[Soekris] CF master or slave?

[Jeff Quast]

On 10/10/06, Stuart Henderson <stu at spacehopper.org> wrote:
> On 2006/10/09 22:42, David Zelinsky wrote:
> > I recently bought two net4801's.  I installed Debian on a CompactFlash
> > card using a card reader on another computer, plugged the CF into the
> > net4801 and it booted first time, no problem.  Then I did the exact
> > same thing with another CF card and the second net4801, and it
> > wouldn't boot.
> >
> > I eventually discovered that whereas the first box was seeing the CF
> > as the IDE Master (hda), the 2nd box was seeing it as the Slave (hdb).
> >
> > Is there a way to change this, or is it soldered onto the board
> > differently?  Why would they make them different?  It's a nuisance
> > since I would like these boxes, and their CF cards, to be
> > interchangeable.
>
> are the CF cards absolutely identical? if not they may use different
> controllers and one area of difference is how they handle the cable-
> select line (which is how they determine whether they're master or
> slave). you'll find more detail on this by searching the list archives.
> try the combios settings (flash=primary/secondary) and you _may_ be
> able to get the CF to be interchangeable, if not then try different
> cards.

Are the bios versions identival revisions? I suspect they are not...

As Stuart indicated, there is a setting in the bios to set wether the
CF card is detected as primary or secondary.

I'm pretty sure the bus handles this (primary or secondary?), the
ide->CF card adapters (from memory, I do not own one) sometimes come
with a dip switch or pins to jump wether or not the CF card is
"primary" or "secondary" -- I do not think the CF card is aware of -
or responsible for - indicating wether it is master or slave -- Don't
go buying more CF cards (though they have gone down in price lately!)