anyone know what would happen if you were solder a female usb port onto the memory card plug, then use a usb drive as a memory card?? it probably wouldnt work, would it??

i was thinking the same, the MU conforms to the usb specification. BUT, the MU only provides 3.3 volt (instead of 5 volt that usb uses), so you might be able to connect devices that will also work fine with 3.3 volt (perhaps an usb stick...?). an external usb hdd will not work, they will definitely need the 5 volt. perhaps this is solved by taking 5 volt elsewhere from the board.... let me know if you try it. perhaps the MU checks whether a 'real'
MS memory unit is connected, but with xreboot it might work if such checks are removed.

tried it, but didn't work. the usb stick does not show up. the usb stick is powered and the usb connector is soldered properly (if i stick a mu card into the slot, it works fine).

perhaps it needs to be formatted into fatx first, but i do not have a tool for it (don't know if it exists).

so no luck

that makes me wonder, i know there was a usb drive i saw a while ago, that had a sata port on the back side of it. if that was to be connected to the sata uptop, an xbreboot console would format it and make it work. an easy way to add 5v, i was thinking about taking the original memory card, take out the board, solder a usb plug into it, and have a usb cord coming out the side, so that you could have that plugged into the bottom usb ports on the console to pull the 5v required, i guess run the 5v and ground from the usb at the bottom of the console, then use the data lines from the memory card pins. shouldnt have any problem using an external hard drive tho. since most external enclosures use their own independant power bricks. do external enclosures even use the 5v from the usb??

if i had a spare memory card, dead one even, i would definently make this. i got all the other stuff, just not a memory card i can take apart.