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44 pin flash DOMs not compatible with IDE

NeXT

NeXT

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 22, 2008
Messages
8,124
Location
Kamloops, BC, Canada
This doesn't make any sense to me. I'm trying to use a 256mb DOM with a 44 pin interface on an ASUS ISA-486SV2 Rev 3.1 so I got the correct cabling and adapters and I verified everything works by plugging in a 44 pin laptop hard drive but when I sub in the DOM the machine fails to POST. No I don't have the module plugged in backwards.
I had a few other modules of different makes and capacities and they all did the same. Even tried a different IDE controller card and both a regular 40 pin DOM and a 40 pin to CompactFlash adapter and they both worked fine as well. It's only 44 pin DOMs that don't want to work.
 
Figured it out. Didn't try all the possible combinations of adapters.

CGS_10561.JPG


These do not work for attaching a 44 pin female DOM to most 40 to 44 pin adapters. They flip the lines around.



CGS_10560.JPG


These DO work as it corrects the lines being flipped. Once I installed that the system POSTed fine.
 
Where did you find this adapter? I've been looking for the same thing but couldn't find any.
 
NeXT said:
These DO work as it corrects the lines being flipped. Once I installed that the system POSTed fine.
Click to expand...

What do you mean by the lines being flipped? Examining the pics on eBay it appears the top row is routed to the bottom and the bottom to the top. Is that what you mean? I tried the method you show in the top picture a few years back and wondered why it didn't work. Thanks for the info.
 
44 pin DOMs with female plugs are probably not worth bothering with 99% of the time, simply because they're designed for a connector type that usually only exists in embedded systems. Like 40 pin DOMs they're meant to plug in in place of a cable that would have its other end on a drive so, yeah, if you twist the geometry of the situation around in your head you'll see why a straight through header to a female plug meant for a drive's male pins is wrong.

I have a few of them lying around that were yanked from inside dead network equipment, and I don't think I've ever seen a laptop that had a cabling setup or internal geometry that would let you just drop one in, and assembling the oddball adapter chain to use them anywhere else seems kind of pointless when CF and SD adapters that plug right in are so cheap.
 
I guess it comes down to if you have any or not. The adapters with the modules are small enough they will fit in the cavity of any former 2.5" drive and mainly the ones I've found over the years are small enough that they remain under the 528mb BIOS limit and support CHS translation, so I can put them into a machine and the BIOS will be completely happy with it and I don't feel like I'm wasting a ton of space.

CGS_10564.JPG
 
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