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I've talked with a few folks here about trouble I'm having with
installing my PCMCIA hard disk on my ThinkPad 360PE. There's something
really screwy going on and I wonder if anybody has seen something like
this. The drive is brand new, but I'm starting to think it's already
crashed or something. Either that, or I'm missing a driver I don't know
about.
Drive model.......40MB Western Digital Caviar CU-140
Card software.....PhoenixCard Manager Plus v3.01 for PC DOS
(Includes IBM card mgr v3.01)
Utility version...Phoenix PCMFDisk version 1.0
When I install PCM (PhoenixCard Manager) "fresh" (only the hard disk in
the slot) it says it found a Ricoh RF5C266/RF5C366 controler. That
sounds odd, but maybe Western Digital used a Ricoh controler?
First of all, I tell PCM that I have 2 sockets. I don't have a docking
station.
On the setup screen there are some parameters I don't understand:
CIS window address (range C000-EF00h) I've been using DF00
Token ring speed (range 4-16) I've been using 4
Card settle time (ms) (range 1-1000) I've been using 660
I don't know what this "card settle time" is for. I'm pretty certain
that there aren't any IRQ or memory conflicts.
THE PROBLEM
-----------
Note: I am running only DOS for the following:
When I first got the Western Digital drive, I plugged it in, loaded the
PCM software, rebooted, ran PCMFDisk, rebooted, then ran a regular DOS
FORMAT on the drive. It formatted without errors. I prompty copied
several files to it to give it a quick test. Then if I just try reading
the files (COPY *.* NUL) I copied, DOS soon returns a "General Failure
reading D:" error. I can do a binary compare (using FC.EXE) on the
files and the ones that it can read pass okay.
So then I tried running ScanDisk and Norton Disk Doctor. Neither of
them know how to address the drive. Then I tried CHKDSK. It tells me
there are all kinds of problems with the FAT. I try fixing it, but it
has trouble writing to the drive. Sigh...
So I thought maybe I should just repartition the drive and try again. I
go through the whole process again, but when I get to FORMAT, it
returns:
Formatting 40.66MB...
Invalid Media or Track 0 Bad
I know that error. On any normal hard disk, this means the media is bad
(or maybe a head crash). Then I do a DIR on the drive and there's all
my files as before! That's strange! PCMFDISK should have wiped it all
out, not to mention FORMAT, right?
Okay, so I remove all memory managers et. al. and try rebooting several
times. Same thing every time. But here's what's really got me
scratching my head. When I first boot and do a DIR D: I get "Invalid
Media" which is what you'd get on a non-formatted disk. Then I try
FORMAT and get the "Track 0 bad" error. ONCE I HAVE DONE THIS I CAN
READ THE DRIVE AGAIN. It's like FORMAT is sending a yoohoo to the drive
that kicks it on or something.
This is the first time I've tried installing a PCMCIA card of any kind.
I'm a programmer and have built literally hundreds of desktops over the
years, but I don't know what's going on with this PCMCIA business. Of
course, I don't have the original Phoenix software. It came installed
on the notebook when I bought it (used). Could I be missing a file of
some kind?
Please help, or at least loan me a bazooka or flame thrower!