1.8 HDD = CF Card ?
 

Hi,

I was poking around my Dell X1 and i noticed that the pin arrangement of the 1.8 drive is the same as a CF card. Could it be that i can just plug a CF card there and install Puppy? Anybody tried this? Thanks.

Gus

I do not recommend doing this. It may look like the same, but the wiring may be very different. Notebook hard drives are either 44-pin or SATA.

CF cards have the same pins as any other IDE interface (including 44pin 2.5" notebook drives). However, the physical size of the connectors are different, and the voltages used for the power may vary.

I don't think there's a single standard for what connector 1.8" drives use. If a CF card will physically fit the connector, then I'd bet it would work. At worst, you might fry the CF card but the laptop should be fine. Maybe you can experiment with a cheap/useless small CF card. Many digital cameras come with 16meg or similarly small CF cards--which are pretty much useless for anything other than testing whether a camera works because of the puny capacity.

Not really sure how all this fits together, but here is a discussion about replacing the HDD in an IPod with a CF card. Adapter seems to be required.

Also here is an actual adapter with photos.

If the laptop uses a microdrive, your second link implies that you can:

Hm, here are the pinouts for a CF card and for my hard drive. It looks like a direct link is not possible. Can anybody with more expertise on this confirm? I'm going to look at the adapter option. Thanks for your replies.

Gus

The links:

http://pinouts.ru/Memory/CompactFlash_pinout.shtml

http://sdd.toshiba.com/techdocs/MK30...uide-Rev02.pdf

maroonbaboon: That adapter wouldn't work because the board has the pins. I'll see if i can find a different adapter.

I've asked to move post 8 and past to new thread.

Do you have a CF to ide adapter or are you trying to use the attached pcmcia/cf slot?

Hi jefro, these are some pictures...

Your post is moved. Continue on there please. :)