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Card Reader Recommendation
- Thread starter bitbum
- Start date
Nazo
2[H]4U
- Joined
- Apr 2, 2002
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- 3,672
Personally, I've been pretty happy with my Lexar multi-card reader (I STRONGLY recommend a multicard reader, not single card. It's only $5 or so extra and that way in the future you can use other types of cards.)
That said, I can safely say that a good card reader can easily replace your floppy drive. In fact, it's far faster besides holding more space. Optionally, you can get an internal one (Mitsumi makes this nice little thing that has a floppy drive and memory card reader in one device) however, an external one gives you something you can remove and carry with you to a friend's pc or at work or something. I should warn you that in Windows 9x (except ME) and NT4 you will need special drivers to get the thing working though. And it's rare that those drivers are 100% stable. However, in ME, 2000, and XP they work without even needing drivers.
BTW, one alternative is a jump drive. It's basically just a little flash card built directly into it's own simple reader that plugs into the USB. Basically they are made to fit in your thumb, so many are called "thum drives" as well. I like the versatility of a memory card reader myself though. I can have multiple cards and easily upgrade just by replacing one of them.
Oh, and memory card readers have NOTHING to do with flashing a ROM. Nothing. Sorry.
That said, I can safely say that a good card reader can easily replace your floppy drive. In fact, it's far faster besides holding more space. Optionally, you can get an internal one (Mitsumi makes this nice little thing that has a floppy drive and memory card reader in one device) however, an external one gives you something you can remove and carry with you to a friend's pc or at work or something. I should warn you that in Windows 9x (except ME) and NT4 you will need special drivers to get the thing working though. And it's rare that those drivers are 100% stable. However, in ME, 2000, and XP they work without even needing drivers.
BTW, one alternative is a jump drive. It's basically just a little flash card built directly into it's own simple reader that plugs into the USB. Basically they are made to fit in your thumb, so many are called "thum drives" as well. I like the versatility of a memory card reader myself though. I can have multiple cards and easily upgrade just by replacing one of them.
Oh, and memory card readers have NOTHING to do with flashing a ROM. Nothing. Sorry.
Hi Nazo,
Thanks for the info. I think I will look into your recommendations. I mostly like the idea of having 256 MB available instead of just 1.4 MB of storage.
I've had occasion to flash my bios from time to time. Most recently I flashed using ABITs cool flash utility for Windows, very nice. But in the past I have flashed from a boot floppy. So, I'm wondering if I didn't express myself very well.
AFAIK, the BIOS is stored on the ROM chip. What I meant to ask is, can you flash a BIOS from a memory card formatted as a boot device? Have you ever tried this?
Thanks for the info. I think I will look into your recommendations. I mostly like the idea of having 256 MB available instead of just 1.4 MB of storage.
I've had occasion to flash my bios from time to time. Most recently I flashed using ABITs cool flash utility for Windows, very nice. But in the past I have flashed from a boot floppy. So, I'm wondering if I didn't express myself very well.
AFAIK, the BIOS is stored on the ROM chip. What I meant to ask is, can you flash a BIOS from a memory card formatted as a boot device? Have you ever tried this?
CrimandEvil
Dick with a heart of gold
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2003
- Messages
- 19,670
Nazo
2[H]4U
- Joined
- Apr 2, 2002
- Messages
- 3,672
Ah. Newer BIOS models have a nice feature where they can boot from flash drives. If you have a clean enough reader, it will work with this, though I suspect you can only use whichever of the cards is considered first (for example, in my reader smartmedia is the first device, so I suspect I could only boot from my smartmedia card.) It will not do this by default however. You will need to go to the bios settings and look at the boot ordering stuff to see if you can add this. I recommend something to the effect of: Floppy, usb, cdrom with boot other enabled (this should make it go straight to the first harddrive. if it doesn't, then you'll have to make it usb,cdrom,hd.)
And CrimandEvil, that's precicely the model I saw, though the one I saw was just a tiny bit cheaper since it was the white version (that paint ends up costing the end-user more than the paint itself is worth.)
Of course, just bear in mind that an external reader can be removed and carried around. Then again, you can have an internal for at home and have a seperate external that you can take around with you. Cheap me, I just stick with one external reader that I take with me and no internal (though I am kind of considering getting one of those mitsumi drives.)
BTW, if you get a multicard reader, I would suggest making sure it supports smartmedia, compact flash, and secure digital/mmc. These three are the most common. If it supports xD or whatever it's not such a big deal (though could still be useful.) Just to be sure you have the most important ones. ESPECIALLY you want compact flash. It's the cheapest, least limited, and most compatible (my ancient P1-75MHz laptop with no 32-bit PCMCIA bus can support CF through a cheap adaptor (it practically just redirects the wires, there's almost no actual circuitry in it) in Windows 95 with no drivers! CF apparently follows the ATA standard or something from what I've read. Also, since it's one of the largest, it's the least limited space-wise. I've seen ads for some CF cards in the gigabyte range. I think I even saw one that was 4GB...)
And CrimandEvil, that's precicely the model I saw, though the one I saw was just a tiny bit cheaper since it was the white version (that paint ends up costing the end-user more than the paint itself is worth.)
Of course, just bear in mind that an external reader can be removed and carried around. Then again, you can have an internal for at home and have a seperate external that you can take around with you. Cheap me, I just stick with one external reader that I take with me and no internal (though I am kind of considering getting one of those mitsumi drives.)
BTW, if you get a multicard reader, I would suggest making sure it supports smartmedia, compact flash, and secure digital/mmc. These three are the most common. If it supports xD or whatever it's not such a big deal (though could still be useful.) Just to be sure you have the most important ones. ESPECIALLY you want compact flash. It's the cheapest, least limited, and most compatible (my ancient P1-75MHz laptop with no 32-bit PCMCIA bus can support CF through a cheap adaptor (it practically just redirects the wires, there's almost no actual circuitry in it) in Windows 95 with no drivers! CF apparently follows the ATA standard or something from what I've read. Also, since it's one of the largest, it's the least limited space-wise. I've seen ads for some CF cards in the gigabyte range. I think I even saw one that was 4GB...)
Just as a side note. Make sure you check reviews for compatability with whatever OS you're using. I bought an AOpen internal reader (plugs to the internal USB) and no matter what I did I couldn't get it to work. Then I went and read reviews and saw soem people posting about not being able to install it. When I originally bought it i assumed it was people who didn't know jack about installing computer stuff, but i guess i was wrong.
CrimandEvil
Dick with a heart of gold
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2003
- Messages
- 19,670
Yeah, I've checked around for the regular beige version but everyone seems to be out and Newegg has it for little more expensive (What's up with that?).