[ltp] Ultrabay...Does it work, or not?

[Tino Keitel]

On Wednesday, 26. September 2001 04:49, Andrius Ciziunas wrote:
> Hi All--
>
> 	I've found many different sites on information about Utrabay
> drives.  Some, like the FAQ on the linux-thinkpad.org site seem to say
> that it is supported under Linux.  Others, like many of the setup pages on
> the web, suggest that it's not possible.  Can someone tell me what's
> right?
>
> 	A little about my system:  It's a Thinkpad T22, I run a hand built
> system (built from a very base install of debian, then I compiled
> everything compiled from scratch...Yes, I am a massachist, who likes to
> know his system inside and out).  Anyway, I've got a floppy, DVD-ROM and
> Zip Drive, all Ultrabay.  I'm getting sick of having to restart my box to
> swap these out.

On my TP 765L, I don't use any hdx=... options. All I have to do is boot with 
the CD-ROM in the bay. After that I can swap the CD-ROM and the floppy drive 
and vise versa during the TP is suspended.

If I don't boot with the CD-ROM in the bay the kernel won't know 
anything about the CD-ROM on the IDE interface. I also tried hdb=cdrom to 
work around this but I experienced crashes sometimes when I suspended.

I have the cdrom and floppy drivers compiled as modules. But it should also 
work with drivers compiled in the kernel since I managed it to install Debian 
Potato from the CD set with boot floppys (my TP can't boot from CD-ROM).

If your ZIP drive is also an IDE device, this method won't work if you want 
to swap the DVD-ROM and ZIP drive because the kernel won't recognize the new 
IDE device. Maybe you will be happy with the -U and -R parameters of hdparm. 
(hdparm -U /dev/... ; suspend ; swap the drives ; resume ; hdparm -R /dev/...)

Tino

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