This sounds a bit like urban folklore to me :-)
I have been working with Cisco routers on a day-to-day basis
for the last 4 years and I can tell you the flash card is
solely written when you upgrade the operating system image
in there.
Even, these files are only loaded at boot time. After, you
can even remove the flash card from the router, it will work
fine since no further access is needed.
Of course this provide no explanation for my problem.
I got 3 cards with the problem so far, 2 Smart Modular
Technologies and 1 Sharp. I formated all of them in the
Cisco router and no errors was detected.
I must be missing something there. Maybe the write power
of the newton is too weak for that kind of cards. I will
have to find and check the specs more closely.
In short, Im puzzled :-)
Francois
On Fri, 25 Oct 2002, Laurent Daudelin wrote:
>
> On 25/10/02 12:58, "Francois Baligant" <newtontalk_at_nikita.cx> wrote:
>
> > It didn't work any better.. Still message -10607 even when formatting
> > from the Prefs.
> >
> > I took a deeper look at the Flash card using a Cisco 1600 router :
> >
> > 4096K bytes of processor board PCMCIA flash (Read/Write)
> >
> > Chip Bank Code Size Name
> > 1 1 89A0 2048KB INTEL 28F016SA
> > 1 2 89A0 2048KB INTEL 28F016SA
> >
> > (please notice the card is listed as Read/Write)
> >
> > Intel Serie II 28F016SA happend to be the chip used by Pretec as well:
> >
> > http://www.pretec.com/index2/product/SSD/FR2.htm
> >
> > and this card is listed as Newton compatible on that webpage.
> >
> > Could this be that because the card was used in a Cisco router before,
> > the newton can't format it ? Would formatting the card before in a PC
> > help ?
>
> Using the card in a Cisco router wouldn't make it unusable in a Newton,
> however, those Cisco routers have been reported to wear out those cards
> pretty quickly due to almost incessant writes to the card. Those cards have
> a limited number of writes that you usually never reach if you use them in a
> Newton, but will shorten their life significantly if you use them in a
> router.
>
> What I think did happen in your case is that the card has developed some bad
> sectors. Usually, on a laptop, those bad sectors (like bad sectors on a
> disk) can be mapped out. However, on a Newton, the OS doesn't have this
> functionality so whenever you have a single sector that goes bad, the entire
> card is unusable.
>
> -Laurent.
>
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