P2 offload Lenovo S10 with addonics adapter

Jason Adams

Jason Adams

Section Moderator
I am starting a new thread on this because this is a how to. There is another thread that was started on this asking if it could work. It was stated that the Lenovo S10 would not work as a p2 offload station. My continued tests have proven this to be incorrect and I did not want you to dig through 4 pages to find a set up guide.

This is as concise as I could remember it.

*OS - I am using the XP HOME that came pre installed. Other users have installed OS10, Vista and even WIN7 with some results but none have posted any good results with the adapter. This set up guide uses the Out-of-the-box S10e OS.

Hardware:
Lenovo S10e - Radio Shack for 299.00.
Addonics express to card buss adapter - addonics for 59.99

I am also using E series P2 cards. - This is exciting because Addonics has had limited success with their adapters and E series cards, but this set up works.


Install.

1.) Install the p2 drivers from panasonic - make sure you have the latest ones
2.) Insert the adapter - DO NOT PUT THE P2 card in the adapter just yet. Winxp will detect and auto install the pci-pci bridge
3.) remove adapter from computer and reboot

NOTE - It is important to think of the p2 card and the adapter as a single card. Do not simply eject the p2 card and reinsert into the adapter, You need to always disconnect and reconnect the adapter and p2 card as one unit.

4.) After reboot insert the card (p2 and addonics together) then you need to manually install the drivers for the p2 card. Yes. After you have already installed the driver package from panasonic.

addonics has some screen cap videos to help with this.

vid 1
Vid 2

addonics does have good support. They remote controlled my desktop to do this. If you can not get it give them a call.

If done correctly the netbook will detect the card and display it as a drive that you can see with win Explorer or p2 viewer.

When you are finished with the card remove it (again adapter and p2 card as one) the drive will unmount and disappear from the WinExplorer.

QUIRKS: The next step is to make provision for one of the limitations of this adapter/hardware combo. The netbook WILL NOT AUTO MOUNT THE CARD WHEN IT IS RECONNECTED. This hardware is only somewhat hot swapable. Not to worry there is a work around that only adds 2 clicks to mount the card.

5.) Go to control panel (classic view) and right click on "add hardware" button. Select create shortcut. This will place a shortcut on the desktop. I renamed my shortcut "refresh p2" and even changed its Icon.

When you reinsert the card (again card and adapter) the led on the adapter will light but not mount. Go to our new desktop short cut and double click. The new hardware wizzard launches. Click next and immediatly the card will mount. YOU DO NOT NEED TO RUN THE WIZARD ALL THE WAY THROUGH. You can cancel the wizard after hitting next. The next button will refresh hardware changes and mount the card.

If you are familiar with device manager you can refresh from there to mount card.


To recap the workflow from now on is

1.) inserts card/adapter combo.
2.) rescan hardware or use our desktop shortcut work-around to mount card
3.) offload with winExplorer or P2 viewer
4.) remove card/adapter combo together when finished
5.) repeat with next card


Final Quirk:

I have noticed if you boot your machine with the adapter plugged in it disables the WIFI. I can only assume that system is expecting the pcmcia adapter to be an air card and makes provision for it by disabling WIFI. Removing adapter and rebooting will re-enable WIFI.

UPDATE - Thanks for the Question Barry. Sorry I was not clear on this. You can have WIFI and card at the same time. JUST DON'T BOOT THE MACHINE with card in the express slot. As long as you plug your card into the netbook after it has booted you can have WIFI and read P2 cards.



UPDATE - WINDOWS 7

Just wanted to let everyone know I just got this working on a WIN7. I set it up on WIN 7 Home Premium machine from my local Sam's Club.

WIN 7 actually works better because it does away with the rescan/remount task.

Just follow the directions as usual, but instead of creating a desktop shortcut to scan for hardware changes. Just scan once and the card will mount. Then go to the card in WIN EXPLORER right click and hit eject. If you eject the card in WIN 7 before you unplug it will auto mount when you plug it back it.



Summation:

For my money the cost/performance of this solution far outweighs the quirks. This is a portable battery powered P2 offload station for around 500 bucks.

Not to mention the netbook has an sd slot for scene files/metadata it makes it a great companion for p2 cameras.

Even with Software, OS, and recovery partition I have 135gigs available on the drive for p2 data.

They even make a 9 cell battery for this NETbook that will run the computer for nearly 8 hours. I don't know what that would translate to with heavy p2 offloading and hard drive spinning but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Thanks
Jason
 
Last edited:
Thanks Jason, very very interesting...
How is the transfer rate with your system ?
Click to expand...

Ok this is cool. It is almost twice as fast as downloading from the camera via USB.

I downloaded a full 16 card in 4:50 seconds. I re-downloaded the same card via USB from Camera in 9:50 seconds.

These times are approximate I clicked transfer and hit go on a stop watch.

This is awesome. I use to use my dell laptop hooked up to an external usb drive. The 16 gig card would take almost 18minutes from camera USB to external USB HD.
 
Oooh, man, that's the perfect offload device. Wish it had gigabit ethernet so all our Mac users could be hooked up with a single-slot card reader for under $400! Well, actually, I guess they can, because you can get a USB to Gigabit Ethernet adapter for under $40, so yeah, for under $400 here's a fully functional, brand-new, P2 offloading station which just so happens to have 160GB of internal storage. Nice find, Jason!

About the wifi - can you manually turn it on and off with the radio slider switch? Any way to have both wifi and expresscard at the same time?
 
About the wifi - can you manually turn it on and off with the radio slider switch? Any way to have both wifi and expresscard at the same time?
Click to expand...
Sorry I was not clear. It is only a problem if you BOOT the machine with the adapter plugged in. If you mount the card and adapter after the OS is booted and logged in then you Have WIFI and can use the card adapter. Just don't leave the card in during a boot cycle.


I am getting really jazzed about this. This machine uses a a standard 2.5 inch sata drive. IT MAY VOID YOUR ORIGINAL HD WARRENTY but you could put a 350 or 500 gig drive in the netbook or even go SSD.

Tiger direct has a 500 gig 7200 rpm drive for 129.00 bucks.

Here are tutorials on how easy drive upgrades are.

written tutorial

Video Tutorial

I mentioned Battery Upgrades. HERE IS A COMPARISON.

3 cell weighs 150gm, lasts for 2 hr and takes 2 hr to charge
6 cell weighs 300gm, lasts for 4.5 hr and takes 4 hr to charge
9 cell weighs 450gm, lasts for 7 hr and takes 6 hr to charge


 
very nice write-up

i'm tempted to get this offloading setup

so how does the battery upgrade work?

do you just buy a bigger cell and replace it?
 
Very Nice bit of trial and error Jason,

No doubt this set-up will suit many users, Pity Addonics and Other product suppliers don't do tests as yours to sell their products .. You'd think they would having so much to gain ? a strange world we live in.

Cheers
Tom K
 
More tests.

I happy to report that using this in the field has performed flawlessly. This thing also saved my butt. I had to send my HPX off for service and I had p2 data on a card that I needed for an approaching deadline. After panicking because I had no camera to offload with I remembered my netbook adapter. Project saved. The addad value of not having to use your camera for offload is really incredible.

ON TO THE TESTS:

I wanted to post a speed compasrison of going to the internal HD and going to an external HD.

I had 7 gigs on a card. I downloaded once to the the internal Netbook HD and once to a buss powered USB Seagate Free Agent Go. (Its a small buss powered 5400 rpm drive)

P2 to USB HD - 5:45
p2 to NETBOOK HD - 3:06

Times are apoxamite. Timed with a stop watch.

So the added buss transfer load adds time as expected but it still very usable in my opinion.
 
I'd take a minute per gig of data if I didn't have to use my camera as a card reader (your test shows less, I know). This is pushing me closer to the edge of picking up one of these little netbooks. Thanks for the research and write up Jason.
 
Great Find Jason!! So are we saying that the Addonics adapter should work with any Expresscard slot on just about any laptop running Vista? I realize that you only tested this on the S10 but in theory...
 
NOT VISTA. I have not tested Vista. I am not saying it will not work, but I have only tested XP pro and XP home.

I did not mention this in the write up but I also have this working on a Dell Inspiron laptop running XP Pro SP2

Theoretically this should work with OTHER LAPTOPS. The Netbook is a real advantage because of cost, size, and portability.
 
I don't know if anyone is still checking this thread, but I bought exactly the above system, the addonics card and the lenovo s10e, but when I insert the addonics adaptor, the entire system freezes, and will not respond to any input. I have to hold down the power key to restart. If I try to start with the adaptor in place, the system will not boot. Any ideas? Thanks!
 
I had the same problem. When I took the adapter out it would be fine. I finally got it working by taking out the card, shutting off the machine. Putting the P2 card and the Addonics adapter in together, powering up the machine and then installing the drivers as suggested above. I hvae not done extensive testing yet but all seems to work - have the glitch menitoned above with inserting a new P2 card - just have to do the Add Hardware step and all seems to work.
 
Awesome, that was great advice, that fixed the freezing problem. However, now I have a problem where P2CMS says that it can't access the database, then when I try to read the card, it says that there might be a problem with virtual memory, then crashes. Any ideas about that? Thanks!
 
Glad that worked.. Hmm..have not heard of your latest problem - I don't use P2cms - I just use the viewer for everything so not sure...You could try the Panasonic web site for support or maybe someone else here can shed some light...Good luck...
 
Glad to hear others are having success with this. I also don't use P2cms. I just use viewer. Report back if you find a solution. Thanks guys.
 
I thought I'd point out that the 750gb version of the Scorpio Blue laptop HD is out:
LINK

The 1TB version should be around sometime soon(I hope)...that'd be THE offloading machine, lol.

A netbook/Addonics/1TB dumping station? it doesn't get much better then that.
 
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