IBM Microdrive and Linux
A microdrive
is a hard drive of a Compact Flash size and similar use:
digital photography, handheld PCs, PDAs, etc. Although the
information provided here should apply to all microdrives,
beware that I have only tested the IBM 340 MB Microdrive
in the CF Type II PCMCIA slot.
The IBM 340 MB 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 must insert the microdrive into a PC Card adapter (I bought it with the drive) in order to insert the adapter and microdrive into a PCMCIA Type II slot.
When using Linux 2.4 kernels, you only need (appart from the
working system of course) the PCMCIA drivers and the
ide-cs
module (may be compiled in the kernel). I
am not sure what filesystems can be used on the microdrive but
I need the vfat
module because my digital camera
works only with VFAT.
The command cardctl ident
identifies the drive
as
product info: "IBM", "microdrive"
manfid: 0x00a4, 0x0000
function: 4 (fixed disk)
If the pcmcia subsystem works correctly, then the microdrive
is recognized on insert and the ide-cs
module is
automatically loaded. The logs may show something like
this:
$> tail /var/log/messages
Nov 18 19:09:17 lepjmlap cardmgr[156]: socket 0:
ATA/IDE Fixed Disk
Nov 18 19:09:18 lepjmlap cardmgr[156]: executing:
'modprobe ide-cs'
Nov 18 19:09:20 lepjmlap kernel: hdc: IBM-DSCM-10340,
CFA DISK drive
Nov 18 19:09:20 lepjmlap kernel: ide1 at
0x140-0x147,0x14e on irq 3
Nov 18 19:09:20 lepjmlap kernel: hdc: attached ide-disk
driver.
Nov 18 19:09:22 lepjmlap kernel: hdc: 700560 sectors
(359 MB) w/60KiB Cache, CHS=695/16/63
Nov 18 19:09:22 lepjmlap kernel:
/dev/ide/host1/bus0/target0/lun0: p1
Nov 18 19:09:22 lepjmlap kernel: ide_cs: hdc: Vcc =
3.3, Vpp = 0.0
Nov 18 19:09:22 lepjmlap cardmgr[156]: executing:
'./ide start hdc'
The log shows that the microdrive can be mounted as the
/dev/hdc1
or
/devices/ide/host1/bus0/target0/lun0/part1
device.