Hard drive saga - Part 2
Alistair J. Ross
Some of you may remember a number of months me asking various questions
about how to get larger capacity drives (eg, less than 500mb) in my XT.
I have a selection of hard drives. Most notably, an IBM WDA L80 which is
~80mb in size. I believe it to be a type 25 disk (1024x9x17).
Anyway, I now have in possession a very overpriced IDE 8-bit controller
which supports AT (and XT) style drives, a Juko D16-X
(http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-disk-floppy-controllers/I-L/JUKO-LABORATORIES-LTD-One-IDE-AT-XT-Interface-driv.html).
The card seems to work OK as it beeps and tells me that the drive
identifier table is scratched (or something along those lines) on bootup.
I muddled around for a few hours figuring out how to tell the card which
type of drive was plugged in to it. By going into debug and going to the
memory location c800:5, I was able to use the configuration menu.
It lists all the drive types, and asked me to input the drive type of my
choice. I enter 25, then it reads:
"WARNING, ALL DATA ON HARD DISK DRIVE C: WILL BE LOST!"
"Proceed with Preformat (Y/N)"
I say yes, then it reads "Preformatting ....", the disk spins up... and
then nothing... The system is still soft-rebootable (via 3-fingered
salute), but other than that, it's not doing diddly as far as I can tell.
I'm at a loss. Anybody any idea what Preformatting *is*? Is it the same as
a low-level format?
Any advice much appreciated, otherwise I've just blown another $120 on
junk!
Cheers,
Ali
Robert E. Watts
"Alistair J. Ross" <ajr...@NOZSPAMhostingscotland.net> wrote in message
news:Nswni.169933$G_4.1...@fe09.news.easynews.com...
> Hey,
> Anyway, I now have in possession a very overpriced IDE 8-bit controller
> which supports AT (and XT) style drives, a Juko D16-X
Unfortunately, I have nothing constructive to add, the experts will be
along.
But I wanted to mention that I had a particularly horrible experience with
one of those Juko D16-X cards many years ago. I actually managed to make
smoke come out of a HDD. One of the few times I ever blew something computer
related up. Be careful.
Never did get it to work......
bob
Jim Leonard
<ajr...@NOZSPAMhostingscotland.net> wrote:
> I'm at a loss. Anybody any idea what Preformatting *is*? Is it the same as
> a low-level format?
I was led to believe two things back in the early 1990s: Yes, it is,
and no, you're not supposed to low-level an IDE drive unless the drive
is utterly completely hosed (as in, you passed it through a strong
magnetic field and it is now scrambled).
If the drive works in a modern system, don't low-level format it. The
only successful low-level format operation I've done in this manner is
with a Silicon Graphics ADP50 connected to a Maxtor 340MB drive. I
was able to change the interleave away from 1:1 (it slowed things down
so I did it again as 1:1). This was in a stock IBM PC/XT (5160).
MFM/RLL drives are a different story. *Always* low-level format them
when you pair them up with a new controller, or moving a controller/
drive to a new machine (if the machine is significantly faster or
slower, a new interleave may be more optimal than the old one).
Alistair J. Ross
> On Jul 18, 5:26 pm, "Alistair J. Ross"
> <ajr...@NOZSPAMhostingscotland.net> wrote:
>> I'm at a loss. Anybody any idea what Preformatting *is*? Is it the same
>> as a low-level format?
>
> I was led to believe two things back in the early 1990s: Yes, it is,
> and no, you're not supposed to low-level an IDE drive unless the drive
> is utterly completely hosed (as in, you passed it through a strong
> magnetic field and it is now scrambled).
Hey Jim,
That's kinda what I thought too. It's waaaay back there in my musty
section of computer history but I always thought IDE didn't need
low-level. I guess I've hosed a perfectly good IBM drive then - now my
Pentium system can't auto-detect it!
Anyway, I have another drive which appears to be around 40mb, which is
fine. My Dell Pentium picks it up as 745 C x 4 H x 28 S, capactiy 42mb.
However, I can't find any such configuration in the 46 drive types
available to me. Anyone any idea what drive type this will be?
Lastly (and maybe most importantly), I don't have the option *not* to
pre-format the IDE disk - it's either y or n. If you hit n, the box
reboots. Maybe I missed something? Any ideas?
Thanks a million (again!),
Ali Ross
Barry Ruck
Just boot with a dos floppy, and try to format the HD and install DOS.
As low level formatting is not required, there should ( from memory )
be nothing else required.
--
Dogs crawl under gates, software crawls under Windows.
Barry Ruck. Harlow, Essex. U.K.
Alistair J. Ross
>
> Just boot with a dos floppy, and try to format the HD and install DOS.
> As low level formatting is not required, there should ( from memory )
> be nothing else required.
>
> --
>
Hey Barry - I'm reticent to try that, as I've already pre-formatted the
hard drive with DOS 6.2 and it's all set up just nice. I don't have DOS
6.2 on 5.25in disks so I couldn't install it if I formatted the disk
again. I don't get why I'd have to reformat the drive if I've already
formatted it on another system, or am I missing something?
Cheers,
Ali
Robert E. Watts
Does the computer "see" the drive, or not ?
In other words, since your drive, according to your last post, had DOS 6.22
on it, I assume it didn't boot to the drive ?
Try to find out if the computer detects the drive. You (probably) will see a
BIOS screen from the JUKO controller ( I would assume, can't remember if the
JUKO does that or not ) that detects the drive. If that is the case, the
computer should be able to use the drive.
Put in a DOS floppy, and run FDISK. See if the drive is present. ( I know
you only have a 360K drive, do you have at least 3.3 on 360K ?
If the JUKO controller is not detecting the drive, you're not going to get
anything done. From your first post, I'm not convinced that your JUKO
contoller even saw that drive. If you have to manually input the drive
parameters, make sure that it was saved to the JUKO BIOS.
As I mentioned in my first post, I never got one of these JUKO controllers
to work. My Acculogic 8 bit controller:
http://home.fuse.net/bobwatts/xt.htm
has an autodetect feature that "finds" the drives. Also, in my case, I have
a high density 8 bit controller that allowed me to use DOS 6.22 ( or any
other 1.44 disk version ) to complete the install.
I feel your pain with this JUKO. I hate that you spent that much for it, and
I hope that you get the thing working.
Also, like Jim mentioned, you *should not* "have to" LLF an IDE drive. I
have done it, and it's not usually harmful, but you should choose the
program that does it carefully. I would under no circumstance use the JUKO
for this purpose. Chances are excellent that you probably have not damaged
that drive, but you may have wiped out your copy of DOS. Maybe not, if the
JUKO didn't actually "see" the drive. Shame you don't have a 1.44 flop
drive, you could MBR the thing.
bob
"Alistair J. Ross" <ajr...@NOZSPAMhostingscotland.net> wrote in message
news:2%7oi.224942$mZ7.1...@fe01.news.easynews.com...
Alistair J. Ross
Get this - I formatted another 'spare' drive, this one was 121mb in size
and I formatted it on the pentium. I split it into 32mb partitions and
installed mbr/io.sys/msdos.sys/command.com for dos 6.2 on it. It appears
OK on the Pentium, although curiously it hangs after "Starting MS-DOS...",
not quite sure why that is yet.
So, I booted my DOS 3.3 boot disk up, loaded fdisk and it could see it. It
appeared OK.
So then I went to C: at the dos prompt. Yup, it's all there!
Feeling adventurous, I gave the machine the three fingered salute and
flipped the catch on the floppy drive, praying that the thing would boot
of the HDD.
Just like all the other times, the same message appears:
"Hard disk parameter table scratched."
"Setup Hard Disk Type"
"ERROR. (RESUME = "F1" KEY)"
Regardless, I hit F1 and waited for a boot, but it was to no avail - Just a
non-system disk or disk error.
I wish I had a manual for this thing. There must be something I need to do
in order to tell it how to bootstrap.
Back to the drawing board!
Ali
Robert E. Watts
"Alistair J. Ross" <ajr...@NOZSPAMhostingscotland.net> wrote in message
news:c7boi.225235$mZ7....@fe01.news.easynews.com...
> Hey Bob,
>
> Get this - I formatted another 'spare' drive, this one was 121mb in
> size
> and I formatted it on the pentium. I split it into 32mb partitions and
> installed mbr/io.sys/msdos.sys/command.com for dos 6.2 on it. It appears
> OK on the Pentium, although curiously it hangs after "Starting MS-DOS...",
> not quite sure why that is yet.
>
Dammit....... I recently had this happen also......same exact thing....
playing with an older computer, but using the speed of a newer computer to
prepare the drive. The Pentium computer gave me that message, and it took me
a little while to figure it out. Can't remember what it was, but it was
something simple.
I was going to ask if you forgot to make one of your partititons startable,
but you obviously did, or you wouldn't even get to "Starting MS-DOS.. "
It will come to me.
bob
Alistair J. Ross
> Dammit....... I recently had this happen also......same exact thing....
> playing with an older computer, but using the speed of a newer computer
> to prepare the drive. The Pentium computer gave me that message, and it
> took me a little while to figure it out. Can't remember what it was, but
> it was something simple.
That was only on one hard drive though. I thought that maybe there was just
something goofey with the drive, so I did the same thing to an 80mb drive
and it booted just fine on the Pentium. The only difference with this disk
is that I forced it to be a type 25 in the bios of the pentium, and
fdisked/formatted it as such. Note that it hung on 'Starting MS-DOS...' on
the Pentium, not the XT, which is what was really odd about that case.
Still, no matter about that, the main concern is how to get the XT to
recognise the boot sector of this hard drive. I'm almost convinced it has
to do with the type number. I wonder whether the type number disk
identifier is written to the hard drive, or into a PROM on the IDE
adapter. If I could find out the memory location of the disk type
identifier, I could potentially edit it in debug and write it back to the
device, as I can't seem to get round this preformat nonsense.
Cheers,
Ali
Rick
>
> Robert E. Watts wrote:
>
> > Dammit....... I recently had this happen also......same exact thing....
> > playing with an older computer, but using the speed of a newer computer
> > to prepare the drive. The Pentium computer gave me that message, and it
> > took me a little while to figure it out. Can't remember what it was, but
> > it was something simple.
>
> That was only on one hard drive though. I thought that maybe there was just
> something goofey with the drive, so I did the same thing to an 80mb drive
> and it booted just fine on the Pentium. The only difference with this disk
> is that I forced it to be a type 25 in the bios of the pentium, and
> fdisked/formatted it as such. Note that it hung on 'Starting MS-DOS...' on
> the Pentium, not the XT, which is what was really odd about that case.
> Still, no matter about that, the main concern is how to get the XT to
> recognise the boot sector of this hard drive. I'm almost convinced it has
> to do with the type number. I wonder whether the type number disk
> identifier is written to the hard drive, or into a PROM on the IDE
> adapter. If I could find out the memory location of the disk type
> identifier, I could potentially edit it in debug and write it back to the
> device, as I can't seem to get round this preformat nonsense.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Ali
What do you have JP10 jumpered as? This page:
http://www.4drives.com/DRIVESPECS/DCTL/20274.txt
makes reference to JP10 selecting or deselecting "Pass Diagnostics." I
wonder if deselecting this stops the BIOS routine from performing the
preformat routine. If the jumper is/was not open when you "killed" the
first drive you could open JP10, put the dead drive back in, and see if
the preformat routine goes away after you enter the drive information
again.
Rick
Alistair J. Ross
> makes reference to JP10 selecting or deselecting "Pass Diagnostics." I
> wonder if deselecting this stops the BIOS routine from performing the
> preformat routine. If the jumper is/was not open when you "killed" the
> first drive you could open JP10, put the dead drive back in, and see if
> the preformat routine goes away after you enter the drive information
> again.
I gave that a whirl - didn't seem to make a difference (still wants to
preformat etc), so I played around with a few jumper settings and then
magic (almost) started to happen!:
With the disk I formatted into 32mb partitions, I managed to get it to boot
(only after the initial Disk Table is Scratched error comes up). I
reformatted it and fdisked it up to 100% of it's size and put MS-DOS 6 on
it. It failed to boot (Disk table scratched + Non system disk...), but if
I boot the system from a DOS 6 boot disk, the hard drive can be seen and I
can write to it, all seems pretty normal. Then I go look into things a bit
deeper, fdisk reports the C: at 76mb big.. then if I look down a
little "Total disk space is 10 Mbytes".
I'm assuming this is because the EEPROM is reporting an invalid disk type
number. I guess all I need to do now is find out how to write to the
EEPROM without a preformat and I'm home free. That, however, will be
easier said than done!
As always - all your help is greatly received!
Thanks,
Ali
>
> Rick
Jim Leonard
<ajr...@NOZSPAMhostingscotland.net> wrote:
> Anyway, I have another drive which appears to be around 40mb, which is
> fine. My Dell Pentium picks it up as 745 C x 4 H x 28 S, capactiy 42mb.
> However, I can't find any such configuration in the 46 drive types
> available to me. Anyone any idea what drive type this will be?
745c x 4h x 28s doesn't match any of the 45 drive types (the 28s
throws everything off). You have two options: Use type 6 (615c 4h
17s) to get 20MB out of the drive, or use type 47 (the generic, user-
configurable type) to enter the specs in yourself to get the proper
geometry and full usage of the drive.
Rick
Hi again!
Yeah, but I'm starting to wonder what "Disk table is scratched" really
means. This obviously isn't a DOS error message. And I'm wondering if
this is some kind of fault error about the EEPROM - whether or not the
drive parameters table is "scratched" - as in has been trashed in some
way - to make it a "bad thing" to install any drive with this
controller.
Can you run MSD.EXE on this thing? There are memory block display and
memory browser options in MSD that might reveal something about other
built in messages on the BIOS on this controller card. If this thing
allows you to store at least one drive table parameter you can enter
yourself I'm kind of assuming it has a BIOS and an EEPROM on the card. I
suspect the fault is with the EEPROM if you are manually entering the
drive parameters.
EEPROMs do fail. I have an old Reveal sound card that stored
configuration info on an EEPROM. When the EEPROM crapped out it stored
all manner of junk, including adding extra phantom parallel ports to my
system.
Rick
P.S. It's kind of annoying re: how many sites there are out there that
have the jumper setting info for this card, but squat about either a
manual or any practical "how to" setup information.
Alistair J. Ross
> Yeah, but I'm starting to wonder what "Disk table is scratched" really
> means. This obviously isn't a DOS error message. And I'm wondering if
> this is some kind of fault error about the EEPROM - whether or not the
> drive parameters table is "scratched" - as in has been trashed in some
> way - to make it a "bad thing" to install any drive with this
> controller.
Yeah, that's been a worry of mine also, sitting in the back of my head. The
card does indeed have a BIOS and an EEPROM. Bios is at C800h, EEPROM is at
27256 - 0000-1FFFh.
How's this for another curveball - The drives I've been setting this up
with are all not old enough to have an actual 'type'. In the case of the
80mb one, it was very close to a type 25 in specs (but the pentium picked
it up with slightly different chs values), so I tried forcing it to be
type 25 in the bios of the pentium, fdisking and formatting. This seems to
work just fine on the pentium.
Could the problem with the JUKO card be that it *requires* a drive of
the 'type 1-46' vintage. There is no option to use a type '47' user-define
as Jim suggested, if I try typing it in, it asks to reboot the system,
just like it does when i say no to pre-format.
> Can you run MSD.EXE on this thing? There are memory block display and
> memory browser options in MSD that might reveal something about other
> built in messages on the BIOS on this controller card. If this thing
> allows you to store at least one drive table parameter you can enter
> yourself I'm kind of assuming it has a BIOS and an EEPROM on the card. I
> suspect the fault is with the EEPROM if you are manually entering the
> drive parameters.
I don't have MSD unfortunately, I do have debug, that's all, and I can see
the messages given out by the controller from C800 onward. I wish i could
access the EEPROM though, that would be the handiest thing - then I could
perhaps just enter the value 25 into the table there and see what happens.
> EEPROMs do fail. I have an old Reveal sound card that stored
> configuration info on an EEPROM. When the EEPROM crapped out it stored
> all manner of junk, including adding extra phantom parallel ports to my
> system.
I do hope that's not the case. If it is, then this is a very expensive
painful exercise indeed.
> P.S. It's kind of annoying re: how many sites there are out there that
> have the jumper setting info for this card, but squat about either a
> manual or any practical "how to" setup information.
Absolutely! I've been searching and re-googling for weeks on this now to no
avail.
Cheers,
Ali
Jim Leonard
> Yeah, but I'm starting to wonder what "Disk table is scratched" really
> means. This obviously isn't a DOS error message. And I'm wondering if
> this is some kind of fault error about the EEPROM - whether or not the
> drive parameters table is "scratched" - as in has been trashed in some
> way - to make it a "bad thing" to install any drive with this
> controller.
Did you see my previous reply on the 23rd? Were you able to pick a
table entry that is close, or can you get access to type 47 and fill
in the parameters yourself? Since this is an XT, the controller
itself would have the parameter table; what does it show when you get
into it?
Alistair J. Ross
I was playing around again (and again) and decided to give the ide disk a
low level format one more chance. I changed the IDE cable and let it
format for a good 3 hours and came back into the room, to be greeted by
the message:
"Next, run FDISK and FORMAT"
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del
I fdisked to 76mb, formatted and watched Dos 6.0 spin into life!
The problem? I guess the system didn't like the IDE cable (although it
works fine in other PCs). Swapping it out seemed to do the trick! <me
thumps head on desk x1000).
Just want to say a huge thanks to everyone on the list, especially Jim, Bob
and Rick for sticking with me and giving me different angles to try. Truly
a great usenet spirit is still alive in this group today! The posts may be
infrequent, but I know it's watched by a core of devoted experts!
Cheers again,
Ali
Barry Ruck
> VICTORY!
>
> I was playing around again (and again) and decided to give the ide
> disk a low level format one more chance. I changed the IDE cable and
> let it format for a good 3 hours and came back into the room, to be
> greeted by the message:
>
> "Next, run FDISK and FORMAT"
>
> Press Ctrl+Alt+Del
>
> I fdisked to 76mb, formatted and watched Dos 6.0 spin into life!
>
> The problem? I guess the system didn't like the IDE cable (although
it
> works fine in other PCs). Swapping it out seemed to do the trick!
<me
> thumps head on desk x1000).
>
> Just want to say a huge thanks to everyone on the list, especially
> Jim, Bob and Rick for sticking with me and giving me different
angles
> to try. Truly a great usenet spirit is still alive in this group
> today! The posts may be infrequent, but I know it's watched by a
core
> of devoted experts!
>
> Cheers again,
>
> Ali
>
Congratulations ( at last! )
I have had similar experiences with cables, yet always seem to forget
the next time it happens!
--
"Ask *not* for whom the control-G tolls...it tolls for thee."
Regards,
Barry Ruck. Harlow, Essex. United Kingdom