dataPAC Memory Card FAQ

Memory Card Specifics

What type of memory card does dataPAC use?
dataPAC uses a Type I Static RAM (SRAM) PC Card that conforms to the
Personal Computer Memory Card International Association (PCMCIA) standard.
dataPAC uses PC Cards without attribute memory.

What is a “PC Card”?

PC Cards used to be called “PCMCIA Cards”. PC Cards are credit card-size
peripherals that add memory, mass storage, and I/O capabilities to computers in
a rugged, compact form factor. For more information check out http://www.pc-
card.com/faq.htm.

dataPAC only supports Type I SRAM memory PC Cards.

What does the PC Card “Type” mean, as in Type I or II?

The PCMCIA specification provides for various physical dimensions of PC Cards.
All PC Cards have the same length and width and all have the same 68 pin
connector. But Type I cards are 3.3 mm thick, Type II cards are 5.0 mm thick,
and Type III cards are 10.5 mm thick. For more information check out
http://www.pc-card.com/faq.htm.

dataPAC accepts Type I SRAM PC Cards.

Does dataPAC work with Flash memory cards?

No. dataPAC requires a Static RAM (SRAM) memory card.

Static RAM and Flash RAM are two different memory technologies. Devices
designed to use Flash RAM probably don’t work with Static RAM and vice-versa.

Does dataPAC work with the new smaller versions of PC Cards?

No. dataPAC requires a “PC Card”. A “PC Card” is 85.6 mm long, 54.0 mm
wide and has a 68 pin connector. PC Cards were formally known as PCMCIA
Cards.

dataPAC will not function with a “Small PC Card”, “Miniature Card”, “SmartMedia
Card”, “MultiMedia Card”, nor “CompactFlash Card”. Check out http://www.pc-
card.com/faq.htm for more information.

Can I use cards from other vendors with dataPAC?

Yes. The cards purchased from Entek IRD have been tested with dataPAC and
verified to be reliable. Entek IRD cannot make the same claim for cards
purchased from other vendors. However, our customers have reported
successful operation with PC Cards from other vendors.

If you’re going to try a card from another vendor, make sure that it is an SRAM
memory card, it conforms to the PCMCIA standards for PC Cards, it is a Type I
PC Card, and it is without attribute memory.
Where can I buy PC Cards?
You can purchase PC Cards that have been verified to work reliably with
dataPAC directly from Entek IRD. Contact your local Entek IRD Sales
representative.

For a list of other PC Card vendors check out the PC Card Resource Directory at
http://pcmcia.oaktree.com or the list provided by Andrew Prophet Research &
Consulting at http://www.apresearch.com/cardrive.htm.

Please note that while cards purchased from other vendors should work properly
in the dataPAC, Entek IRD does not guarantee that this will be so.

PC Card Reader / PC Card Drive

Why should I use a PC Card Reader?
Your desktop PC system can be equipped with a PC Card Reader that allows
your PC to read and write to the dataPAC memory card like an ordinary disk
drive. EMONITOR Odyssey supports the loading and unloading of routes to the
dataPAC memory card via the PC Card Reader. Loading/unloading a route in
this manner is much faster than loading/unloading the same route over a serial
communications connection to the dataPAC. Depending on the speed of your
computer, loading/unloading routes can be 2 to 10 times faster with a PC Card
Reader.

You can also initialize a memory card for use with the dataPAC while its in the
PC Card Reader. This process is also much faster via the PC Card Reader than
via the serial communications connection. Initializing a card only takes a few
seconds with a PC Card Reader.

Where can I buy a PC Card Reader?

For a list of PC Card Reader vendors check out the PC Card Resource Directory
at http://pcmcia.oaktree.com or the list provided by Andrew Prophet Research &
Consulting at http://www.apresearch.com/cardrive.htm.

How do I set up my PC Card Reader?

The goal when setting up the PC Card Reader is to be able to assign a drive
letter to an SRAM PC Card that is inserted in the drive. Then programs like
EMONITOR Odyssey and the dataPAC Utility Program can read and write files to
the PC Card.

When installing the PC Card Reader, first and foremost you should follow the PC
Card Reader manufacturer’s instructions. The following processes are just
general overviews, which we believe are accurate for most PC Card Readers.
They may or may not be appropriate for your PC Card Reader. For more specific
information you should refer to your PC Card Reader’s documentation or contact
the manufacturer.

Also, Windows Help covers some topics on PC Cards. You can access the
Windows Help by clicking Start | Help, then search the index for “PC Cards”.

Windows 95
Generally, the basic process of installing a PC Card Reader is as follows. First
install the hardware. Then when you boot your system, Windows 95 may
recognize that new hardware has been added and may automatically install the
PCMCIA socket services.

If Windows doesn’t install the PCMCIA socket automatically then you can do it
manually by going to Control Panel and selecting Add New Hardware. While in
the Add New Hardware process select “No” in response to the “Do you want
Windows to search for your new hardware?” question. Then select “PCMCIA
Socket” for the type of hardware that you want to install. Then select your PC
Card Reader’s manufacturer and model or select “Have Disk” to install drivers
provided with your PC Card Reader. Make a note of the displayed hardware
settings. If they do not match your actual hardware settings (reference the PC
Card Reader manual) then you can change them later from the Windows Device
Manager.

Once the PCMCIA socket is installed you should see a “PCMCIA socket” device
type in Device Manager and there should be at least one sub-item of this type.
But the PCMCIA socket by itself is not enough to use the PC Card Reader to
access an SRAM PC Card via a drive letter. Hopefully your manufacturer has
provided you with additional drivers to allow this. If not you can use some
additional drivers provided with Windows 95. The following information can also
be found in the Windows 95 Help topic, “SRAM memory card, installing support
for”.

The additional drivers provided with Windows 95 are “real mode” drivers. You
enable them by placing the following two lines in your CONFIG.SYS file.

DEVICEHIGH=C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\CSMAPPER.SYS
DEVICEHIGH=C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\CARDDRV.EXE /slot=1

If your PC Card Reader has two slots you can use “/slot=2” to reserve two drive
letters, one for each slot.

After adding the real mode drivers to the CONFIG.SYS file you should reboot
your system. Then a drive letter should be assigned to the PC Card Reader.

Windows NT
Unlike Windows 95, Windows NT does not come with any drivers that allow you
to assign a drive letter to an SRAM memory card in a PC Card Reader slot. You
will have to rely on drivers from the manufacturer of your PC Card Reader.

If your PC Card Reader manufacturer does not supply the necessary drivers,
there may be a third party software package that allows you to access SRAM PC
Cards like a disk drive with Windows NT. One example of such a package is at
http://www.award.com/cardware/cwlinx.htm.

Windows 98
The Windows 98 Help indicates that the real mode drivers used with Windows 95
can be installed to enable support for SRAM memory cards. These drivers are
probably suitable for most customers. (See above for more details.)
 But if you experience problems with the real mode drivers you may want to try
the protected mode driver that is provided with Windows 98. The protected
mode driver is developed for Flash PC Cards by a third party. This driver also
includes support for SRAM PC Cards. The associated files are located in the
\DRIVERS\STORAGE\FTL folder on the Windows 98 CD. Read the file
TFFS9X.TXT for instructions on how to install the drivers.

Memory Card Sizes

What memory card sizes are compatible with dataPAC?
All dataPAC instruments should function properly with cards sized from 256
kilobytes through 2 megabytes. Although cards smaller that 1 megabyte are too
small to be practical.

dataPAC instruments manufactured in December of 1995 or later will also work

properly with 4 megabyte memory cards. dataPACs manufactured prior to
December, 1995 require a hardware upgrade in order to support memory cards
larger than 2 megabytes.

If your dataPAC has the latest hardware, then you may be able to use memory
cards even larger than 4 megabytes. Please read on for more information
regarding larger memory cards.

Can I use a 4 megabyte PC Card in my dataPAC?

If your dataPAC was manufactured in December of 1995 or later, then it can be
used with a 4 megabyte memory card. dataPAC instruments manufactured prior
to December of 1995 can be sent in to Entek IRD for a hardware upgrade that
will allow them to operate with 4 megabyte cards.

The manufacturing date is encoded into the dataPAC serial number. The first
two digits are the year, the second two digits are the month. So serial numbers
that are less than 9512000 need the hardware upgrade in order to use 4
megabyte cards.

Can I use PC Cards larger than 4 megabytes with dataPAC?

Yes. The dataPAC operating system will recognize and correctly format the
following sizes of PC Cards: 256 KB, 512 KB, 1 MB, 2 MB, 4 MB, 8 MB, 16 MB,
32 MB, and 64 MB. (If your dataPAC serial number is less than 9512000 then a
hardware upgrade is required in order to use memory cards larger than 2 MB.)

Note that we are not aware of any manufacturers producing SRAM PC Cards
larger than 8 megabytes.

The 6 MB PC Card is a new size that was not anticipated. Therefore some
system upgrades may be necessary to safely take advantage of the entire 6
megabytes on a 6 megabyte card.

Are there any drawbacks to using very large memory cards?

Maybe. Larger memory cards will allow you to store more data on the card.
There may be a temptation then to go for longer periods of time before unloading
the data to your host software system. The problem is that if you happen to lose
 the data on the card before it is unloaded to the host system, larger cards
present the possibility of losing more data and creating larger setbacks.

dataPAC is designed to be reliable and Entek IRD does not expect customers to
lose data. But we would be irresponsible to not admit that the possibility exists.
Entek IRD recommends that you unload your data from your dataPAC to your
host system at regular intervals. And using a larger memory card should not
change the frequency of your downloads.

What is the story regarding 6 megabyte cards?

It is possible to use a 6 megabyte SRAM PC Card with dataPAC. However, this
is a card size that was not anticipated so there are a couple problems.

Once the 6 megabyte card has been formatted, it will work properly in the
dataPAC. But the problem is getting the proper format on the 6 megabyte card.

None of the dataPAC operating system releases up to and including the current
releases (i.e.: dataPAC 1500 V4, dataPAC 1250 V4, and dataPAC 1000 V3) will
correctly format a 6 megabyte card. These software releases will put a 4
megabyte format on the 6 megabyte card. The card will function properly but
there will only be 4 megabytes of disk space available.

The problem is that the dataPAC formatting utility only tests for certain card
sizes. Those sizes are 256 KB, 512 KB, 1 MB, 2 MB, 4 MB, 8 MB, 16 MB, 32
MB, and 64 MB. Since the dataPAC formatting utility does not specifically test
for a 6 megabyte card size, it thinks the card is only 4 megabytes.

Normally you could get around this problem with a PC Card Reader because you
could format and initialize the card in the PC Card Reader instead of the
dataPAC. But Windows 95 may also have a problem formatting a 6 megabyte
card.

The real mode drivers provided with Windows 95 (i.e.: CSMAPPER.EXE and
CARDDRV.SYS) also will not correctly format a 6 megabyte card. These drivers
are the most common way to assign a drive letter to a PC Card Reader on a
Windows 95 system. These drivers will put an 8 megabyte format on a 6
megabyte card. The card will not function properly with this format. Data can be
written to the card without error but when the data is read from the card it may be
incomplete or corrupt.

There are more modern drivers available for PC Card Readers that may format a
6 megabyte PC Card correctly from within Windows 95. Check with the
manufacturer of your PC Card Reader.

If you have a PC Card Reader in your PC with drivers that can put a 6 megabyte
format on a 6 megabyte card, then the card will operate correctly in the dataPAC
with all existing versions of the dataPAC software. You will also have to initialize
the card for use in the dataPAC while the card is in the PC. But once you’ve
done this, the card will work properly in the dataPAC and you’ll have the entire 6
megabytes available for use. This is true for all existing releases of the dataPAC
software. The only problem that the existing dataPAC releases have regarding a
6 megabyte card is when they are used to format that card.
How can I use a 6 megabyte PC Card with dataPAC?
With the existing dataPAC operating system releases you can format a 6
megabyte PC Card in the dataPAC instrument so that it has a 4 megabyte
format. Then you can safely use the 6 megabyte card as if it were a 4 megabyte
card. You will only be able to store 4 megabytes of data on the card, not 6
megabytes.

If you have a PC Card Reader in your PC that you can use to format the 6
megabyte card correctly then you can use the card in the dataPAC without any
problems.

But if your PC Card Reader mistakenly puts an 8 megabyte format on a 6

megabyte card, then you should not use the card in this manner. Using the card
in this manner could result in loss of data.

Windows puts an 8 MB format on my 6 MB card. What can I do?

If your PC Card Reader is formatting a 6 megabyte card as 8 megabytes, you
may be able to get updated drivers that will correct the problem. Check with your
PC Card Reader manufacturer for better drivers.

If your PC Card manufacturer does not provide better drivers and you are using
Windows 95 with the real mode drivers (CSMAPPER.SYS and CARDDRV.EXE
in your CONFIG.SYS file) then you may be able to upgrade your system with the
protected mode drivers provided at http://www.m-sys.com/download.htm. These
drivers are only for Windows 95 and you should only try them as an alternate to
the real mode drivers. Entek IRD does not support these drivers and makes no
guarantees of their reliability.

These alternate drivers are 32-bit protected mode drivers. They are mainly for
Flash PC Cards but they also include some support for SRAM PC Cards. In
some systems these drivers provide a better SRAM PC Card formatting
capability than the Windows 95 real mode drivers. In other words, if your
experiencing problems with your system, these drivers may allow you to put the
correct 6 megabyte format on a 6 megabyte SRAM PC Card.

If you want to try the protected mode drivers, review the license agreement at the
web site, download the file and read all the instructions. Then basically you need
to do the following. Remove the real mode drivers from your system. You can
do this by commenting them out by placing “REM” at the beginning of the
CSMAPPER.SYS and CARDDRV.EXE lines in your CONFIG.SYS file. Then
reboot your system. Use Device Manager to make sure that the “PCMCIA
socket” device driver is installed. Remove any PC Cards from all of your PC
Card Reader slots. Run the downloaded executable, TFFS95.EXE. Finally,
reboot your system.

After installing these protected mode drivers, your system may behave a little
differently. With the real mode drivers, you may have had a permanent drive
letter assigned to your PC Card Reader slot regardless of whether an SRAM PC
Card was inserted or not. With the new drivers the drive letter may only be
available when an SRAM PC Card is inserted. The drive letter may be
unassigned when you remove the PC Card. This behavior is OK.
 By the way, the Windows 98 version of this protected mode driver is included on
the Windows 98 CD in the \DRIVERS\STORAGE\FTL folder. Read the
TFFS9X.TXT file for instructions.

If the protected mode drivers referenced above are not any help, then you may
be able to find a different set of drivers on the Internet. Or you may be able to
use a third party package like the one offered at
http://www.award.com/cardware/cwlinx.htm.

Using Your Memory Card

What is the difference between formatting a card and initializing a card?
An SRAM PC Card must be formatted before files can be stored on it. This is
directly comparable to the way a floppy disk or hard drive must be formatted
before files can be stored on them.

An SRAM PC Card must also be initialized for use in a dataPAC instrument.

Special files are copied to a newly formatted card in order to initialize the card for
the dataPAC. Without these files the dataPAC will not be able to use the card.

Note that on EMONITOR Odyssey’s Data Collector Functions dialog box

(accessed through the Load/Unload dialog box) there is a button named
“Initialize data collector”. This button does not initialize the dataPAC memory
card. This button will delete all the routes from the dataPAC memory card.

Can I use the same memory card between different models or versions of the
dataPAC?
Not exactly. You can use the same card with a dataPAC 1250 and a dataPAC
1500 or with version 3 and version 4 for example. But the card will have to be re-
initialized whenever you change dataPAC models or versions. And re-initializing
includes re-formatting so all the data on your card will be deleted.

When I use my dataPAC I get an error that states, “Database ERROR: Wrong
Version on Memory Card”. What does that mean?
When a dataPAC memory card is initialized it is marked for use with a particular
version of the operating system for a particular dataPAC model. For example, a
card initialized for the dataPAC 1250 can not be used in a dataPAC 1500. And a
card initialized for dataPAC 1500 V3 can not be used with dataPAC 1500 V4.

You can only use this card with the dataPAC model and operating system
version that the card was initialized for. Alternately, you can re-initialize the card
for dataPAC model and operating system version that you have available. Note
that all the data on the card will be deleted when the card is re-initialized.

I have a PC Card Reader and when I try to format a card from Windows, I get this
error, “The options currently selected are invalid. Choose a different option and
try again.” What should I do?
Go to the MS-DOS prompt (Start | Programs | MS-DOS Prompt) and enter the
command, “FORMAT X:” where X is the drive letter for your PC Card Reader. If
the “abort, retry, fail” error is displayed, respond with “F” (fail). A few tries might
 be necessary but eventually your card should get formatted correctly. Once the
MS-DOS format completes, you should be able to return to Windows and format
from Windows.

Memory Card Batteries

My dataPAC displays an error stating that the memory card battery is low or bad.
What should I do?
First make sure the PC Card is correctly inserted into the dataPAC memory slot
and make sure the card slot door is closed. If you continue to get the error you
may need to replace or recharge the battery contained within the PC Card.

What type of battery does the dataPAC PC Card use?

The various PC Card manufacturers use different batteries in their PC Cards.
The best way determine what battery your PC Card uses is to take the battery
out and read the model number printed on the battery.

Note that removing the battery from the PC Card may result in loss of the data
stored on the PC Card. The PC Card may have to be re-formatted and re-
initialized once you replace the battery.

Where can I buy a replacement battery?

Take the old battery to your local Radio Shack. They’ll probably have a
replacement.

My PC Card doesn’t have a battery door. What’s the deal?

Some more modern SRAM PC Cards have a rechargeable battery. The
manufacturer felt there was no need to ever replace the battery so they
permanently sealed it in the card.

Is my PC Card battery rechargeable?

If you can remove the battery from the card it is probably not rechargeable. If
you can’t remove the battery from the card it probably is rechargeable. Check
with the card manufacturer to be sure.

How do I recharge my rechargeable PC Card battery?

Rechargeable PC Card batteries get some amount of recharging during normal
use of the card in the dataPAC or in a PC Card Reader. A rechargeable battery
in a card that is used regularly should maintain its charge indefinitely.

If you are interested, you can purchase a battery card charger from Centennial
Technologies Inc. (1-800-942-0018 or 44.1344.75.1213 in Europe).