The Compact Flash Library provides routines for accessing data on Compact
Flash card. CF cards are widely used memory elements,
commonly used with digital cameras. Great capacity and excellent access time of
only a few microseconds make them very attractive for microcontroller
applications.
In CF card, data is divided into sectors. One sector usually comprises 512
bytes. Routines for file handling, the
Cf_Fat
routines, are not
performed directly but successively through 512B buffer.
Important :
- Routines for file handling can be used only with FAT16 file system.
- Library functions create and read files from the root directory only.
- Library functions populate both FAT1 and FAT2 tables when writing to files,
but the file data is being read from the FAT1 table only; i.e. there is no
recovery if the FAT1 table gets corrupted.
- If MMC/SD card has Master Boot Record (MBR), the library will work with the
first available primary (logical) partition that has non-zero size. If MMC/SD
card has Volume Boot Record (i.e. there is only one logical partition and no
MBRs), the library works with entire card as a single partition. For more
information on MBR, physical and logical drives, primary/secondary partitions
and partition tables, please consult other resources, e.g. Wikipedia and
similar.
- Before writing operation, make sure not to overwrite boot or FAT sector as
it could make your card on PC or digital camera unreadable. Drive mapping tools,
such as Winhex, can be of great assistance.