Drive C: and up not mounting properly.

[ailer...@gmail.com]

I just unearthed my Altair-Duino that I made back when the Bamboo Box was popular. Version 1.4 on the PCB. 

For some reason I cannot mount mount to the C: drive and above. It just freezes. I could of sworn back in the day I would usually have two floppies and two hard-drives mounted.

I've tried both Hard drives in drive A: and B: then floppies in C: and D: and vis versa. Plust just 3 HD's. No matter what drive C: and D: are not list-able and the system freezes. I have to hit the reset to get back to the drive I'm on. Switching to them gives the famous BDOS error. 

The interesting part is Floppies and HD's are both readable and usable as long as they are in A: and B:. 

Any hints to troubleshoot this? 

So far I've re-written disk images onto the SD card. I was about to re-format the SD Card and start over but its perfectly readable and I can at least use cpmtools on the HD images. From a post here that showed how to add diskdef definition to cpmtools. 

Side NOTE: Anybody got a good disk definition for Flopppies for cpmtools?

[udo....@freenet.de]

ailer...@gmail.com schrieb am Freitag, 28. Juni 2024 um 01:53:07 UTC+2:

Side NOTE: Anybody got a good disk definition for Flopppies for cpmtools?

phatchman/altair_tools (github.com)

 

[John Galt]

Did you also replace the storage.dat file?

I have had mine corrupt and then all kinds of weird problems occur.

Back up your original and replace it with a fresh one then make your configuration changes and save a new profile.

If you changed firmware settings added new features or taken a feature away then the storage.dat information seems to go screwy.

You could have a hardware issue but if you have not tried replacing the storage.dat file give it a shot.

[ailer...@gmail.com]

Thanks for the suggestion.

I just tried swapping out the storage.dat file from a backup copy of my SD card. That one copy was when I first added drives to the sdcard. Sadly it didn't work. 

I'm gonna try to find the original SD card image and try again. Thanks for the suggestion. 

If that doesn't work, I'm getting my arduino IDE back up and running and I will start over. 

[John Galt]

you can always back up your SD card as it is now, and save the DSK images, then reformat and start clean.

Don't feel like you have to wipe it forever.

if a clean start does not work then it isn't the SD card.

just a thought....

cycle your front panel switches a few times. the switches can get a little flaky when the machine sits for a long time, and that can cause contacts to oxidize and things don't work right.

can't hurt to try that then setup your switches for hard drive or floppy boot.

[da...@hansels.net]

Are you sure you are mounting the floppy in the correct drive?

The hard disk CP/M supports two hard disks (A and B) and two floppy disks (C and D)

but note that physical floppy disk drive number 0 shows up as drive C and drive number 1 shows up as D.

So if you want a floppy in drive C within hard disk CP/M make sure you mount the floppy disk in drive number 0.

[ailer...@gmail.com]

Yes  I am mounting two HD images then two floppies as I always have. A and B are Hard-drive. C & D are Floppy.  Pins 11 - 8 are as follows. Drive A: 0000, Drive B: 0001, Drive C: 0010, Drive D: 0011. 

I flipped all the switches repeatedly to see if maybe there was some kind of oxidation. Reformatted the SD card. Grabbed the original image that I downloaded when I made it and placed the HD images in. Now it works worst than before. It freezes up when scrolling through the initial menu. I put back my stuff but not matter what. It always freezes when trying to do a directory of C: or D:. I might have to check on the scope and see if there is jitter on any of the switches. Hopefully not.

I decided to take it apart and pull the Arduino out and re-seat it. This caused one of the power hook-up wires to snap off (the wire is very thin) when trying to get the Arduino out. I'm now painting the case because I have it all apart. I de-soldered the old hookup wires to power it. So I'm going to get better hookup wire in there. I will fix that today, after the paint dries. Then try again.

[ailer...@gmail.com]

Just an FYI... I will be gone until Tuesday so can't repy until I get back. Thanks for all the help so far. :)