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Conner CP-2024 to make it alive

enrico

Experienced Member
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Nov 4, 2007
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Pisa - Italy
Pls excuse for my poor english, i hope to can explain well the help i ask for.

I have 2 older hard drives Conner CP-2024 one working and one not.
It seems that the not working may have lost the mapping between physical and logical geometry. Is there a way to make it alive?

I explain other I hope useful information.
Physical Geometry: 653 cylinders, 2 heads, 32 sectors per track
Geometry logic: 615 cylinders, 4 heads, 17 sectors per track

If I connect the working hard drive at the secondary controller of a Pentium III computer, for first the computer configures the hard disk with 653 cylinders, 2 heads, 32 sectors per track. In this way the hard disk became not enabled with any operating system (Windows 98, XP or Ubuntu).
If I manually set it into the bio with 615 cylinders, 4 heads, 17 sectors per track instead is became seen by the operating systems I said. If I install it on the primary controller of the same computer it boot DOS 4.01 OS and Windows 3.1 contained on that hard disk.

If I leave the same settings in this computer's bios and i connect to it the not working hard, the computer can not in any way to load any operating system.

Thanks for any helpful suggestions.
 
I'm not sure that I can follow your meaning, but the early Conner drives automatically perform logical translation and it's those parameters that should be used.
 
you're right. but why the working conner recognized but my PIII's bios as CHS=653,2,32 so i can't read or boot from it and instead when i set the right parameters CHS=615,4,17 i can read and boot from this hd?
 
Conner said that the IDE "Initialize Drive Parameters" (command 0x91) determines the translation mode and is saved in NVRAM. Could that be the issue? Have you run the IDESDI utility or the Find_ATA command to see what the drive thinks?
 
Ciao Chuck, thanks in advance for your help and suggestions.
If i connected to my pc the working hard disk then I can boot DOS 4.01 from the floppy disk and i can run the test-ata ptogram.
I have this photo https://www.dropbox.com/s/9iiz6l5rgzc5zro/Cp-2024 working.jpg?dl=0
If instead i connect the fail hard disk to my pc i can't have any boot from any drive. The only way is to leave the working hard disk and have boot from the floppy drive, then i have to remove with care the working hard drive and i have to connect with care the fail hard drive. In this case, waiting for a moment the test-ata program shows the pic at this link https://www.dropbox.com/s/d1ah4uri4g82vus/CP-2024 FAIL.jpg?dl=0
The only differences are their serial number... What could i to do?

Enrico
 
Enrico, perhaps we can dig a little more information from the drive using the attached utilitiy.

Let's give it a try, and see what it says.
 

Attachments

  • IDESDI.ZIP
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Here the pic of each drive with idesdi
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9iiz6l5rgzc5zro/Cp-2024 working.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/d1ah4uri4g82vus/CP-2024 FAIL.jpg?dl=0

i suspect that when i turn on the commodore c286-Lt after almost 15 years, i did not know the type of the hard disk it had and also if its configuration in the bios was right for that drive. What could happen if an old bios has different configuration and if turning on a computer the hard disk not make its boot and you hear the heads to go up an down with noise? Could this to break the surfaces of the plates of the disk or the heads?

Enrico
 
I have been going over some old logs and it seems that the early Conner drives do not conform to the ATA 1.0 specification.

In particular, it seems that the specification states that the translated geometry is to be reported in response to the IDENTIFY command, not the "native" geometry. With the Conner drives, the "native" geometry is always reported.

However, I think that there is a way around this--allow me to hook up one of my small Conner IDE drives and see if my idea is correct.
 
Interesting...

Both hard drives were part of 2 commodore computer model C286-LT age end 1990 - begin 1991. I can't identify their chipset controller.
If it can help i added two more photos using a seagate utility with attached each hd at the same commodore machine in different moments.
In these pics it's possible to see that the program shows hardware CHS and DOS CHS. The pics are in the same above folder:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/dx54b5yg5...4hN4l5r0a?dl=0
Enrico
 
It seems to me that both drives are working just fine. You need to know the drive geometry used for the second "failed" drive to be able to boot from it. If you know for certain that it is bootable, that is. Otherwise, to use the drive, just use the native geometry (or a close match) and fdisk and format (install DOS etc).

Or am I missing something?
 
I have two CP-2024 drives. The commodore machine c286-LT needs to be set with type 2 that means:
Type Cyl Hd Pre LZ Sec Size (MB)
2 615 4 300 615 17 20
so i save this setting and in this way the computer can boot dos 4.01 and then also windows 3.1 with the working drive.
Made this i turned off the computer and i attached the fail drive.
This cannot boot.
I think that this drive needs to be low level format then i need to use fdisk and finally to format it, but.... at the begin when i turned the commodore computer for the 1st time after almost 10 or more years of storage with this drive i didn't know what setting was in the bios and if this one was different or equal to the geometry of this drive.
I just heard noise coming from the drive. i not know if this could broken plates or heads themselves. or maybe it was broken even from before to turn on it.


I hope to can save it otherwise i think to connect an SD to ide or CF to ide adapter to the flat 2.5" connector setting into the computer bios the setting for a sd or cf card i will use with it.

Enrico
 
enrico said:
If instead i connect the fail hard disk to my pc i can't have any boot from any drive.
Are you saying that having this "failed" drive connected somehow prevents the computer from booting at all? Even from other drives including floppies?

The only way is to leave the working hard disk and have boot from the floppy drive, then i have to remove with care the working hard drive and i have to connect with care the fail hard drive.
Did you replace the drive while the computer was still powered on? You know, IDE drives are not designed to be hotpluggable so you probably should not do that. :)
 
If instead i connect the fail hard disk to my pc i can't have any boot from any drive.
Are you saying that having this "failed" drive connected somehow prevents the computer from booting at all? Even from other drives including floppies?


Enrico: Pls sorry. i have to specify better. When i wished to check the fail drive, i take it away from the commodore computer and installed it onto a p3 or p4 demo machine i usually use to do test. I installed it as master on secondary ide interface. the pc recognised it as CHS=653,2,32 (if i remeber well) as hardware when i'm sure that to read correctly the drive i need to set chs=615,4,17 manually when i use the working drive in the same machine.
Anyway: with the fail hard drive, the computer not terminate its post in the sense that when the computer should boot from a diskette or from the master hard drive on main ide interface, i have the cursor flashng in the top left of the screen and nothing else happen.




The only way is to leave the working hard disk and have boot from the floppy drive, then i have to remove with care the working hard drive and i have to connect with care the fail hard drive.
Did you replace the drive while the computer was still powered on? You know, IDE drives are not designed to be hotpluggable so you probably should not do that.


Enrico: No, no. i made this just when the computer is turned on and the light of the hard disk is turned off. i know that this is not a well done work, but what can i do if the computer cannot continue its booting when i leave the fail hard drive connected? I made this really with carefully and slowly.
Both hard drive are the same model.

Enrico
 
A little secret of DOS machines is that if the MBR is sufficiently messed up, the PC will hang.

Early Conner drives do not co-exist well with other makes. But you are saying that the failed drive does work in your Commodore?

If that's so, then I think it is a matter of getting the translated drive geometry correct.
 
When booting from a A: drive were you physically able to access the C: drive and read its root directory on the drive you're having problems with Enrico?

I've got a Conner IDE 300ish meg drive that no amount of mucking around with dos or dos utils seemed to do anything with yet OS/2 v3 installed right off the bat, so left that on it instead of binning it. It's still running fine.
 
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...But you are saying that the failed drive does work in your Commodore?...

The commodore computer boots DOS from diskette with the working hd and also with fail hd.
Then i can read the dir of the working hd but this not happens with the fail hd.the screen present: Hard disk failure press f1 to continue or f2 to enter setup. i press f1 so i boot DOS from the diskette. if i launch fdisk command the answer after to heard the heds moving a little is: error reading fixed disk.


Instead:
if i connect the working HD to any ide interface of a PC i can have boot of DOS from a diskette, the hd presents in that machine and also from the working HD.
if i connect the fail HD to any ide interface of a PC i cannot have boot of DOS. the screen became clear and the cursor blinks on the top left of the screen and nothing else happens.

What i wished to expose with the last pics i got using seagate utility on the commodore machine is that with both HD (the working and the fail ones) it seems that the machine recognize the hardware CHS and also their translate (see under che DOS column!)
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/dx54b5yg5zhw2hw/AAC-nEE8Z36w-Pgb4hN4l5r0a?dl=0
 
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