yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] keithwwalker:
The way I see it there are two problems:

The Athena does not recognize the SSD (even when a PC recognizes it via USB cable). As I said, there may be something in the registry (or ROM) that will only recognize the HDD. This is something everyone with registry software can look for. (help!)

There should be a way to 'fool' the Athena into thinking this is an accepted device. The pinouts are the same anyway.

Under Device Manager ('Manage' under My Computer icon), there are two relevant drivers when the SSD is hooked up via USB cable:

First is the 'disk drives' and those drivers seem to be correct:

disk.sys

partmgr.sys

Second there is 'storage volumes' and the ssd is listed there too, but under a generic driver:

volsnap.sys

This is not the correct driver IMO. That is why the partitions are undersized.

There are also the following categories in the Device Manager that may be more applicable:

IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers

PCMCIA and Flash Memory Devices

and if you look up info on the Eee PC with SSD, it is the same controller and NAND memory. And it has the proper driver SM223:

I may buy an Eee PC just to rip the drivers, but that costs money....

Another alternative is to talk to Silicon Motion and see what the cost is for the controller confirguration software. But that may be unavailable as is stated here:

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.eee-pc.de%2Fboard%2Fviewtopic.php%3Ff%3D11%26t%3D3371&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=de&tl=en

This may not be worth the trouble as Samsung has announced 32 and 64GB SSD that will fit inside the Athena:

35pin ZIF

40.0x30.0x t

t : 32GB 5.48 / 8.0g

16GB 3.48 / 5.5g

8GB 2.28 / 3.8g
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] johnripper:
can you please give us a link for wmstorge1.71
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] johnripper:
yesterday i received the ExcelStor GStor Mini 8GB http://www.hjreggel.net/hdtechdat/hd-hitachi.html i will remove the hitachi micro drive and conect the ssd and format it.

then i will try again to put it back to my x7500 and see the results...
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] cash365:
Have you tried the Partedit32.exe?

Ultimate tool for partitioning and very small too!
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] keithwwalker:
Thanks I will play around with that....

here

ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/tools/pq/utilities/
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] keithwwalker:
Minor success, but still more head scratching...

No luck with any partition utilities, as they don't recognize the ssd. I guess it is because the ssd is recognized as an USB drive and not a hard drive.

On a more positive note, the SSD was recognized by the x7501 after I reformatted it from my XP pc. This is a major step as

I never got this far before

.

I can't figure out why it was suddenly recognized, but there were definitely a couple of soft resets before it happened.

The drive is now referred to as a 'Mounted Volume' on the 7501.

From the pc/usb is it called 'Removable Disk' or 'WM5torag ATHE100 USB Device' under the Disk Manager information.

The bad news is that the partitions still don't add up to 16GB.

Right now there are only 3mb recognized, but I believe that if I combine all three partitions, they can get up to 90+mb. Not so, I deleted and combined the partitions and the device bricked....

Clearly, I see a solution. I have to get the SSD controller drivers, which hopefully can be ripped from an SSD from an Eee PC.

Hopefully I can restore my 7501 and SSD so that the SSD is recognized again....
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] cash365:
Sorry my mistake about the Symantec utility... I should have thought it before posting... :o

Hmm another thing came to my mind... It was when I had a Treo 650 and the system couldn't recognize an SD more than 2 GB, but someone found out that if you partitioned the card then the system could read the SD as 2 separate! That was until someone found the sdhc drivers for our device...

I think Treonauts must have something about it...:confused:
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] keithwwalker:
Well I have the ssd restored to it's 3mb size and it is recognized by both the pc and x7501. At least the result is repeatable.

I believe that if I can locate the SM223 controller drivers then the full 16gb will be realized.

All this is Transcend's fault, I believe that they never loaded drivers on their SSD's.

Next step is to either get Eee PC SSD drivers or get a portable USB SSD based flash memory that also uses the 16GB SSD.
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] kwongwt:
Hi keith,

I was also trying to find a replacement for the MD and I came across this from Seagate's 12G MD info :

The Identify Device command (command code ECH) transfers information about the drive to the host following power up. The data is organized as a single 512-byte block of data, whose contents are shown in the table on

page 28. All reserved bits or words should be set to zero. Parameters listed with an “x” are drive-specific or vary with the state of the drive.

(The original doc : http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/support/disc/manuals/ce/ST1 Series/ST1.3 Series/100409345d.pdf)

SO looks like there is a block sending the ID to the 7501 when power up. If you can make a true image to the SSD than maybe the 7501 will think it is seeing the MD.

Dunno if that's useful.... (and sorry if this has already been mentioned. I didn't go through all the posts)
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] xfiver:
keithwwalker,

If you have exhausted all ideas please check these 2 ideas out..

FIRST

=====

As you can see various small sizes of disk space e.g. 3Mb and can actually use them, lets assume that electrically and driverwise you are ok. Lets assume its an addressing problem. In the other tread on md's I posted ....

===========================================

I just found from the Hitachi site for the 8GB MD

..................................MD 3K8-8...........SSD 16 GB

................ .................=======...........========

No. physical heads...............2.....................n/a

No. Logical heads...............16.....................15

No. Sectors per Track.........63.....................63

No. cylinders...............15,501................33,149

No. Sectors...........15,625,008..........31,325,805 (*)

Strangely the 16GB SSD has 15 logical heads.

I wonder if any disk drive expert/AP developers could explain whether this is the reason why the SSD is not working ?

(*) calculated by me.

==============================================

On Wiki it says "The capacity of an HDD can be calculated by multiplying the number of cylinders by the number of heads by the number of sectors by the number of bytes/sector (most commonly 512). "

(please use your exact disk space and check this)

So if you have 3,000,000 bytes

3,000,0000 = C x H x S x 512

or 5859 = C x H x S which looks completely wrong.

you should have 33,149 x 15 x 63 x 512 = 16gb aprox.

Is it possible to check what values C,H, S you are using. Also note the number of physical and logical heads above, 2 and 16 for MD and n/a and 15 for the SSD. I feel you cannot move forward until these values are correct in the x7500.

Hope this helps

SECOND

======

I saw this on the Hitachi FAQ......

"Why will my Hitachi Microdrive work in my PC, but not in my camera or PDA?

Most likely, the drive is a white label (True IDE) version of the Hitachi Microdrive instead of the blue label (CFII+) Microdrive. The majority of white label Microdrives were intended for use as embedded storage in specific systems and may or may not function correctly in another environment."

The way I read this is the MD is a blue label while the SSD is a white label. Does anyone recognise these terms and confirm if this is a problem?

The FAQ question implies the md does not work at all, but Keith can see 3mb+ plus so I think the addressing idea above is the first idea to check out.

Hope these help.
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] keithwwalker:
Still hacking away...

I have been trying to decipher the registry and so far this is what I have found:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\StorageManager\Profiles\ATAEPSON\FATFS contents:

DataCacheSize 0x1000 (4096)

EnableCache 0x1 (1)

EnableDataCacheWarm 0x1 (1)

EnableFatCacheWarm 0x1 (1)

EnableWriteBack 0x1 (1)

FatCacheSize 0x200 (512)

Flags 0x280014 (2621460)

Format Tfat 0x1 (1)

These seem to be the parameters for formatting the stock microdrive.

Of interest is whether the x7501 makes the host PC think that the microdrive or ssd has these parameters whether the onboard formatter formats the drive or not.

From discussion with other members offlist, it seems that SSD's that are like the Transcend unit are/should actually be formatted like a memory card, with a 32kb byte/sector, not 512 byte/sector.

So perhaps the FatCacheSize should be 32, and not 512; to 'fool' the x7501 into sizing the sectors correctly.

I wonder about the other settings though, especially DataCacheSize 4096?

I will be scrubbing msdn's Windows Embedded Developer Center's Library, in an attempt to decipher more of this information.

It would be great if adjustment of the registry settings will allow this 16GB upgrade (to be followed by 32 and 64gb?).

kww
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] keithwwalker:
Here are some definitions

Registry Value/Type Applies to Description

DataCacheSize: REG_DWORD

FAT, TFAT

Indicates the size of the data cache, in number of sectors. If set to zero, FATFS determines the best cache size to use.

EnableCache: REG_DWORD

FAT, TFAT, extended FAT (exFAT)

Set to 1 to enable caching. Zero disables caching.

EnableDataCacheWarm: REG_DWORD

FAT, TFAT

Set to 1 to enable pre-warming of the data cache. That is, on initialization, the cache is pre-loaded to capacity with data.

EnableFatCacheWarm: REG_DWORD

FAT, TFAT

Set to 1 to enable pre-warming of the FAT cache. That is, on initialization, the cache is pre-loaded to capacity with data.

EnableWriteBack: REG_DWORD

FAT, TFAT

Set to 1 to enable a write-back cache. Set to zero to use a write-through cache.

This setting applies only to Windows CE 5.0 and later.

FatCacheSize: REG_DWORD

FAT, TFAT

Set to the size of the FAT cache, in number of sectors.

If set to zero, FATFS determines the best cache size to use.

For more information, see CacheSize Registry Subkey.
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] keithwwalker:
Given the above, the question is should the DataCacheSize (sector) size be 63 or 64? The cache size should be 32kb and the sector is 2x that value. BUT, Transcend literature states a 63 sector size (actual capacity).

Perhaps the actual capacity is not equal to total capacity and 1 of 64 sectors are not available....
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] Baenwort:
Thanks for the work Keithwwalker. I'm glad you got farther in your efforts then I did. I've got a new working x7501 and another Transend 16GB SSD that is on my desk waiting for the next step. This time I'm waiting a bit before I start hacking at my x7501.

If after the holidays I find some time to install the SSD do you have any advice to be able to follow your footsteps in not killing my x7501 this time? :)
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] johnripper:
keithwwalker the flex cable for the micto drive in x7500 is a 35 pin zif, but at the other end i see at service manual the zif is bigger, is it a 40 pin zif?

if it is a 40 pin zif at the other side we can use an ide to 1.8" ssd adapter try to format the ssd to a pc and then put it back to x7500 and see the results.

thanks
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] hjreggel:
Hi all, I think it's finally time to jump in...

First: I don't have any adapter to connect the Transcend SSD to an ATA host, so don't know the actual parameters.

The stated value "63" is the sector number of logical CHS mapping. This is not related to the cluster size. It just means that the SSD pretends to have 63 sectors per track. However, if the SSD really identifies as having 63 sectors per track, the size would be odd, i.e. not a multiple of HxS. The actual size of 16,039,018,496 Bytes would match a mapping of 61184/16/32, but some sources state that the maximum allowed cylinder count would be 16383, although the cylinder field is 16-bit.

Original:I know that some Transcend CF cards report a cylinder count of more than 16383, which *could* confuse some ATA hosts. Even if the mapping would be xx/16/63, the cylinder count would be more than 16383. Edit: I double-checked my notes, and realized that it's the other way round: Transcend CF report 16383/16/63 for media of more than 8GB, while some other manufacturers use cylinder numbers of 16384 and more. This means that it's important that the host uses LBA instead of CHS mapping.

The ribbon from the 35-pin ZIF socket to 40-pin ZIF is not compatible to the 40-pin ZIF ata connector of 1.3" and 1.8" disks.
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] hjreggel:
Notes on USB bridges

Those who have access to an appropriate USB bridge from one of the USB keys like shown there...

Hitachi Microdrives

Seagate Microdrives

If you connect the SSD through USB and run my tool "usbid.exe", it should

show 14GB, see the link ">>> usbid.exe <<<" there:

Info on USB IDs

My SSD shows as

USBSTOR 0: USB\Vid_0aa6&Pid_1501\SN0000000014 Rev_0033
USBDISK 1: 14GB
USBSTOR\Disk&Ven_TS16GSSD&Prod_10-M&Rev_0811\SN0000000014&0___
or
USBSTOR 0: USB\Vid_0aa6&Pid_1603\SN0000000015 Rev_0033
USBDISK 1: 14GB
USBSTOR\Disk&Ven_TS16GSSD&Prod_10-M&Rev_0811\SN0000000015&0

depending on which of the two different boards I use.

If you see the TS16GSSD ID, but dashes "---" instead of "14GB", the SSD controller is detected, but memory is not mapped.
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] bluesbrothers93:
i find this datasheet with 8Gb, 12GB and 15GB

http://www2.produktinfo.conrad.com/...-en-EXCELSTOR_8GB_1z_USB2_ESGSMS7008-W_WE.pdf

here for more details

http://www.gstorplus.com/products/gstormini.asp
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] bluesbrothers93:
i've just ordering the 8gb GSTor one

and

2 differents verbatim Storn'Go HDrive 1" model

for testing them with Transcend FlashDrive.......
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] bluesbrothers93:
i've just receive today the GStor Mini 8GB

Note that the microdrive inside Gstor it is the same that our X7500 are equiped

X7500 8gb HD read speed Test
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] keithwwalker:
I think the 35 pin zif fpc is proprietary and there is no way to convert to a 40 pin. I have even looked for generic 35 pin zif fpc converters to PATA, and no luck...
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] bluesbrothers93:
Why this speed difference ?!

microdrive EXCELSTOR

GSTOR Mini 8GB sur USB (8/12 et 15GB sont annoncé)

Writting test make with .avi of 374 Mo

1e test => 6,23 Mo/s write test

2e test => 6,23 Mo/s write test

Not so bad for Microdrive Hitachi !

2x speeder than microdrive Hitachi from my x7500 ?!

test with microdrive 8GB Hitachi from HTC X7500

it look same from the GStor mini

But very slow write speed with X7500 microdrive ?!

maybe there'is spécifique driver on the GSTOR Hitachi microdrive

that increase access write speed.......

1e test => 2,44 mo/s write test

2e test => 2,44 mo/s write test
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] bluesbrothers93:
see below ID result with USBID tools

1st it's the Gstor 8GB HITACHI microdrive

2nd it's the X7500's (inside GStor) 8GB HITACHI microdrive

no differences appear....

next steap is to test Transcend Flash disk
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] johnripper:
any news about ssd formatting?
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] keithwwalker:
Usually when I try to format the SSD, it doesn't work and then I have to reflash the 7510 rom and then the AP4.0 rom in succession. It is a real pain, so I am taking a break until after the holiday.

My current thinking is that the 'Format Hard Drive' program in the 7500/7501 rom has registry settings that can be changed. If they can then fool the 7500/7501 into thinking it is a HDD, then it may work. Problem is, in the 'Format Hard Drive' program registry, there are only 2 ID's that are recognized.

I don't know how ID's are created in the registry, once I figure that out, I will give it another try.
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] johnripper:
sorry but i was asking bluesbrothers93
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] bluesbrothers93:
i test nuestoragemanager

and he give more detail

Part 2 is indicated as "mounted"
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] bluesbrothers93:
Sorry, i'm "off" few days

no more tests for the moments

i will look it again on 1st weekend of 2009

happy new years !

to be continue........
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] bluesbrothers93:
Hello

I receive my 2 differents Verbatim Storn'Go 1"HD USB Stick

1st one "8GB" as bigger form factor than 2nd one "12GB"

the 2nd one "12Gb" as very similar "clone" of The 8Gb ExelStor that i already receve

below picture and speed test comming

The Storn'Go 8GB is comming with CORNICE DRAGON 8GB Microdrive manufactured in 2006

My writting test give 6,9 Mo/s who is very very good !!!

i will connect the 2 others Toshiba Microdrive to understand if it's the Verbatim interface

that give that good results !!!
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] bluesbrothers93:
I put the 8GB Toshiba 1" microdrive from the ExelStor Module

inside the USB Storn'Go module instead of the 8GB CORNICE modele DRAGON 1" microdrive original.

i've got a 9,5 Mo/s phénoménal writting test (374 Mo AVI) !!!

wahoo !!!

i will test the original Toshiba 1" microdrive from my X7500 that give slower result than newest one in Execelstor USB modul

i've just test the 12GB Verbatim 1" (very similar to ExelStor 8GB) USB Stick

in writting Test of 374 Mo AVI

i've got a 10,7 Mo/s result !!!!

The 12GB 1" HD is also a Cornice modele "Panthere" manufactured on 2006

i will put in the 2x Toshiba and 1x Cornice Drive to test it in this new Verbatim USB interface/enclosure

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE VERBATIM 12GB STORN'GO USB ENCLOSURE

CAN'T BE USE TO CONNECT 1" THOSHIBA and TRANSCEND 1" 16GB SSD

The connector system is different and necessite spécifique napp to be used !
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] bluesbrothers93:
Testing Transcend 16GB SSD 1"

Good news

I have put the 1" Transcend Flash SSD module in Verbatim 8GB Storn'go 1" USB module

and it's directly recognise frome my PC with 14,9 GO free !!!
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] bluesbrothers93:
Transcend 16G-SSD10-MLC SpeedTests

i've got a 9,5 Mo/s writting speed for the 374 MO .avi

and >25 mo/s reading speed
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] bluesbrothers93:
Usb-id ts16gssd10-m
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] mfschneider:
Congrats!

Congratulations, bluesbrothers93, This is a HUGE step forward! And the speed results are great, I expected something like that from the Transcend data sheet. One more reason to get this SSD going. If I only had the means to contribute *sigh*

R, Michael
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] bluesbrothers93:
Finally

some of last tests let me think that the implementation of SSD in the X7500

is very close to US

in my opinion,

solution is in the HD / SSD formating and MBR specification

we will see

to be continue......

*******************************************************

LAST MICRODRIVE REPLACEMENTS TESTS

I try to put the ExelStor Microdrive instead of the original X7500 Microdrive

The 2 Microdrive are similar and are manufactured by Toshiba

When i put the ExelStor Microdrive instead the original one

the X7500 don't see it, like when we have try to put the Transcend SSD

This résult is a GOOD information, cause we know that the Transcend SSD is not in cause of the X7500 non recognation

That tell us that there is minimum 2 solutions :

- Special "Format" and maybe special files needed for Microdrive / SSD recognation by the X7500

my feeling is two partition mounted in One

And / Or

- the X7500 is configurate to work with a specific Microdrive ID number.

in this case we need to access MBR to put original Microdrive ID number inside the new Microdrive/SSD

Good news, that now we have USB interface to access Microdrive from PC

to be continue
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] bluesbrothers93:
For who that can be interrest in comparaison of differents kind of USB storage

i 've made a dedicated thread with a lot of differents USB stick and flash memory card comparaison here

http://www.mobifrance.com/pdaforum/showthread.php?threadid=125501

OK, i find a path

i'm sure that we need to format Microdrive under TFAT

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa915463.aspx

Note:

the additional copy operations inherent in TFAT handling cause a decrease in performance.

that it's certenly reason of lowest speed read/write result obtain from Original X7500 8GB Toshiba 1" Microdrive compare the ExcelStor GStor-mini 8GB Toshiba 1" Microdrive !!!
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] hjreggel:
Cornice

Cornice - that's incredible! Where did you get those devices? I tried several resources, but only got Hitachi and Seagate Microdrives.

In case you have no use for the Cornice drives, I'd be interested.
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] bluesbrothers93:
for Cornice why not !

they was inside the 2 Verbatim Storn'Go 8GB and 12GB that i have order in US via Amazone.com

First one was sell buy amazon and the other one sell (i need to check) ....

around 40 USD each
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] xdawis:
120 GB usb microdrive with athena

I´am using an external microdrive from trekstor with my athena since a few months, without any problems. When I read this forum i just guess that this drive is tfat formatted, ´cause all the advatages of security i feel. Do you think that´s right?
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] bluesbrothers93:
120GB microdrive ?!

you mean 1,8" or 2,5" i suppose ?

for TFAT, not that only Internal device can be acces in TFAT partionning

( i thing )

i will test to acces Original 1" Microdrive (TFAT) via X7500 USB Host

we will see
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] xdawis:
external 1,8 drive with USB

The 4in1 works with USB devices HDD from tekstor.

I only tried the 1,8´´ microdevice first with 60GB and now I´m using a 120 gb drive.

It works fantastic without any separate powersupply with the athena for about 2 hrs. The consumption of energy is comparable with a normal sd-card.
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] Oberth:
To bluesbrothers93

Congrats on your progress so far those miniusb hd's finally have a use :), regarding the TFAT & MBR issue have you tried using Norton Ghost or similar to clone the original drive then write back to one of the other drives like the one from the Excelstore or even the SSD as this should then be an exact copy including any funny MBR and file system that the orignal uses this might then make the x7500 recognise the drive if not then we would know other things are blocking it from happening.

If you don't have Ghost then you can always find it on a popular bootable cd that's on the net, if you are a more upstanding member of society there are free linux equivalents which are listed here and a couple are on livecd's http://www.wareprise.com/2008/06/24/free-norton-ghost-alternatives/ they should provide the same (if not better) funtionality.

EDIT: Having a quick read of the link I sent and CloneZilla sound pretty good as it does a low level copy if it cannot detect the originals file system if not then PING sounds like a good second bet.

Good luck with your work :)
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] bluesbrothers93:
Thank you for those usefull informations

Please note that i will be off for 2 weeks.

to be continue
[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo Upgrading] johnripper:
bad news

I have used The 8Gb ExelStor with the ssd pluged and with harddiskclonerpro i have cloned the x7500 hd using usb to pc utility sector by sector. Then after testing the ssd to pc i saw that it was working ok with all the contents from x7500, even the label of the disk was the same (TFAT).Then i pluged the ssd to X7500 and boommmmm no microdrive, i think the X7500 CAN'T HANDLE THE SSD EVEN IF IT IS IN TFAT FORMAT....