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

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:

The log shows that the microdrive can be mounted as the /dev/hdc1 or /devices/ide/host1/bus0/target0/lun0/part1 device.