I've only used PCMCIA CF adapters. Those are pretty much plug and play. Does the PCMCIA adapter show up in the device manager? Have you tried running add/remove hardware from the control panel?

Are the drivers installed for the PCMCIA bus controller?

more to the point, are you sure they are the CORRECT ones?

wierd_w wrote on 2024-04-21, 08:54:

Are the drivers installed for the PCMCIA bus controller?

more to the point, are you sure they are the CORRECT ones?

Yes the drivers are installed. No exclamation mark in device manager.

This is not always indicative that the CORRECT ones are loaded, sadly.

I remember facing this issue *A LOT* back in the day, especially with regard to Texas Instruments PCMCIA and Opti PCMCIA controllers.

Have you verified function with some other PCMCIA card? Card services properly start and stop, eg, modems?

I think apart from PCMCIA drivers Win95 needs drivers to support SD cards. Not sure they exist, however.
Just like it needs IDE device drivers to work with CF card(in a PCMCIA adapter).
Did your adapter come with own drivers?

wierd_w wrote on 2024-04-21, 09:08:

This is not always indicative that the CORRECT ones are loaded, sadly.

I remember facing this issue *A LOT* back in the day, especially with regard to Texas Instruments PCMCIA and Opti PCMCIA controllers.

Have you verified function with some other PCMCIA card? Card services properly start and stop, eg, modems?

I only have a wifi pcmcia adapter. I'll check if something happens when I insert it, even if windows 95 doesn't know anything about wifi.

Bondi wrote on 2024-04-21, 09:20:

I think apart from PCMCIA drivers Win95 needs drivers to support SD cards. Not sure they exist, however.
Just like it needs IDE device drivers to work with CF card(in a PCMCIA adapter).
Did your adapter come with own drivers?

No, no drivers. But since it is an adapter it should be transparent to the os that on the other side od the pcmcia bus is a cf, sd, etc. Information about pcmcia to sd adapters Are scarce on the net, but I have noticed that they are advertised as driver free.

Proto-Schlock wrote on 2024-04-21, 08:13:

I've only used PCMCIA CF adapters. Those are pretty much plug and play. Does the PCMCIA adapter show up in the device manager? Have you tried running add/remove hardware from the control panel?

No, it does not show. Yup, tried add hardware wizzard, nothing is found. I consider getting an pcmcia cf adapter. But since it is an adapter, it should be transparent to the os that it is an sd or cf at the other end.

George Razvan wrote on 2024-04-21, 09:32:

Bondi wrote on 2024-04-21, 09:20:

I think apart from PCMCIA drivers Win95 needs drivers to support SD cards. Not sure they exist, however.
Just like it needs IDE device drivers to work with CF card(in a PCMCIA adapter).
Did your adapter come with own drivers?

No, no drivers. But since it is an adapter it should be transparent to the os that on the other side od the pcmcia bus is a cf, sd, etc. Information about pcmcia to sd adapters Are scarce on the net, but I have noticed that they are advertised as driver free.

What's the brand of your adapter? Does it officially state support of Win9x?
I think it really depends on the adapter if it's transparent to the OS. If it has internal conversion from SD to IDE, then it can be seen by an older OS. But it may also rely on external drivers or newer OS, which has built-in support for SD cards.

Bondi wrote on 2024-04-21, 10:13:

George Razvan wrote on 2024-04-21, 09:32:

Bondi wrote on 2024-04-21, 09:20:

I think apart from PCMCIA drivers Win95 needs drivers to support SD cards. Not sure they exist, however.
Just like it needs IDE device drivers to work with CF card(in a PCMCIA adapter).
Did your adapter come with own drivers?

No, no drivers. But since it is an adapter it should be transparent to the os that on the other side od the pcmcia bus is a cf, sd, etc. Information about pcmcia to sd adapters Are scarce on the net, but I have noticed that they are advertised as driver free.

What's the brand of your adapter? Does it officially state support of Win9x?
I think it really depends on the adapter if it's transparent to the OS. If it has internal conversion from SD to IDE, then it can be seen by an older OS. But it may also rely on external drivers or newer OS, which has built-in support for SD cards.

NEC. I have tried with my only other adapter that I have, which is an asus wifi adapter. Nothing happens. I haven't found any information about this laptop, so I don't know anything about it's pcmcia brigde. It is identified as a Omega micro pci to pcmicia bridge. Seems to work in device manager.

If cards dont make a "BooDoop!!" sound when inserted, then the bridge driver is NOT working correctly.

VCFED saves the day with a link to NEC FTP archive via Archive.org, that should work with this machine.

https://archive.org/details/ftp.necam.com

Double check that the CORRECT PCMCIA bridge driver is loaded, then be sure that cards properly announce when inserted or removed.

wierd_w wrote on 2024-04-21, 10:38:

If cards dont make a "BooDoop!!" sound when inserted, then the bridge driver is NOT working correctly.

No sound.

wierd_w wrote on 2024-04-21, 10:42:

VCFED saves the day with a link to NEC FTP archive via Archive.org, that should work with this machine.

https://archive.org/details/ftp.necam.com

Double check that the CORRECT PCMCIA bridge driver is loaded, then be sure that cards properly announce when inserted or removed.

Awesome. Tks, get back with the results.

wierd_w wrote on 2024-04-21, 10:42:

VCFED saves the day with a link to NEC FTP archive via Archive.org, that should work with this machine.

https://archive.org/details/ftp.necam.com

Double check that the CORRECT PCMCIA bridge driver is loaded, then be sure that cards properly announce when inserted or removed.

Still does not work. Reinstalled the driver. There is only one driver for this laptop, so I have no other ideas.

George Razvan wrote on 2024-04-21, 09:35:

But since it is an adapter, it should be transparent to the os that it is an sd or cf at the other end.

It depends - many, probably most, do simulate the most common applicable disk (so presumably a CF for PCMCIA - though you still get their choice of memory mapped/port mapped/IDE compatible modes in that case), but others are native/original-ish interfaces needing drivers (probably more common for the minority and more proprietary cards like SM, 🤣, MS)

In modern Linux this would appear as sd* versus mmcblk* 😀

But yeah, in either case the card would appear as a PCMCIA accessory!

Can you show your Nec SD adapter?

You can find a trial version of Cardware 7.0 at tssc.de, give it a try.

lolo799 wrote on 2024-04-22, 20:06:

Can you show your Nec SD adapter?

You can find a trial version of Cardware 7.0 at tssc.de, give it a try.

This is the adapter. I don't have any experience with pcmcia. So besides the drivers I need... What? What are Windows 95 pc card services?

The 'pc card services' driver is a kind of ... 'control interface' for the cards in question.

A software interface that lets windows talk to cards to get info on what resources they need, allows windows to start and stop cards being enabled, inform when a card has been inserted or removed, etc.

Win9x has some generic ones, but they dont always work right, even if they load right (or claim to, anyway...)

In your case, when the card is inserted, 'something' should show up in the device manager tree when the card is inserted, and once the card starts, you should hear an audio signal that the card started: a 'boo-doop!' Sound, with a mid-tone as the boo and a higher tone as the doop. (When a card is stopped, its a midtone followed by a lower tone.)

If no tones are heard, and nothing shows up in device manager, it usually means the pcmcia card services driver is not working correctly.