Are CF cards really this poop

Retro6

Retro6

Retro6

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I got a new old CF card what I mean by "new old" is that it has never been used and it had been sealed in its original packaging. I bought it last year but never had a need to use it until now. I got some cheap parts from ebay a socket 7 motherboard and AT case etc to build a DOS/Windows 95 PC and I wanted to see what all the rage was about using CF cards on vintage machines as hard drives.

I thought I would prepare the CF card first in G-Parted using Linux. The computer read the card no problem and I accessed it in G-Parted. I wanted to create two partitions. I read that its best to partition off 30% of the CF card before installing Windows 95. So I did that G-Parted kept showing 3 partitions instead of just the two I wanted and I when I applied changes I got "An Error Occurred" no matter what I try now I can't do anything to the CF card at all so now it just shows as Unallocated?

I will download ClearHDD save it on to floppy and see what that does. I saw it on LGR but have not tried it. I'm unable to find my IDE to CF adapter so I have ordered another... I'm really hoping I can sort out the CF card that way.
 
Literally just used fdisk to format them. Even my 16gb one.

The reliability of them however... Another story. I've gone back to spinning disks for my main retro machine.
 
I’ve been through this before on the VOGONS forum, but essentially consumer grade CF cards are awful for GUI based OSes as the number of reads and writes just isn’t sustainable for the essentially poor quality devices.

Using pre-owned industrial cards however (reclaimed Cisco cards mainly) I’ve had much better longevity out of them. Still better suited to DOS over Win 9x though.

These days I’d rather use a normal mechanical IDE or SATA disk with and adapter than a CF card. CF cards are good for secondary disks though, for file transfer.
 
Hopefully once I get my CF to IDE adapter I can sort it out in f-disk or CleaHDD. I knew that weren't the best solution but I was hoping Windows 95 would be light enough with extra Ram to help things along. I have 64MB of Ram which is plenty for Windows 95 but might be too much for certain Dos games. PhilsComputerLab might have something for it. Maybe an mSATA SSD to IDE might be better for Windows 95 providing the BIOS will detect it with out issues, otherwise its SSD SATA or a spinning drive. I would be interested to see how long a CF lasts using as a hard drive with Windows 95.
 
almoststew1990 said:
I would stick with doing all your formatting and partitioning using Fdisk assuming your using it for a DOS based OS.

Interesting to hear you guys are moving away from CF cards. Have you had any success with SD cards?
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SD cards are usually worse, both from a longevity standpoint, but also a compatibility one. At least CF is native IDE, SD card relies on whatever adapter you are using being compatible with the PC!
 
almoststew1990 said:
I would stick with doing all your formatting and partitioning using Fdisk assuming your using it for a DOS based OS.

Interesting to hear you guys are moving away from CF cards. Have you had any success with SD cards?
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Nope SD cards are worse. I used an SD card in a SD to CF adapter on an old Pentium II PC with Windows 98 SE installed to the SD Card when I got back into retro computers. It worked beautifully at first but literally after 3 days I got problems. Blue screens of death until the SD card died.

I'm no expert but SD cards only have the one chip with no wear leveling.
 
I think there is a lot of misinformation on the internet regarding CF cards and SD cards in retro systems as being the solution to aging hard drives, some will even go as far to say they are the ultimate solution I always had my doubts about CF cards but in the back of my mind I wanted to believe that they were the ultimate solution and prices on CF cards has shot up as a result of them becoming popular in the retro computing world.

I've used up all my spinning platters in my other retro PC builds. I may have a 4 GB hard drive somewhere that works but is on the noisy side otherwise its IDE to SATA SSD or mSATA that is all I have. I have a range of low capacity SSD's ranging from 20GB 32GB 60GB and 120GB.

I use to buy spinning hard drives online very cheap but almost every time they would arrive faulty from being knocked about in transit.

CF cards are probably best for the much older systems like Acorn, Amiga, BBC Micro, Commodore64 and those sorts maybe even DOS but not for Windows 9x systems.

I'm going to do the experiment with a CF card on Windows 95 just purely out of curiosity to see how long it lasts.

I remember small note books back in 2010 that had solid state CF drives I'm assuming they were CF cards inside, some had Linux Lite and some had Windows XP.
 
Every. Single. One of my CF cards has failed in some way or another. I will never use them for OS again except as above for a dos only system. And all of my CF cards are Industrial ones!!
 
Update on the CF card... My CF to IDE adapter arrived today very fast postage I must say... I just put it in my old Compaq machine and the card is working its detected in the BIOS and I've just formatted it to FAT32 with no issues which means the problem lied with G-Parted. Its not the first I had issues with G-Parted. I will use this CF card as a secondary drive to store games on for a retro build.

I have some 512MB CF cards and 2GB ones so I will install MS-DOS 6.22 onto those ones which will mainly be used for testing purposes in old machines. 4GB and over I will use those for storing old DOS games that way I can use a regular hard drive and a CF card for storage. I really must try a GoTek sometime as well for DOS.
 
I wonder if anything can be done with SSD hard drives. As time goes on retro PC gamers are going to be looking for hard drive replacement alternatives for there failing spinning hard drive. With no TRIM support in Windows 9x systems.... but maybe a TRIM program can be written where its stored on the SSD itself and interacts with Windows 95/98 for full TRIM support in Windows 95/98? that would be interesting.
 
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IDE hard drives are still plentiful but the only problem is when buying them online not all sellers use common sense they put them in to jiffy bags which doesn't protect the hard drives being knocked about in transit so by the time they arrive you'd be lucky is they still work. I used to buy them online but now I try look for local places so that I can pick them up in person.

I do a lot of retro builds and IDE hard drives are something that I really need.

There is a shop near me that still sells SATA hard drives. Sometimes they have 80GB hard drives for 2 pounds which would be OK some later systems like the P4 systems that don't have a BIOS limit 80GB is fine for Windows 98. The problem with older systems is the BIOS is limited to smaller capacity hard drives and as far as I know the lowest capacity SATA HDD obtainable is 60GB or 80GB which could be used with an adapter in a retro build. Otherwise its back to the good old IDE hard drives providing its not on its last legs.

They really made IDE hard drives well in those days and last for years but unfortunately the inevitable will happen and some are already on there last legs. An old IDE hard drive will still out last a CF card by any means. Plus CF cards can give other issues. SATA HDDs are pretty good as well and can last a good 10 to 20 years I reckon. I have a SATA HDD in my main computer for years now and its still going strong.
 
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As others have said enterprise grade CF cards will perform much better than ones designed for putting in cameras. Other routes you can look into are IDE SSDs which were actually a thing as SSDs hit the market around the time SATA was taking over and so you can still find new old stock 2.5" IDE SSDs (with SLC nand too, not the TLC/QLC junk they use today), in fact I think Transcend are still making them as their disk on module SSDs have proven very popular for retro computing. Also an option is grabbing a cheap ISA/PCI SCSI card and an enterprise grade drive which while not as fast as an SSD will beat IDE on speed and durability.
 
ubersonic said:
As others have said enterprise grade CF cards will perform much better than ones designed for putting in cameras. Other routes you can look into are IDE SSDs which were actually a thing as SSDs hit the market around the time SATA was taking over and so you can still find new old stock 2.5" IDE SSDs (with SLC nand too, not the TLC/QLC junk they use today), in fact I think Transcend are still making them as their disk on module SSDs have proven very popular for retro computing. Also an option is grabbing a cheap ISA/PCI SCSI card and an enterprise grade drive which while not as fast as an SSD will beat IDE on speed and durability.
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Thats interesting. I haven't seen very many IDE solid state drives. I'll make a note of that and see if I can find some. I saw the disk on module SSD in one of LGR's youtube videos but I just assumed that they were like the CF cards.
 
It looks like there is a TRIM program for Windows 9x. The file is called ForceTrim.zip its 223.89 KB in size and the trim program was written by BJameson. I haven;t tried it yet.

file.php
 
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Retro6 said:
It looks like there is a TRIM program for Windows 9x. The file is called ForceTrim.zip its 223.89 KB in size and the trim program was written by BJameson. I haven;t tried it yet.

file.php
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It will launch under 9x, but it’s not a standalone TRIM utility, just a GUI for manually triggering the built in TRIM functions of the OS. It’s been well tested to prove this on VOGONS and even the message the application gives you on launch tells you that there is no TRIM function in the application itself, it relies on a TRIM capable OS.
 
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