Problems using Compactflash-card on C= laptop

[kidkoala]

This is strictly not an Amigaquestion, but since the machine is a Commodore, and the topic is CF-cards (like people use in their 600's/1200's), I tought I'd ask;


Scenario:

I am trying to get my 2GB Noname CF-card to boot Freedos on my Commodore i486 Laptop.

I have come to the point where I have made a partition of 127MB and formatted it.
I have also been able to copy over some files to the partition just to check if that works, and it does.

The card is as i said 2GB, but I used a manual CHS setup in the BIOS of fewer Cylinder/Heads/Sectors than the card really is, to make the card show up as 127MB in Fdisk.

Problem:

The problem I encounter is when trying to run a command, program or file from the card.
Or when I eg. try to unzip a file to the disk, from eg. the floppydrive.
Then the system all hangs and the hdd on the laptop just keeps showing. Nothing to do but boot.

Is this a read/write/execute problem of the card?
Or maybe a problem related to the fact that I have used the "wrong" manual edit of the disk in the BIOS? (Cylinders etc..).

[spihunter]

Commodore made a 486 laptop?

 :-?

[Zac67]

Try 1024 cyls, 16 heads, 64 sectors (512 MB) - this probably is the largest disk for that generation.

[Matt_H]

Also consider trying a genuinely smaller CF card. That way you don't need to force different drive specs.

I seem to recall a ~500MB addressing limit problem on older PCs/drives.

And to echo the above, Commodore made a 486 laptop? I'd love to see some photos...

[kidkoala]

Commodore made some computers with Intel and Cyrix architecture, yes. Both desktops and laptops.
I have a i486 C= Laptop with 3MB Ram (soon to be 11MB via the Jeida/PCMCIA-port).
And I also have a Cyrix 586 C= Laptop with PCMCIA and 16MB Ram.
It's cute, smart, fun laptops actually..My i486 C= is going to be a Dos-game machine and I'm going to try get the Cyrix laptop to be a VICE C64 emulator-machine..

@Zac67

will try:)

[spihunter]

I used to have a Commodore Colt desktop PC but I've never seen a C=laptop. I cant seem to find a picture googling it.

[kidkoala]

here ya go..

http://www.zimmers.net/cbmpics/c286lt.html

The 486sx-ltc is the one i have..

[kidkoala]

@Zac67

trying the 512MB CHS right now, do you know what the "Pre" and "Lzone" is supposed to be set to? and what they are?

Right now i've set it to "Pre" = 0 and "Lzone" = same as cylinders = 1024.

i know that if you want to disable "Pre", whatever it is, you set it to -1.

EDIT:

Seems like the computer doesn't like when I set the CHS to 512MB..it doesn't show up as fixed disk in fdisk and bios complains that there is something wrong.

[Zac67]

Try 63 sectors and/or 15 heads, some BIOSes have slightly different limits.

Pre is some write precompensation I've forgotten the details about and is for ST506 only, it'll be ignored for IDE.
Lzone is the landing zone for parking the heads. There are no heads, of course, so this doesn't matter a bit. ;-)

PS: yes, that must be 63 sectors, 64 won't work, sorry.

[kidkoala]

right, thanks.

so pre will be set to -1 for it not to be enabled or doesn't it matter what it's set to?

Lzone same thing are you sure it doesn't matter what it's set to? same as cylinders, 0 whatever?

will try with 63 secs.