50 pin laptop->IDE convertor?

Arathranar · 09-21-2004, 04:10 PM

I have a very small Toshiba laptop drive that I could potentially use in my auto pc. It's smaller than the standard 2.5" drives and has a 50 pin female connector (i.e. 50 holes, not 50 pins). Does anyone know of a convertor that would let me use this? The drive is 54x78x5mm in size.

antimatter · 09-21-2004, 04:17 PM

look on logic supply

Arathranar · 09-21-2004, 04:22 PM

I've looked there and many other ITX web sites and all I've seen is convertors from the standard 2.5" laptop drives. Those won't work for this little guy.

Arathranar · 09-21-2004, 04:45 PM

For reference, the connector on the hard drive is identical in size and pin arrangement (as far as I can tell by sight) to a CF card. However, since the drive itself is bigger than a CF card, I cannot plug it into a CF socket to see if it works.

Does anyone make a CF-card extender that I could use to hook up the drive to a CF socket without the casing being in the way. I suppose I might be able to get a CF->IDE convertor and see if I can use the drive that way...

antimatter · 09-21-2004, 05:38 PM

post a picture

Yuriy · 09-21-2004, 05:46 PM

You might want to look into a thing called "gender changer".
Here's the result on Froogle:

Remember - you have 50 pins, which means that if it is IDE interfaced (which I'm almost 100% sure it is) 4 of the pins are used for jumper settings. You don't want to mess with those. Usially the four jumper pins are on the right side when you flip the drive with its controller board facing up and the pins pointing downwards.

Although, this could also be a PCMCIA drive, in which case you will need to buy one of those IDE-PCMCIA connectors or a USB-PCMCIA. Don't worry, those are pretty cheap. Now that I think about it (after reading your description twice), Toshiba is famous for making PCMCIA drives for laptops, and this might just be it. Does your drive look like this?

If so, then look for IDE to PCMCIA converters

Yuriy · 09-21-2004, 05:52 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Arathranar

For reference, the connector on the hard drive is identical in size and pin arrangement (as far as I can tell by sight) to a CF card. However, since the drive itself is bigger than a CF card, I cannot plug it into a CF socket to see if it works.

Does anyone make a CF-card extender that I could use to hook up the drive to a CF socket without the casing being in the way. I suppose I might be able to get a CF->IDE convertor and see if I can use the drive that way...

That's it! It's a PCMCIA drive. CF cards are PCMCIA II complaint, only smaller in size. If you look at a PCMCIA-CF converter you will notice that the pins are connected directly to each other. Anyways, your drive is most likely PCMCIA, just look for a device like this:

This is called an IDE to PCMCIA adapter, there are usually quite a few on eBay to choose from and there are smaller versions too. You just have to look around a bit.

Arathranar · 09-23-2004, 04:54 PM

The drive isn't a PCMCIA form factor but it is, as far as I can tell, exactly PCMCIA sized except at the connection end where the last 4mm are the about the width of a CF card if you ignore the rails present that a CF card would slide in on (it's actually maybe 1mm shorter than that).

The likelihood is that it's intentionally PCMCIA sized but with a CF connector instead to minimize space needed inside the laptop for the connector. I imagine the contents (the platters/electronics) ship in other true PCMCIA devices.

Unfortunately I keep forgetting to bring my camera to take a picture so you'll have to stick with my attempts at describing it for the meantime :-(.

antimatter · 09-23-2004, 05:02 PM

Quote:

Unfortunately I keep forgetting to bring my camera to take a picture so you'll have to stick with my attempts at describing it for the meantime

Then you will have to stick with our complete guesses for answers for now

Arathranar · 10-05-2004, 03:05 PM

Finally. Here are the piccies.

pip · 10-05-2004, 03:31 PM

Well, it certainly LOOKS like a CF interface, but we have no way of knowing its pin-compatible. Do a

and see what the interface specs are, if its CF then an IDE/CF adapter could be modified to work.

Edit: Its a 1.8" Embedded HDD for MP3 players etc. Specs here: http://www.toshiba-europe.com/storag..._Datasheet.pdf

Bangster · 10-05-2004, 03:50 PM

***Other than the differences in voltages, 3.3 v versus 5.0 v for 2.5 inch drives***

It looks like it has the same pin size and pitch as laptop 44 pin, and looking at the specs for the drive at the Toshiba site, it APPEARS to use the same pinout as 2.5 laptop 44 pin drives. http://sdd.toshiba.com/main.aspx?Pat...00659c00000641

And it should be noted that 2.5 drives are actually 50 pin also. 44 data, 2 missing, then 4 for the Master/Slave/CS pins. 50 total. Just use those gender changers someone else posted above (I got them for a buck a piece for each row, two required).

I haven't played around with a 1.8 inch drive yet, but I have been using laptop drives in a couple of different systems that have required me making cables with double ends and flipping them, and using the gender changers. I don't know how to deal with the different voltage requirements/uses.

http://www.ddknet.co.jp/us/products/...d_d/index.html might be of some use also.

Arathranar · 10-05-2004, 04:01 PM

So to summarize, I just need to get a 50 pin gender changed and use an existing laptop->IDE convertor? I thought they were only 44 pin? Is the pin out of a 2.5" laptop drive really identical in size to the pin-out on this drive (not having one to compare to, I don't know the answer to that).

tracker92 · 10-05-2004, 04:07 PM

so what is this drive exactley called what are the sizes of the drive 40 18 120 gig where can you get these ebay?? direct from the manufacture??

i want to tag along with this and see wht you come up with to use this drive

thanks

chad

Bangster · 10-05-2004, 04:11 PM

Actually, after some easy quick google searches, it looks like the pitch is 1.27 mm for the 1.8 inch drive IDE, 2 mm for 44 pin 2.5 inch drive IDE (and 2.54 mm for 40).

A little google time, and going to the drive manufacturers web page brought up all this information pretty quickly and painlessly.