# Novell generic probe failed



## balanga (Jan 25, 2016)

Any ideas on what this means?


```
Novell generic probe failed: 0
```

It happens when I insert an IBM Ethernet II Credit Card Adapter into a PCMCIA slot on my laptop.

I have tried three such cards and all give the same result.

Is this a driver problem or all three cards FUBAR? I do get a light on my switch when I connect up the cable.


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## tingo (Jan 26, 2016)

Which version of FreeBSD?


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## balanga (Jan 26, 2016)

FreeBSD 10.1-RELEASE

The cards are probably close to 20 years old so I'd imagine that they would have been supported in much earlier versions of FreeBSD


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## tingo (Jan 26, 2016)

The cards might still be supported (or they might not). Have you verified that the card slots and necessary infrastructure in your laptop is still supported? `dmesg` output and `pciconf -lv` might help.


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## phoenix (Jan 27, 2016)

If these are 16-bit PCMCIA cards, I don't think they'll work.  I forget who, but someone did a major clean-up/removal of old 16-bit PCMCIA drivers in FreeBSD 8 or 9, leaving only 32-bit PCCard support in place.  You'll want to test with an older version of FreeBSD (start with 6 and work your way up until it no longer works).  Most likely, there won't be a supported version of FreeBSD that supports those cards.


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