: scsi1 : SCSI emulation for
          USB Mass Storage devices

          Jun 10 20:25:35 lepjmlap kernel: Vendor: USB Model: Storage
          Device Rev: 2.00

          Jun 10 20:25:35 lepjmlap kernel: Type: Direct-Access ANSI
          SCSI revision:02

          Jun 10 20:25:35 lepjmlap kernel: Attached scsi removable disk
          sdb at scsi1, channel 0, id 0, lun 0

          Jun 10 20:25:36 lepjmlap kernel: SCSI device sdb: 4161315
          512-byte hdwr sectors (2131 MB)

          Jun 10 20:25:36 lepjmlap kernel: sdb: Write Protect is
          off

          Jun 10 20:25:37 lepjmlap kernel:
          /dev/scsi/host1/bus0/target0/lun0: p1

Now the microdrive can be mounted as /dev/sdb or /devices/scsi/host1/bus0/target0/lun0/p1. For example:

mount -t vfat /dev/sdb /mnt

The hdparm utility can estimate a realistic access speed to a drive (see the manpage for details). When using USB 2.0, the speed is approximately 2.60 MB/sec in contrast to sluggish 600 kB/sec when connected to USB 1.0 (your numbers may vary of course).

PCMCIA Adapter

The Magicstor microdrive fits the PCMCIA adapter sold with the IBM microdrive . However, the Magicstor microdrive in the PCMCIA adapter causes my laptop to freeze for a while (about a minute) on insert. The log shows:

Jun 10 22:17:33 lepjmlap kernel: hdg: GS-Magicstor
          1022C 10140116, CFA DISK drive

          Jun 10 22:17:33 lepjmlap kernel: hdh: no response (status =
          0xff), resetting drive

          Jun 10 22:17:33 lepjmlap kernel: hdh: no response (status =
          0xff)

          Jun 10 22:17:33 lepjmlap kernel: ide3 at 0x100-0x107,0x10e on
          irq 10

          Jun 10 22:17:33 lepjmlap kernel: hdg: attached ide-disk
          driver.

          Jun 10 22:17:33 lepjmlap kernel: hdg: status timeout:
          status=0xd0 { Busy }

          Jun 10 22:17:33 lepjmlap kernel:

          Jun 10 22:17:33 lepjmlap kernel: hdg: drive not ready for
          command

          Jun 10 22:17:33 lepjmlap kernel: hdg: 4161315 sectors (2131
          MB) w/128KiB Cache, CHS=4128/16/63

          Jun 10 22:17:33 lepjmlap kernel:
          /dev/ide/host3/bus0/target0/lun0:hdg: status timeout:
          status=0xd0 { Busy }

          Jun 10 22:17:33 lepjmlap kernel:

          Jun 10 22:17:33 lepjmlap kernel: hdg: drive not ready for
          command

          Jun 10 22:17:33 lepjmlap kernel: ide3: reset: success

          Jun 10 22:17:33 lepjmlap kernel: [PTBL] [259/255/63] p1

          Jun 10 22:17:33 lepjmlap kernel: ide_cs: hdg: Vcc = 3.3, Vpp
          = 0.0

In spite of the timeouts, the drive can be mounted as /dev/hdg1 or /devices/ide/host3/bus0/target0/lun0/part1. I can transfer data to and from the microdrive but the log is full of error messages:

Jun 10 22:29:23 lepjmlap kernel: hdg:
          task_no_data_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete
          Error }

          Jun 10 22:29:23 lepjmlap kernel: hdg: task_no_data_intr:
          error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }

          Jun 10 22:29:23 lepjmlap kernel: hdg: Write Cache FAILED
          Flushing!

          Jun 10 22:29:32 lepjmlap kernel: hdg: task_no_data_intr:
          status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }

          Jun 10 22:29:32 lepjmlap kernel: hdg: task_no_data_intr:
          error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }

          Jun 10 22:29:32 lepjmlap kernel: hdg: Write Cache FAILED
          Flushing!

          Jun 10 22:29:43 lepjmlap kernel:
          /dev/ide/host3/bus0/target0/lun0: p1

          Jun 10 22:30:38 lepjmlap kernel: hdg: status timeout:
          status=0xd0 { Busy }

          Jun 10 22:30:38 lepjmlap kernel:

          Jun 10 22:30:38 lepjmlap kernel: hdg: no DRQ after issuing
          WRITE

          Jun 10 22:30:38 lepjmlap kernel: ide3: reset:
          success

In spite of the error messages, the written and read data appear to be correct. However, I am not going to use the PCMCIA adapter anyway because the drives connected to PCMCIA slots can transfer only 1 MB/sec of data.