The DN-Boy

Technical Data

The PCMCIA interface card is a standard 16 bit IDE/Atapi type 2 plug and play card. The software used is standard and comes with the card services software supplied with your machine or with Windows 9x/NT/ME/2000/XP. In most newer laptops with 95/98/2000/ME/XP loaded it is hot swappable. In NT systems and some older non plug and play card sockets, the card must be inserted with the machine turned off. You CAN use two at the same time.

The USB1 USB2 and Firewire interfaces are standard IDE/Atapi The software used is standard and comes with Windows 9x/ME/2000/XP. Win98 requires a patch from Microsoft and/or some USB drivers loading. They are all hot swappable. You CAN use two at the same time. FDISK is supported.

The cable to disk carrier interface is half pitch 36 pin centronics. The desktop bay contains the same connection into which the carrier is inserted. This connection also carries the power supply when in the desktop.

The desktop bay fits as a standard 3.5-inch disk with standard 40pin ribbon and power connectors. It is made mostly of metal with a plastic front and a hinged dust flap.

The disk carrier is made of rigid plastic - top and bottom - which clip together. It contains a circuit board which holds circuitry mainly for power control and the led which show power and usage status. The disk is screwed to this circuit board - I tend not to bother if I am going to be using it in the office and changing the drives regularly. There is an on/off switch on the front which also acts as a lock-in device when in the desktop. There is a small circular power socket at the back next to the data connector which is used for a 5 volt power supply - either from the keyboard/mouse socket adapter or from a mains power adapter. It draws a peak current of 1.7amps when spinning up the drive.

The disk can be any 2.5-inch autodetectable (try and find one that isn't!) disk of 15mm height or less. You cannot FDISK it whilst it is connected via the PC card since to do so it must have been recognised by the BIOS (If this is a problem I DO HAVE A WORKROUND that works, but it is undocumented and therefore not recommended, although I have never had any problems with it). I also suggest that it is only formatted in BIOS recognised mode (i.e. in the desktop or as an installed hard disk in a laptop). It is also a good idea to make it a system disk if you intend to boot from it at a later stage.


The following is how I use the DN-Boy

I split my disks into 3 partitions:
  1. The first for the laptop hard disk power saving mode.
  2. The last of 64-256Mb reserved purely for swap files (saves fragmentation, and makes it easier to copy the real stuff)
  3. The rest in the middle for the data.
I use Windows explorer to copy my disks. First make sure that you can see all file extensions and all hidden, system, and read only files. Then delete all *.tmp  *.gid  *.old  *.bak  *.001(beware faxes)  *.002  *.log(again beware fax logs) and any other unwanted files. Clear down your browser caches and history. If your swap file is on the drive you want to copy, try restarting your machine without a swap file and then delete it. Alternativly boot into command prompt only and move the swap file from the windows folder into the root directory( this allows you to omit it from the copy operation). Delete all files on the target disk except IO.SYS. Click on drive C in the left pane of explorer to show all folders and file in the right pane. Select all files in the right pane, right click and copy. Point to target drive in left pane, right click and paste. Reply no to overwrite IO.SYS or use the SYS command when the copy is complete to transfer the system. The disk in the DN-Boy should now be usable as a replacement disk in your laptop in dire emergencies. I find that if I remove some of the software that I seldom use, I can zip the whole disk onto a CD or two for secure backup (I don't think you can span CDs using zip - I've never tried - but it doesn't take long to work out where to split the files manually and do two zips). Alternatively, I use Symantec Ghost which is to be recommended and well worth the cost.

Have a look at a picture and some uses.
The parts described
Prices and ordering
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Some useful links

If you live in the Midlands area and need PC services both private and business, I can arrange assistance.

A good supplier is Dabs Direct who sometimes do some good deals on repaired/returned stuff as well.

Also worth a look is Insight but you need to further select which country, or use Insight (formally Choice) in the UK

Simply Computers is another.

An absolute must have. Preview your mail before downloading it, restricted freeware or buy the full version.
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