Routes to get my XT an OS

[Chuck(G)]

MFM (and RLL) hard drives are usually tied to the controller they're hooked to. Not at all like modern IDE hard drives, which have the controller built into the drive.

So, before you can FDISK your hard drive, you're going to have to low-level format it.

Try the following. Boot DOS, then run the command "DEBUG". Enter the following command at the hyphen prompt that follows:

-G=C800:5

If your HD controller supports it, you should see a low-level format prompt. If not, you'll probably need a separate low-level formatter.

 

[sqpat]

I already put the old thing to bed for tonight, and I'm kind of tired from spending a large part of the day hunched over the machine, so I'll try the format tomorrow. I managed to get the dual floppy setup working and i ran some old games off the 5.25" drive and it seems to work just fine, which is a relief. I could potentially create a couple of 5.25" boot/install disks at this point, probably, as well as do many things a 5150 could.

One thing I noticed is that a couple of times when i ran ls or dir commands, was that the process would hang halfway through sometimes, and seeks would continue on the floppy drive for another half minute or so. Eventually the seeks would stop and the computer was just frozen; ctrl-c and ctrl-alt-del would not fix it. Could this be a side effect of running off a bootdisk, or might it be indicative of another issue?

Anyway, thanks a lot for the help so far, everyone. I know I'm on the right track.

 

[per]

One thing I noticed is that a couple of times when i ran ls or dir commands, was that the process would hang halfway through sometimes, and seeks would continue on the floppy drive for another half minute or so. Eventually the seeks would stop and the computer was just frozen; ctrl-c and ctrl-alt-del would not fix it. Could this be a side effect of running off a bootdisk, or might it be indicative of another issue?

I think it may be some minor issues with your modern floppy disk controller. I've never experienced something like that myself, even with a FDD setup similar to yours.

Every one in a while, the BIOS'll reset the floppy disk drive. Maybe that function confuses your Floppy Drive controller if it is doing something when this happens. Don't ask me why they made it like that.

Last, what revision of the system-board do you got? (Look next to the memory, is one of the ICs labbeled "U90" or "SPARE"?, also look next to the BIOS ROMs, what is installed at TD2?)

 

[sqpat]

did a low level format, using only 10 MB of the disk, but now on boot i get a "Non-system disk or disk error", so i'm pretty sure the controller just can't deal with the drive. I'll try to find a controller more capable of interfacing with this drive (a 30 MB IBM 0665-38)

EDIT: Nevermind, i got it to boot. Really awesome Just need to get myself a battery of somekind, i think, since it keeps asking me the date and time. Thanks a lot to everyone's help. I really appreciate it!

 

[per]

did a low level format, using only 10 MB of the disk, but now on boot i get a "Non-system disk or disk error", so i'm pretty sure the controller just can't deal with the drive. I'll try to find a controller more capable of interfacing with this drive (a 30 MB IBM 0665-38)

EDIT: Nevermind, i got it to boot. Really awesome Just need to get myself a battery of somekind, i think, since it keeps asking me the date and time. Thanks a lot to everyone's help. I really appreciate it!

If you got an AST card in there, you'll problably need a new battery. However, the XT itself doesn't got any backup of it's real-time-clock like the AT does, so it'll reset everytime the computer is turned off. That's how the XT works, and you can't really do anything with that except installing an 8-bit ISA card with a battery-backed up clock on it.

 

[strollin]

If you create an autoexec.bat in your root directory you won't be prompted for the date/time anymore but your date/time will be reset to Jan 1, 1980 12:00:00 everytime you boot the machine!

Even if the XT has a clock on a card somewhere it won't set the system clock unless you run a little program in your autoexec.bat that will get the date/time from the real time clock and set the system clock.

 

[Chuck(G)]

I guess I should have mentioned FDISK and FORMAT after the low-level format. Sometimes, things are just second-nature to me and I forget to mention them because they seem so obvious...

 

[Raven]

No, no, no!

You can't use the version of DOS supplied within Windows XP's format command. It's to new and it uses 286 or 386 codes. You'll want to make a startup disk of a version of DOS before 6.22.

What image are you trying to write to it by using WinImage?

Wrong..?

I have DOS 6.22 installed on my Sr. Partner's MFM drive, and that box is an 8086...

I also booted DOS 6.22 from a 360K floppy on my Zenith Z-140, which is also an 8086..

Sorry, but it's definitely straight 80xx compatible.

If you got a more recent ISA floppy drive controller (don't matter if it's a 16-bit card), you can actually use a 720Kb disk and a HD drive to boot your system. However, in order to use 1.44Mb disks, you'll have to either replace the BIOS (as you suggest in your post) or find a driver that'll configure the drive.

It won't really matter since you'll be able to boot anyways.

What do you mean that it doesn't matter if it's a 16-bit card.. Do all floppy controller cards just work magically in 8-bit? That'd be really useful.

A 1.44MB or 720K 3.5" drive will work fine at 720K in a 5150. You can even image-copy a 360K disk to a 720K and it will boot in an XT fitted with a 3.5" drive. After you get DOS installed, you can use DRIVPARM in your CONFIG.SYS file to tell DOS to treat the drive as a 720K instead of 360K.

The principal difference in format between a 360K 5.25" adn 720K 3.5" drive is the number of tracks--a 720K has twice the number that a 360K does.

Does that hold true for any clone? I was trying to get a drive working in my Z-140 forever, but had no luck. I don't recall if I tried a 720K disk, but I was just beginning my foray into 80s hardware at the time, so I probably didn't.

 

[Chuck(G)]

What do you mean that it doesn't matter if it's a 16-bit card.. Do all floppy controller cards just work magically in 8-bit? That'd be really useful.

The guts of any legacy floppy controller is a chip with an 8-bit bus. About the only time you'll see a floppy controller on a 16-bit ISA card is when something else on the card requires it. The floppy controller doesn't care that it's 16-bit; it doesn't use the 16-bit part.

Does that hold true for any clone? I was trying to get a drive working in my Z-140 forever, but had no luck. I don't recall if I tried a 720K disk, but I was just beginning my foray into 80s hardware at the time, so I probably didn't.

Yes, in general. Some (a very few) drives are jumpered for "host controlled" density, rather than "media controlled". Mostly these came on IBM PS/2s or a few early systems. Almost all of the commodity 3.5" 1.44MB drives you're likely to see are wired up as "media select".

 

[lyonadmiral]

Wrong..?

I have DOS 6.22 installed on my Sr. Partner's MFM drive, and that box is an 8086...

I also booted DOS 6.22 from a 360K floppy on my Zenith Z-140, which is also an 8086..

Sorry, but it's definitely straight 80xx compatible.



What do you mean that it doesn't matter if it's a 16-bit card.. Do all floppy controller cards just work magically in 8-bit? That'd be really useful.



Does that hold true for any clone? I was trying to get a drive working in my Z-140 forever, but had no luck. I don't recall if I tried a 720K disk, but I was just beginning my foray into 80s hardware at the time, so I probably didn't.

The DOS that is created in Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7 is the Windows Millennium DOS, which requires a 386 or better processor.

 

[Raven]

The DOS that is created in Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7 is the Windows Millennium DOS, which requires a 386 or better processor.

Yes but you don't need a copy that is "pre-6.22", just pre-7. Perhaps I should have worded that better, but I had just woke up.