Good Old "anonymous Memory" Message When Inserting

[arniel]

Hi,
Just picked up an Argosy HD530P external pcmcia drive which I was going to use with Z and CF-> PCMCIA adapter.  The card is 16 bit and has been tested on an ancient Win98 laptop that only has 16 bit PCMCIA sockets (IBM TP 560e).
When iserted into my SL5500, OZ3.2, I get the aforementioned message pop up - this is using cardctl 3.2.3(?)
Reflashed to latest Hentges ROM (very nice work, a huge improvement), which appears to have latest pcmcia_cs build, same problem.
As I understand it, the CIS is not being read correctly.
Now, I've been programming commercially for almost a decade, so I'm quite prepared to get my hands dirty in providing as much information  as I can to solve this problem (and hopefully contribute to development efforts), but I'm a Linux/Z newbie so I'll need some pointers in how to e.g. do a dump of the card data.
Can anyone let me know what existing tools there are to do this on the Z, or provide me with some cross-compiled tools?
The next step is to install a Linux distro on the TP560 to rule out the possibility that the problem is a general one with pcmcia_cs rather than the Z specifically.

Cheers,

Arnie

[lardman]

Presumably it doesn't allow you to mount /dev/hda1 after you've inserted it?

What does 'cardctl info' show?

I can't remember off the top of my head how memory cards are recognised & handled, can someone give the name of the script which should handle them,

Cheers,


Si

[arniel]

Presumably it doesn't allow you to mount /dev/hda1 after you've inserted it?

What does 'cardctl info' show?

I can't remember off the top of my head how memory cards are recognised & handled, can someone give the name of the script which should handle them,

Cheers,


Si
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No, I can't mount the drive.
cardctl info shows

PRODID_1=""
PRODID_1=""
PRODID_1=""
PRODID_1=""
MANFID=0000,0000
FUNCID=255
PRODID_1=""
PRODID_1=""
PRODID_1=""
PRODID_1=""
MANFID=0000,0000
FUNCID=255

...this being the problem!

After a bit of research, it seems that there is a tool called "dump_cis", which I appear to not have in my vanilla Hentges installation.  Would this help?

[lardman]

I think that you should see more info than that, it looks like that's just the default which would be returned with no card in there (actually give that a go and see what happens).

Are you powering the card, if not, this might be a reason why it's not responding,


Si

[arniel]

I think that you should see more info than that, it looks like that's just the default which would be returned with no card in there (actually give that a go and see what happens).

Are you powering the card, if not, this might be a reason why it's not responding,


Si
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It's exactly what is seen when there is no card in the socket, but what does it mean?
I get the same problem with an old Psion modem card.
Surely the system must be detecting the presence of the card in orer for the anonymous memory error to show...
What do you mean by "powering the card"?
cardctl status reports "5V 16-bit PC Card  function 0: [ready]", but then it says "5v" for the Linksys PCMPC100 ethernet card that I have just bought, which is recognised.

[lardman]

Some cards are presumably less fussy about their power supply requirements.


Si

[arniel]

Some cards are presumably less fussy about their power supply requirements.


Si
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I suppose so, but I'd like to attempt some sort of diagnosis before giving up.
Are you aware of any tools that I can use to interrogate the card at a lower level without having to write code?  I'm not set up for coding in Linux just yet but it's on a list of things to do and I'd love to contribute when I do.

At the moment, I'm trying to get to grips with the CIS, esp. how the /etc/pcmcia/cis directory works... maybe the solution lies there?

[lardman]

I don't know I'm afraid, but if 'cardctl info' returns no info it would be indicative of a power problem/etc.

Does your PCMCIA-CF adaptor not have an external power plug?


Si

[arniel]

I don't know I'm afraid, but if 'cardctl info' returns no info it would be indicative of a power problem/etc.

Does your PCMCIA-CF adaptor not have an external power plug?


Si
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I wish it did!  Been searching for ages, and the only one I could find is in the USA and costs $125 for a flexible one (that can fold so the PCMCIA card folds behind the Z).
There must be something else going on for the card insertion event to be fired, surely?

[lardman]

Well yes, card presence may be detected by a different method - for example by a continuity check (though you'll want to check the overall CF/PCMCIA card spec to see) or even a mechanical switch (doubt this though), but the card must be powered to be able to return any info.

This is my guess as to why it is detected on insertion, but then returns no more info.

That said, I may be wrong, and if anyone has any other ideas then please chip in,


Si