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XTIDE Universal BIOS v2.0.0 beta testing thread

Malc, are you sure they are both r567? Small or large builds? Custom or official builds? I seem to recall you using a custom XT_TINY build on the 5160?

Did you compare the output of BIOSDRVS between the two computers?
 
Seems that there might be a translation related issue in the BIOS affecting on small cards. There was a similar issue posted last week with (I think) a 32MB card.
 
Regarding FDISK /MBR;

Any messages (errors or otherwise) coming after the "Booting" message (e.g. "Booting C»C") means that the BIOS has successfully loaded the MBR (for harddrives) or boot sector (for floppies) and transferred execution to it.

So if the code in the MBR or boot sector is able to output an error message like "Missing operating system" then no amount of FDISK /MBR is going to help. At best it will do nothing, at worst it will corrupt data on the drive.
 
malc, how's your Linux? I'm wondering if you could make available the first MB or so of the CompactFlash card in both states, i.e. Created and working on the 5160, and secondly created and working on the later machine. After setting it up, you can capture the data using dd,

sudo dd if=/dev/sdb of=cfcard1.img bs=1M count=1

(Assuming the card appears as sdb, you can check with lsblk).
 
Regarding FDISK /MBR;

Any messages (errors or otherwise) coming after the "Booting" message (e.g. "Booting C»C") means that the BIOS has successfully loaded the MBR (for harddrives) or boot sector (for floppies) and transferred execution to it.

So if the code in the MBR or boot sector is able to output an error message like "Missing operating system" then no amount of FDISK /MBR is going to help. At best it will do nothing, at worst it will corrupt data on the drive.
That's not my experience at all. On numerous occasions I've gotten that exact message while booting and fixed it with FDISK/MBR.
 
FDISK from DOS 5 or above ( /MBR switch introduced in MS-DOS 5 )?

And the CF was appearing to the system as hard drive 0 ( FDISK /MBR only targets hard drive 0 )?

Dos 6.22 and just the 1 CF card in the machine.

Malc, are you sure they are both r567? Small or large builds? Custom or official builds? I seem to recall you using a custom XT_TINY build on the 5160?

Did you compare the output of BIOSDRVS between the two computers?

Good Point, 486 is definitely R567 I thought i upgraded the XT but not sure now, No haven't used BIOSDRVS , Will try it later over the weekend.

malc, how's your Linux? I'm wondering if you could make available the first MB or so of the CompactFlash card in both states, i.e. Created and working on the 5160, and secondly created and working on the later machine. After setting it up, you can capture the data using dd,

sudo dd if=/dev/sdb of=cfcard1.img bs=1M count=1

(Assuming the card appears as sdb, you can check with lsblk).

My Linux skills are non existant, Never used it, I keep thinking i'll try it one day but never get around to it.
 
Thanks Guys I just got it working, I wiped the CF card and rebuilt on the P4, I built a new bios R567 IDE_XT.bin without MODULE_SERIAL and MODULE_SERIAL_FLOPPY, Plugged the CF card in the XT and flashed the new bios, On boot up i got an error and i can't believe i've forgotten it already but it was something like " Error loading operating system", So i built another bios same as above but including MODULE_VERY_LATE_INIT, I re-flashed the bios and the 5160 booted into dos no problem, I'll test it more over the weekend.
 
Hey guys, it's me again... with a new XT-IDE question:

I've just dug up an old IBM 5170 with the original ST-4026 kaputt. Tried another ST-4026 I had, also kaputt :-( So I figured I'd use my XT-IDE Rev2 card in it... I ran the IBM AT Diagnostics/Setup disc and set the system options, date/time, one 1.2MB floppy drive, IBM Mono Adapter and amount of fixed disks to 0. Then I rebooted the machine and all looks to be fine, it counts 256K memory, then loads the XT-IDE BIOS and after that boots C>>C but it hangs there... just keeps a flashing cursor for ever:

xtide-5170.jpg

Anyone?
 
I've tried booting from a DOS floppy and when I run FDISK I get "Error reading fixed disk". Weird, because the flash drive is formatted and installed with IBM PC-DOS 5.02 and I have been using it in an IBM PS/2 Model 30 286 with no problems. I tried another flash disk I have (new in package) and that one, when starting C>>C, will show "Starting MS-DOS" and then hangs. And again, when starting from a boot disk and running FDISK I get "Error reading fixed disk" again.

BTW: that third line with "Master at 0h: not found", could that be part of the problem? I can't remember that being there when I used the controller in that 8530 286 computer, that only showed Master at 300h and Slave at 300h.
 
If I try FDISK /MBR, I get "The master boot code has NOT been updated" (from an MS-DOS 6.0 boot floppy), normal FDISK gives me "Error reading fixed disk" again.
 
OK, s'more info:

I went along and took my other IBM 5170, this one's a newer model with 2nd rev. BIOS chips and 8MHz Type 2 mainboard. Took my pre-installed flash disk, put it on the XT-IDE controller, booted from the Setup disk and set the harddrive number to 0. Switched off and installed the controller...

No problems there, it just does what it did in the PS/2 Model 30 286. Counts 640K memory, beeps, loads the XT-IDE BIOS and boots C>>C. I can see IBM PC-DOS 5.02, the games and software on the flash disk.

BIOS revision problem?? The "problematic" 5170 is a 6MHz one, Type 1 mainboard and rev 1 BIOS with 256K memory (only bank 0 populated).
 
BIOS revision problem?? The "problematic" 5170 is a 6MHz one, Type 1 mainboard and rev 1 BIOS with 256K memory (only bank 0 populated).
So, an IBM 5170. Have a read of the earlier post [here] for IBM5170/XT-IDE incompatibility that I encountered many years ago.
There are some following related posts in the thread.
In use was the first version of XT-IDE card, containing early versions of the XTIDE Universal BIOS.

Then (and maybe know), the problem trigger was the 5170's BIOS. From memory, upgrading the BIOS on the 5170 motherboard from the first revision to the final revision only reduced the problem severity (read errors still happened, but only occasionally), and changing to a non-IBM BIOS removed the problem altogether.
 
I have XT-IDE ATL 2.0.0B3 up and running in my 486 machine, using the motherboard IDE, and it's currently installing FreeDOS 1.1 from CD to a Western Digital 40GB I managed to scrounge up. So far, no big problems aside from the FreeDOS installer being slow on a 486SX-25. I'm using a 27C128 I borrowed out of another card, and it's currently living in my Etherlink III's boot PROM socket assigned to C800h.

I've been wanting to get this going for a while now, since the system BIOS is CHS-only and none of the DDOs I've been able to find easily support FAT32.
 
I see that R580 (and other older releases) has also "ide_tiny.bin", ~4k only used space... that's what I need for an integration on an existing BIOS

I have already searched info on it by Google and repository but no luck.

The file is 8k for some reason? Can I cut it down to 4k or I loose some info (checksum is not a problem)? What module are excluded? what instruction code is used (8086/80188/286)? anyone know?
Thank you for the info!
 
Can I cut it down to 4k or I loose some info (checksum is not a problem)? What module are excluded? what instruction code is used (8086/80188/286)? anyone know?
The Tiny build uses 8086/8088 instructions only. Yes, you can truncate the file but I would recommend building with 'make xt_tiny' instead if possible (to avoid the risk of botching it while editing). This will create a 3987 byte file without the option ROM checksum if building from the latest revision (r588). Note that you will need to add MODULE_8BIT_IDE_ADVANCED to get support for the XT-CF cards. See the makefile for more info regarding modules.
 
I am trying to build the latest R588 binary but I can't compile the new Serial_Server binary... I get an error related to win32.obj . I followed the guide on the wiki and successfully compiled the other parts. Any idea how to fix things so serial server compiles too?



TIA for any info/help!

edit:
please keep in mind that this is the first time I am compiling anything , I tried to figure out if a win32.obj file exists or is a part of something I am missing but I failed. I have installed the full version (300+ mb) of tdm-gcc.
 
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