Linux-kernel mailing list archive 2000-15,: Re: Smart, Inc. 4mb flash card . have to manually insmod memory_cs .

# Re: Smart, Inc. 4mb flash card . have to manually insmod memory_cs .

Michael H. Warfield (mhw@wittsend.com)
Fri, 14 Apr 2000 09:04:41 -0400

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On Thu, Apr 13, 2000 at 09:52:43PM -0700, Mr. James W. Laferriere wrote:

> Hello All, Been very unsuccessful in trying to read the above
> card using the pcmcia-tools . I have a laptop (of course) .

Please don't make cross references to the subject from the
body. There is no "the above card" in the body of your message. I
also couldn't find anywhere where you mentioned the EXACT make and
model of your card. You listed all sorts of information about your
software but didn't tell us what the card really was.

> system info : IBM ThinkPad 385ed 80MBmemory . Latest bios ...
> When I boot up the tools won't install memory_cs for the above
> card . But If I manually do an 'insmod memory_cs' & then
> re-insert the card , then the /dev/mem0* entries appear .
> This is only -after- I reinsert the card , so the driver does
> know that this is a memory card .

I wouldn't bet on that last comment. No way no how.

My questions...

When you call this a "Smart, Inc. 4mb flash card", is this, per
chance a 4MB SmartMedia card made by Smart Inc or a Compact Flash Card
made by Smart Inc, or (I think they make this too) a Memory Stick
Flash card by Smart Inc? Based on it's size (4 Meg is really small for
CF) I would take a wild guess that it's a 4 MB SmartMedia card. In
any case, my comments will be appropriate for either Smart Media, CF,
or Memory Stick. If you DON'T have one of those, all bets are off.

These cards and their PCMCIA adapters do not show up as memory
cards to the PC. They show up as little removable ATA IDE hard drives.
If you inserted the card and heard a double beep, the PC recognized the
card and loaded the driver for it. It will NOT be a memory driver,
however. You will probably find the card available as /dev/hdc or
/dev/hde (depending on if you have one or two internal IDE controllers).

If it's a standard flash card like SmartMedia, it will be partitioned
like a little hard drive with a FAT partition on partition 1. It will be
formated with an MS-DOS FAT filesystem. I typically just mount the card
as type VFAT like this:

mount -t vfat /dev/hdc1 /mnt/tmp

(Make sure you have VFAT compiled in your kernel. - Use -t msdos
if you don't.)

You should be able to read and write the card, just like any other
MS-DOS file system now. A "df" will show you have a 4 Meg file system
mounted.

WARNING! Be sure you unmount the file system before you remove
the card (there is no "door lock" on these things) or you may corrupt the
file system!

I have both SmartMedia cards and Compact Flash cards along with
the PCMCIA adapters for both. They both work identically in this regard.
I don't have any Memory Stick cards or adapters but I do believe that are
the same sort of critter as well. The all work like a charm right out of
the box with no magic needed for PCMCIA or anything.

[...]

Mike

    --
     Michael H. Warfield    |  (770) 985-6132   |  mhw@WittsEnd.com
      (The Mad Wizard)      |  (770) 331-2437   |  http://www.wittsend.com/mhw/
      NIC whois:  MHW9      |  An optimist believes we live in the best of all
     PGP Key: 0xDF1DD471    |  possible worlds.  A pessimist is sure of it!

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