On Fri, 22 Feb 2008 10:17:57 -0000, "GT"
<ContactGT_remove_.RemoveThis@hotmail.com> wrote:
>I have an IDE -> CompactFlash converter. I have it plugged into the master
>IDE cable. I have a 2GB CompactFlash card plugged into the device and am
>trying to build a silent system - the only noise will be the CPU cooler,
>which once I have undervolted the Athlon 2400+ by 10-15%, should be pretty
>silent. I have 2 DIMMS - a 1GB and a 256MB.
>
>Problem I'm having at the moment is getting an OS installed and working. I
>want MS Windows, not UBuntu or similar. Both Win98 and WinXP install without
>a glitch, but on reboot, Win98 will only boot when I install and restart
>with just 256MB memory.
Win98 needs a tweak applied to the system.ini file, the
vcache setting (google will find it). Even this is merely
to run at 512MB or more, I don't recall if win98 is stable
at 1GB and/or beyond that, but try the vcache setting
change with 1.25GB, then 1GB memory installed.
>Once all is working I can turn off swapfile and
>insert other DIMM and reboot, but it intermittently crashes and seems
>unstable. WinXP installs without mentioning any problems, but after reboot
>it just gives me a BSOD - I didn't note the error number as I was annoyed
>and fed up by then!
Remember the BSOD next time, it could be important. You
didn't mention the rest of the system (not that it would
necessarily help but it might - it's a place to start) but
I've ran WinXP from a 2GB CF card, dont' think that is the
problem. Proceed as if it wasn't a CF card, a HDD instead,
looking at bios settings and drivers, general system
stability like memtest86+ testing and try pulling out any
extra cards and temporarily disabling bios settings and
unplugging any external media (like USB interfaced,
including printers with card reader slots, etc).
>
>Anyone know what the minimum hard disk capacity is for Win98 or WinXP
>installations?
Smaller than most people claim, basically you can just start
out with nLite or 98Lite and make it small then after
installed, whittle away at it by deleting some things
(windows patch undo/backups, the dllcache folder, things
like that). Ultimately it might be best to put a second CF
card in the system, one you put the swapfile, system temp
folder (%SystemRoot%\TEMP) and per-user temp folders on (or
in system properties advanced, reassign all user temp
folders to %SystemRoot%\TEMP), and the browser cache all
on the 2nd CF card. Not only will it speed up things a bit,
it puts most of the wear writing to the second card so if
worst came to worst and someday you wore it out, simply
plopping in a new 2nd card will replace the greater worn
memory cells.
>Has anyone ever tried this kind of thing, or a setup with a
>small hard disk? I suspect that the compactflash card might be faulty, but
>it has been working just fine for a couple of years in my Canon 350d
>(upgraded that to 4GB now and demoted the 2GB to this job).
>
For all intents and purposes both win98 and xp should run
fine from IDE-CF adapted CF card, though if the card is old
or below CF3 or CF4 spec then it'll run in PIO mode which is
also pretty slow, if you'll use this system regularly I
suggest getting a 266x, CF4 spec'd, 4GB or larger CF card...
as it'll be at least 3X as fast as the present card.
Even so, I think both versions of windows have some problem
unrelated to using a CF card, but for XP you could always
image the CF card onto a HDD and see if that boots, or put
the installation on a HDD first and once it's confirmed
working, do the opposite imaging that onto the CF card.
I've heard people say that if windows sees the card as
removable media that will be a problem, but I'm fairly sure
that XP did see one I used as removable media and worked
fine still.
There's no secret capacity limit, just that it all fits and
leaves enough room for the pagefile, log files, etc, to
grow. Suppose you left at least 200MB free space or more,
that should be plenty to get it running for awhile till you
see if it's filling up further. That's for WinXP, Win98
I've had running from mere 512MB CF cards and it wasn't even
modified much if any to do so.
Even though both of these should work, I would think about
splitting the difference and using Win2k instead. Granted
you can't disable it's swapfile but given modest uses and
that you planned on having enough memory per your needs that
swapfile won't actually hold data, would only be allocated
memory space, it wouldn't need much of that so you could
just make a small ramdrive and put the swapfile on that.
Contrary to the more popular opinion, it does help to put a
pagefile on a ramdrive because even when windows isn't out
of real memory it still writes to the HDD or CF card (If not
to a ramdrive) regardless of having plenty of real memory
available.
>> Stay informed about: IDE -> CompactFlash 
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