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Main => Software Forum => Topic started by: DrumAnBass on October 17, 2007, 01:22:21 pm

Title: Installing tiny XP on a Hitachi MicroDrive
Post by: DrumAnBass on October 17, 2007, 01:22:21 pm
So I bought the IDE to CF adapter from http://dealextreme.com and then a 4gb Hitachi CF MicroDrive for $16 from http://geeks.com

Realized I needed a molex to floppy 4pin adaptor, which I ordered from http://monoprice.com

Finally went to install tinyXP on it last night and kept getting an error, which unfortunately I don't remember today...

After googling this issue a bit this morning I found a driver for the Hitachi CF MicroDrive that is supposed to allow the PC to think of it as a fixed drive instead of removable storage.

I haven't tried it yet, but that driver can be found here: http://www.xpefiles.com/viewtopic.php?t=92

Which I found through a discussion on a message board here: http://www.mcse.ms/showthread.php?t=1290168

Just thought this might help anyone else attempting to do the same thing. I'll post my results tomorrow when I get the chance to give this a try.

Also found this FAQ that suggests setting up the OS on a regular drive then use Ghost to copy to the CF card: http://www.addonics.com/support/faqs/faq-bootcf.asp

Anyone have any tips?
Title: Re: Installing tiny XP on a Hitachi MicroDrive
Post by: TeutonicDarkness on October 29, 2007, 10:31:22 pm
So I bought the IDE to CF adapter from http://dealextreme.com and then a 4gb Hitachi CF MicroDrive for $16 from http://geeks.com

Realized I needed a molex to floppy 4pin adaptor, which I ordered from http://monoprice.com

Finally went to install tinyXP on it last night and kept getting an error, which unfortunately I don't remember today...

After googling this issue a bit this morning I found a driver for the Hitachi CF MicroDrive that is supposed to allow the PC to think of it as a fixed drive instead of removable storag
e.

I haven't tried it yet, but that driver can be found here: http://www.xpefiles.com/viewtopic.php?t=92

Which I found through a discussion on a message board here: http://www.mcse.ms/showthread.php?t=1290168

Just thought this might help anyone else attempting to do the same thing. I'll post my results tomorrow when I get the chance to give this a try.

Also found this FAQ that suggests setting up the OS on a regular drive then use Ghost to copy to the CF card: http://www.addonics.com/support/faqs/faq-bootcf.asp

Anyone have any tips?



 I had tried simlilar in the past but 2 things I ran into
which may or may not apply:

1: I needed to manually add driver to Xp CD
with N-Lite ( would have to make your own tiny XP)
just to get it to detect during install....
still no guarantees.

2. I have heard CF and usb are bad to use
with operating system installed...
something about the excessive amounts of writes
XP does to the disk and how it can shorten the life.

I'm no expert at all and alot of this is just what I have heard.
What I did find usefull in my project Is Disk Modules,
and similar available from a company called:Transend


http://ec.transcendusa.com/product/product_memory.asp?
Cid=60&indexnum=2&mdtype
=IDE%2044V&exid=


Just a few suggestions...



*** Teutonic Darkness ***
Title: Re: Installing tiny XP on a Hitachi MicroDrive
Post by: metahacker on October 29, 2007, 10:56:28 pm

1) use FAT32 or.....
   (this would be better since ntfs is pretty good)
  do the whole noatime,nodiratime for NTFS twea, as described here: ("disable last access time"):
http://www.windowsdevcenter.com/pub/a/windows/2005/02/08/NTFS_Hacks.html

2) disable swap

3) turn off the indexing service (i think tinyxp takes care of this already ;))