[Thinkpad] IT'S ALIVE (silicon tech flashdrive in 560x)

> On Tuesday, August 26, 2003 at 14:29
> Andrew King <andrewaa(a-t)comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > Here is the information for the Silicon Tech (not Simpletech) 800 Mb solid
> > state IDE hard drive. I hope to have a spare 560x to try this in by the end
> > of the week.> >
> > For a picture of the drive you can check out the E-bay page:
> > <http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=11209&item=3039150

Time to report, in a word, SUCCESS!
I opened up my trusty 560x using the handy hardware maintainance guide.
The simple tech drive was the same size as the stock drive but 1/4"
(6mm) thinner so I cut out a piece of 1/4" plywood and stuck it to the
solid state drive with double sided tape.

Closed up the computer, booted to a floppy and drive C came up just as
it should.
I installed the smallest "micro" installation of WIN98 Lite resulting in
a 190 Mb Windows directory.
Then I installed MS Office 97, Acrobat 4, Netscape 7 streamline, AutoCAD
13, Irfanview and several small utilities
All the programs took another 110 Mb. With the setup CAB files (128 Mb)
I've got 260 Mb left to play with.
Any idea how much I should keep clear for Window's swapfile?

So far all the software has worked fine with the reduced windows
installation, Word97 renderded some birthday announcement for my 7 year
old in some generic font instead of the fancy font I saw on the desktop
but I don't consider that a problem.
Autocad and Acrobat4 function normally as does Netscape (though moving
my mail over will have to wait for the 512 Mb card).

The best thing is that it's totally silent. You don't realize how much
you clue in to the drive noise until you find yourself wondering why
nothing's happening and then you notice the drive LED flickering and the
document appears.
I expect the battery life should be better but haven't really tested it
out.

Since the drive is only 800 Mb I didn't follow my usual procedure of
splitting the drive into a program partition and a data partition.
Instead the internal 800 Mb silicon tech drive will be the program drive
and a 512 Mb CF card will be the data drive.
I'll just have to be careful to always put it in first so it will have
the correct drive number and the applications will be able to find the
data files.
The concept is to keep the current files on the 512 Mb card and swap it
form the thinkpad to the desktop thus avoiding having to synchronise
files between the two computers. The desktop will hold a backup of the
512 card and all the archive files. I'll probably get a separate card
for photos.

The one problem I've had is the 3com wireless card (3CRWE62092A)
apprently something in the installed software complains that it can't
find Active X (since WIN98 Lite "micro" doesn't include Active X).
It seems to install fine and makes the connection with my Linksys
wireless access point. I can send and recieve through the wireless hub
for almost an hour before it loses the connection. I can still send and
recieve from the desktop connected (through ethernet) to the wireless
hub so I'm pretty sure that comcast is doing their part. I'm only 4 feet
from the hub so I don't think range is a problem.
I installed the card in an i1400(?) that I found in a drawer and I now
get a cool little "3com WLAN Launcher" window that seems to be in charge
of negotiating the DHCP setup with the hub. So far I've been using the
card in the i1400(?) for an hour or so with no drop out yet...
I'm hoping to resolve the problem by either finding simpler drivers for
the card or by changing up to the "sleek" version of WIN98 Lite which (I
think) includes Active X.

--
Andrew in Ann Arbor Michigan
technology is the answer, what was the question?
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