[Soekris] CF master or slave?

[David Zelinsky]

"Jeff Quast" <af.dingo at gmail.com> writes:

> 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).
> >
> > 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!)

It turns out that Stuart was right:  The difference is in the cards.

I tried both cards in both boxes.  The behavior is the same in the two
boxes.  One of the cards (Card A) shows up as Primary Master (hda)
with the BIOS setting FLASH=Primary, and as Primary Slave (hdb) with
FLASH=Secondary.  But the other card (Card B) always shows up as
Primary Slave (hdb), regardless of the FLASH setting.

For the record, Card A is EPMemory "X80" 2GB, which the BIOS
identifies as simply "Flash Card".  Card B is an ATP AF2GCF 2GB, and
the BIOS identifies it as "SAMSUNG CF/ATA".

By the way, is there a trick to extracting these cards from the CF
slot in the net4801?  There's a serial connector right next to it,
leaving no room to grab the sides to pull.  I've been prying it out at
a corner with a small screwdriver, which makes me very uneasy.

-David