CF-28 Boot Options: HDD, CD, FDD, LAN, Other?

I gather from the BIOS that the CF-28 will boot from HDD, CD, FDD, & LAN.

Has anyone successfully booted it from a PCMCIA-based memory device e.g. a SD card or USB memory stick adapter?

Has anyone mounted a SD or other solid state memory reader internally and used it as the boot device?

Has anyone booted a CF-28 from a USB stick?

I know that several of the Linux distros, including my favorite Puppy, will boot from SD or USB but I don't know if the CF-28 will even look at those devices that early in the boot process and if it will recognize an OS there.

One or more of these options could eliminate the need for a HDD, and thus remove the proprietary cable/caddy related hassle and expense.

 

I was able to get my cf-28 to use a boot floppy and usb memory stick to boot DSL and FeatherLinux, using the bootusb-1.1.img floppy.
See
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=2987213&postcount=20

I haven't gone any further with this after seeing that it could be done.

I've also tried to use a cf card in a PCMCIA card reader to see if that works. It should be possible, again with a floppy and the card services drivers, but I haven't gotten it to go yet.

I want to get back to the flash drive boot again, and see how much more I can get it to do.

Picoshark also indicated he was working on something similar.

I tried using PenDriveLinix, but was not able to get their process to work.

 

Cool! Will check out the referenced thread.

The developers at Puppy worked really hard to make that distro boot from SC cards and USB sticks so you may have more success with it.

The simple way for me seems to be a low-profile (flush mount) PCMCIA card that accepts a SD card which sites completely inside of the PCMCIA card. It may as well be internal and could ne sealed-over in the absence of a PCMCIA port cover.

I suppose that the USB port could be tapped and a short cable run into the empty HDD drive area to host a USB stick but I worry about overtaxing the old 1.1 implementation of USB in the CF-28.

 

I am trying (slowly) to access the USB lines from the CN18 to the RIM board to see about mounting a USB hub in that area, either totally internal or with one or two USB lines to the outside there. Still only 1.1 though.

I have seen one mini-pci card to add USB 2.0, but I think it is more for embedded devices than laptops - I think the connectors may stick up too high to fit under the HDD.

Another option would be to modify a USB PCMCIA card to shorten it to fit in the internal PCMCIA port, then run cable to the RIM area. Hackaday had a demo where someone shortened a card that way. I still would like to be able to boot to a floppy though, and then pass the boot process to the internal PCMCIA with the CF card reader there. There used to be thinner USB add-on cards in PCMCIA that used a dongle - but I think the only ones I've seen are USB1.1.