IDE Module with a mSATA/IDE adapter

[Michael Kühn]

I'm trying to use a 64 GB mSATA/IDE adapter combination together with the IDE module and a ROMWBW. Everything seems to work fine. The disk pops up as Disk 4/PPIDE0: with 61057 MB, LBA. A have used FDISK80 to initialize the disk and create a partition of 4 GB in partition 1. It is shown as Type FAT16 with the correct size. I wrote the partition table back to disk (w). And i formated the drive using CLRDIR. I was able to copy a file to the drive and everthing seems o.k. But when I switch off the rc2014 and on again everything is lost. There is no partition defined that I can see with FDSIK80. And the disk seems to be not formated. Any idea, where I can find the error. Or is it a problem of the adapter (CY Festplatten-Adapter mSATA Mini PCI eSATA-SSD auf 63,5 mm (2,5 Zoll) IDE 44-Pin Notebook/Laptop-Festplatte from Amazon).

[Wayne Warthen]

Hi Michael,

A couple of things.  First, assuming you are using RomWBW 3.0.X or earlier, the CP/M does not utilize partitions at all.  Partitioning is only used to create a DOS partition so that the media could be can be used in a Windows/Linux/Mac computer.  To initialize a slice, you do use CLRDIR, so that part is correct.

Second, related to your changes disappearing, can you be specific about the disk unit number you use for FDISK80 and the drive letter you are putting files on that disappear?  Also, please post the boot messages from your computer.

Thanks,

Wayne

[Michael Kühn]

Hi Wayne,

thank you for your support. Attached you will find the complete sequence of actions I performed including the required information:

RomWBW HBIOS v3.0.1, 2020-04-04

RC2014 Z80 @ 7.372MHz

0 MEM W/S, 1 I/O W/S, INT MODE 1

512KB ROM, 512KB RAM

SIO0: IO=0x80 SIO MODE=115200,8,N,1

SIO1: IO=0x82 SIO MODE=115200,8,N,1

DSRTC: MODE=STD IO=0xC0 NOT PRESENT

MD: UNITS=2 ROMDISK=384KB RAMDISK=384KB

IDE: IO=0x10 MODE=RC

IDE0: 8-BIT NOLBA BLOCKS=0x00000000 SIZE=0MB

IDE1: NO MEDIA

PPIDE: IO=0x20

PPIDE0: LBA BLOCKS=0x07740AB0 SIZE=61057MB

PPIDE1: NO MEDIA

Unit        Device      Type              Capacity/Mode

----------  ----------  ----------------  --------------------

Char 0      SIO0:       RS-232            115200,8,N,1

Char 1      SIO1:       RS-232            115200,8,N,1

Disk 0      MD1:        RAM Disk          384KB,LBA

Disk 1      MD0:        ROM Disk          384KB,LBA

Disk 2      IDE0:       Hard Disk         0MB,LBA

Disk 3      IDE1:       Hard Disk         --

Disk 4      PPIDE0:     Hard Disk         61057MB,LBA

Disk 5      PPIDE1:     Hard Disk         --

RC2014 Boot Loader

ROM: (M)onitor (C)P/M (Z)-System (F)orth (B)ASIC (T)-BASIC (P)LAY (U)SER ROM

Disk: (0)MD1 (1)MD0 (2)IDE0 (3)IDE1 (4)PPIDE0 (5)PPIDE1

Boot Selection? C

Loading CP/M 80 v2.2...

CBIOS v3.0.1 [WBW]

Formatting RAMDISK...

Configuring Drives...

   A:=MD1:0

   B:=MD0:0

   C:=IDE0:0

   D:=IDE0:1

   E:=IDE0:2

   F:=IDE0:3

   G:=PPIDE0:0

   H:=PPIDE0:1

   I:=PPIDE0:2

   J:=PPIDE0:3

   1932 Disk Buffer Bytes Free

CP/M-80 v2.2, 54.0K TPA

B>

B>fdisk80

FDISK80 for RomWBW, UNA, Mini-M68k  ----  Version 1.50-16 created 28-May-2015

                 (Running under RomWBW HBIOS)

HBIOS unit number: 4

Capacity of disk 4:  ( 60G)  125045424      Geom 740a1010

Nr  ---Type- A --      Start         End   LBA start  LBA count  Size

 1             00       *** empty ***

 2             00       *** empty ***

 3             00       *** empty ***

 4             00       *** empty ***

>>i

>>r

Reserve how many CP/M slices (8 max.) [8]: 8

8 CP/M slices have been reserved

>>n

New partition number: 1

Starting Cylinder (default 520):

Ending Cylinder (or Size= "+nnn"): 4gb

>>p

Nr  ---Type- A --      Start         End   LBA start  LBA count  Size

 1     FAT16   06    520:0:1  1023:15:16      133120    8255488    4G

 2             00       *** empty ***

 3             00       *** empty ***

 4             00       *** empty ***

   Reserved 8 x 8Mb CP/M slices

>>w

Do you really want to write to disk? [N/y]: y

Okay

FDISK exit.

B>

>clrdir g:

CLRDIR Version 1.1 March 2020 by Max Scane

Warning - this utility will overwrite the directory sectors of Drive: G

Type Y to proceed, any key other key to exit. Y

Directory cleared.

B>dir g:

NO FILE

B>stat g:

Bytes Remaining On G: 8176k

B>

Hope that helps.

Regards

Michael

[Wayne Warthen]

Thanks for providing the boot messages, very helpful.

All of the above looks fine (except the 0MB IDE drive which I will address in a subsequent post).  Running FDISK80 is not necessary for your current objectives, but it is not hurting anything.

Are you saying that you write file(s) to G:, reboot, then the files are no longer there?  Files written to G: should persist there assuming you do not rerun CLRDIR on G:.

-Wayne