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XTIDE tech support thread

I hate to interrupt this thread, but if there are (besides Tandy) and this will be great as cards end up in different hands (I'll sincerely try to get off my butt and test it in lots of systems) but on the wiki could someone post known incompatibilities with systems if there are any? I know there was a long conversation regarding Tandy but thought that'd be really helpful to have a list of systems that are known not to work with the card (yet).
 
strollin said:
I'm getting very strange errors now. Programs copied to the hard drive can't be executed. For example: I have the BIOS files and idecfg.com on a floppy disk in the A: drive. I invoke idecfg.com from the A: prompt, works fine. I change to the C: drive, make a directory called XTIDE, change to that directory and do a copy A:*.*. The copy does not report any errors and a DIR of the XTIDE directory looks good with correct file sizes and such. I invoke idecfg.com from within the XTIDE directory and the system hangs. In one case, which I have not been able to duplicate, when I invoked idecfg.com, the boot menu appeared, it counted down but then reported "Non-system disk... Replace and try again". Rebooting got the same result. I then installed the drive in another machine and saw that all the data on the drive was wiped.

I formatted the drive and installed DOS and some utilities on the drive in another machine. The programs copied to the drive while in the other machine work fine, only programs copied to the drive while it is attached to the XT-IDE card exihibit problems.

This happens with both RC1 and RC2 of aitotat's BIOS.
Click to expand...



Here what I getting.

OS = MSDOS 6.22

Fdisk 512MB primary

Format c: /s

MD DOS
CD DOS

Copy all my dos files from a: to c:\DOS

I then created a new Floppy dos disk which boot and works fine from the HD

Then

MD TEST
CD TEST
copy c:\DOS\*.* to copy all files from DOS dir to TEST dir

This fails at different point each time I try it.

After I try it a 2nd time all files disappear from the DOS dir.

I reboot and the files are back in the DOS dir.

????????????????????????????:?:

framer

I'm going to try another drive.
 
I've tried 4 different ide drives so far, 2 identical WD 20G drives, a 27G Maxtor drive and a 40G Seagate drive. All 4 worked at first but now both WD drives are dead. When I connect them to another machine the machine hangs while attempting to id the drives. If only one had failed I would say it was it's time to go but 2 drives failing immediately after having been attached to the XT-IDE card seems like too much of a long shot. BTW, the connectors are keyed so there's no way I could have accidently plugged them in backwards. Is it possible that the card killed these 2 drives?
 
strollin said:
I'm getting very strange errors now. Programs copied to the hard drive can't be executed.
Click to expand...
Does this happen only when the MF card is installed?

I formatted the drive and installed DOS and some utilities on the drive in another machine. The programs copied to the drive while in the other machine work fine, only programs copied to the drive while it is attached to the XT-IDE card exihibit problems.
Click to expand...

Did i understand correctly that you installed something to the hard drive on other machine without XTIDE. Then you moved that hard disk to the machine with XTIDE and the data was usable? Did you try to copy those working programs to another directories? If it worked, then it seems that the data gets corrupted when using floppy drive and XTIDE at the same time.
 
My 2nd drive attempt had the same results. I did try to run the msdos 6.22 text edit program and it froze the system.

When I copied all the dos program to another dir about 1/2 way through I got file not found and when I checked the dos dir it was empty. When rebooted those files are listed once again in the dos dir. Then when I attempted to run the text edit program and the system froze.

framer
 
Stupid question perhaps, but is there an up-to-date list of supported/compatible CompactFlash brands/models somewhere?

I'd like to buy one or several CF card(s) to use with the XTIDE card, but I'd like to know which ones I can safely use with it without problems.

The wiki only mentions the requirement that the CF card should support LBA, but I have no idea for what percentage of the various CF cards out there that might the case.

Perhaps we should add a section for such a list in the wiki, and let people add models to that list (with "WORKS", "DOES NOT WORK", "WORKS PARTIALLY", "WORKS WITH CAVEATS", etc) as they test them.

Of course, my suggestion might be redundant if such a list already exists elsewhere in the forum. ;) Even then, it should still be added to the wiki, methinks.
 
For that matter, there exists a little Windows application known as Lexar Tool which is very handy for flipping bits on CF cards and others. It seems to have originated from Lexar the company but nowadays floats around the Internet. I have successfully used it to tame non-behaving CF cards to my likes, and more than 120,000 downloads tells you it isn't a hoax or malware. Although it says it is for a Lexar JumpDrive, it will operate on pretty much any Flash based media I believe.

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=15923
 
I agree that some CF/Microdrive compatibility database is needed since some CF/MDs are not bootable and some of them do not work as slave drives. I can recommend 6GB Hitachi microdrive. It is bootable, it works as master and slave and it has a lot better seek times than the other microdrives that i have tested.

Here is a new BIOS test version for those with data corruption issues. It forces PIO-0 with flow control. Let me know if it helps. The new test version also assumes at least one floppy drive to be present even if none are detected.
 
aitotat said:
Does this happen only when the MF card is installed?.
Click to expand...
Happens with the MF card in or out.



aitotat said:
Did i understand correctly that you installed something to the hard drive on other machine without XTIDE. Then you moved that hard disk to the machine with XTIDE and the data was usable? Did you try to copy those working programs to another directories? If it worked, then it seems that the data gets corrupted when using floppy drive and XTIDE at the same time.
Click to expand...
Yes, only things copied from the floppy to the HD while using the XTIDE get corrupted. I copied good files from one directory to another on the HD and they were fine. I then copied the same files from the HD to a floppy and they worked fine when invoked from the floppy. I then copied the files from the floppy to a new directory on the HD and when I tried to invoke one of them the system hung. I then tried to do a warm-boot via CAD, no go. The drive was no longer bootable, I put it back in my other machine and it wouldn't boot there either. I had to reformat the drive to make it bootable again.

I took the XTIDE out of my machine, reinstalled the original IBM controller and 10M HD and also reinstalled the EGA card. I copied files from 1 directory to another, then to and from the floppy drive and could not duplicate the problems I have been experiencing while using the XTIDE.
 
aitotat said:
I agree that some CF/Microdrive compatibility database is needed since some CF/MDs are not bootable and some of them do not work as slave drives. I can recommend 6GB Hitachi microdrive. It is bootable, it works as master and slave and it has a lot better seek times than the other microdrives that i have tested.

Here is a new BIOS test version for those with data corruption issues. It forces PIO-0 with flow control. Let me know if it helps. The new test version also assumes at least one floppy drive to be present even if none are detected.
Click to expand...
I tried the new test BIOS. I booted the drive to a c: prompt, entered "md test" then "cd test". Got a message that "test" was an invalid directory. Did a "dir" and saw that all the files that i had put on the drive (while the drive was attached to another machine) were now gone! That's the fastest I've ever had the drive corrupted, took all of 5 seconds or so.
 
There's a helltest program on the wiki that you can use to verify read/write functionality of the card. Unfortunately, it requires my old BIOS (which is also linked on the wiki and per's flash utility) because I use extended INT13 commands to read/write the drive. The idea here was to put the drive in a modern computer, run the program and write test patterns to random sectors on the drive. Then move the drive over to the XTIDE and run it in read mode. It will read and verify the data and display anything that goes wrong. Then you can switch it around and write via the XTIDE and take the drive back over to the new computer and read it. I believe the program also requires VGA too.
Anyway, it may shed a little light on what's going on to your card. It may be as simple as, say bit 12 being dropped or stuck to its neighbor that is causing the massive corruption you're seeing.

Once the shipping madness is over for me, I would also be happy to exchange cards with you so I can get a closer look at the troubles.
 
Please forgive the intrusion, but I've a suggestion for the next PCB revision

Please forgive the intrusion, but I've a suggestion for the next PCB revision

While I'm still waiting for my friend to get his XT-IDE card, I have a possible suggestion for the next revision of the card.

Is it possible to Pull the +12V and +5V lines on the ISA bus up to a 6-pin header on the card for use as a power source for the harddrive? Furthermore, could an additional 2 holes (I believe they are 1/8") be put in the card for use on and old hardcard? I keep looking at the old Microscribe card and wondering if it were possible to just mount the new drive with the adapter card right on the metal plate.

If anybody's interested in such a retro "Hardcard" I'd be willing to draw up a print for the metal plate and look into haveing such made for us. a couple of screws, a power connection from the card to the drive, and a short ide cable later, and presto! a neato drive solution. The only potential prolbem i see is the current drawn directly from the ISA bus. However, most of the systems that such a device is going to be used with have no prolbem with the older-style hardcards, and newer drives draw less current anyhow. after i get the new XT-ide card, I've got no prolbem shipping the Microscribe adapter off to be used as a dimensional template, or i could possibly do the changes to the PCB file myself.
 
hargle said:
There's a helltest program on the wiki that you can use to verify read/write functionality of the card. Unfortunately, it requires my old BIOS (which is also linked on the wiki and per's flash utility) because I use extended INT13 commands to read/write the drive. The idea here was to put the drive in a modern computer, run the program and write test patterns to random sectors on the drive. Then move the drive over to the XTIDE and run it in read mode. It will read and verify the data and display anything that goes wrong. Then you can switch it around and write via the XTIDE and take the drive back over to the new computer and read it. I believe the program also requires VGA too.
Anyway, it may shed a little light on what's going on to your card. It may be as simple as, say bit 12 being dropped or stuck to its neighbor that is causing the massive corruption you're seeing.

Once the shipping madness is over for me, I would also be happy to exchange cards with you so I can get a closer look at the troubles.
Click to expand...

I attempted to flash your BIOS onto my card but I got verification errors so dropped that. I have narrowed the problem to only 1 of my 2 cards having corruption problems so when you are ready I would be willing to swap cards with you to see if you can figure out where the corruption is happening. I did a close visual inspection comparing my working card with the problem card. Checked that all chips are in the correct sockets and oriented correctly, no bent pins, no solder bridges and no missed solder connections. I even tried using the cable from the working card to ensure that wasn't the problem.

On a different note, I tried a different EGA card (Everex) and the machine boots fine with it whereas I could not boot with the original Heathkit EGA card.
 
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about the only thing left to try is to swap ICs, one at a time.
I'm glad you've at least got something working!
 
Yeah, I thought about that. I did try swapping the EPROM but it didn't make any difference. If I get real ambitious I may try swapping the rest of the ICs.
 
strollin said:
Yeah, I thought about that. I did try swapping the EPROM but it didn't make any difference. If I get real ambitious I may try swapping the rest of the ICs.
Click to expand...

yeah, the eeprom is working fine. If the BIOS comes up on the screen, that entire subsystem of memory decodes and all the ICs utilizing it is working fine.
Unfortunately I don't know which ICs those are exactly, we'd need andrew or someone smarter than me to pipe up here.

That would save some time though, by not making you swap out ICs which are known to already be working ok, and should help pinpoint the problem spot even more.
 
Hi! I am still here but laying low until the first few waves of the XT-IDE tsunami pass by. I am sure once the debris settles out there will be some ideas for a rev 2 board and probably some clean up issues.

As for a broken board, the first thing I would do is remove all the parts and resolder all the sockets and passives again. Use your soldering iron to remove excess solder and ensure *all* the pins are securely soldered. Especially the VCC and GND pins since they do not include thermal reliefs.

Thanks and have a nice day!

Andrew Lynch
 
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