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Silicon Valley Computer 8 bit Hard Disk Adapter ADP50L

framer

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Nov 27, 2008
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Another project to keep me off the streets,

I just intalled this card in an IBM XT.

About a month ago I purchased a 8 bit IDE adapter on Ebay. It was listed as a "Vintage ISA 8 bit controller"

It was a Silicon Valley Computer 8 bit Hard Disk Adapter ADP50L

I then bought a CF to IDE adapter to try with it. The good news was it fdisk fine and formatted fine and loaded the system files with a format /s command. It shows up as the active partition but it will not boot from the flash drive. Any Ideas? I can read and write to the CFdrive and run apps without any problem.

I also tried another old 250MB IDE hard drive with a DOS 6.22 system on it. You ready for this, it booted right up. Has anyone else been able to boot off of this controller using a CF?

I bought this gem for only $15.00

I see there is a 5 pin power connector on the card but don't understand it's use and pinout?

Thanks,
framer
 
Hi Framer,

I've not had any trouble booting with two separate ADP50L cards (w/Tandy BIOS) and CF-IDE interfaces, using SanDisk Ultra II, 1GB cards (single, 504MB partitions).

A standard four-pin power-lead attaches to the header on the board. I don't have one in front of me at the moment, but you can trace the pins out to their respective ISA fingers to determine the voltages. The middle, "key" pin on the header is a dummy.
 
Another project to keep me off the streets,

I just intalled this card in an IBM XT.

About a month ago I purchased a 8 bit IDE adapter on Ebay. It was listed as a "Vintage ISA 8 bit controller"

It was a Silicon Valley Computer 8 bit Hard Disk Adapter ADP50L

I then bought a CF to IDE adapter to try with it. The good news was it fdisk fine and formatted fine and loaded the system files with a format /s command. It shows up as the active partition but it will not boot from the flash drive. Any Ideas? I can read and write to the CFdrive and run apps without any problem.

I also tried another old 250MB IDE hard drive with a DOS 6.22 system on it. You ready for this, it booted right up. Has anyone else been able to boot off of this controller using a CF?

I bought this gem for only $15.00

I see there is a 5 pin power connector on the card but don't understand it's use and pinout?

Thanks,
framer

Are you sure the CF adapter is set as master?

JT
 
Are you sure the CF adapter is set as master?

JT

Since i have same controller i must ask you, can you also fdisk format both a primary and an extended secondary 520 MB partition with logical drives on your HD?

JT
 
Here what I've now checked. Yes it was set to master, I also tried slave just in case it was mislabled. NO boot.

I've fdisked with PCDOS 3.3 with a primary and then using extended several 32 MB logical drives. Formated with format c: /s and using chkdsk it showed the system files being used. Yes I did mark the partition active.

I then redid it with MSDOS 6.22 fdisked a single 504mb, marked as active, formatted it with format c: /s and checked it with dir /ah and all the system files show up fine. NO BOOT.

I then tried a 100MB partition with the balance using a extended partition and several logical drives, again formatted it with format c: /s and tried to boot. NO BOOT.

I've also tried several old IDE drive I had in a drawer and they worked perfect and booted right up. I can only think that the cheap CF adapter I got from china might be the problem. Because it's working with a regular IDE drive I really don't know why I'm wasting my time on this problem.

I will try it in another system just to see later tonight.

Thanks for the input.

framer
 
extension ROM's

extension ROM's

Do you have anything else in there with an extension ROM that might be hooking INT 19h ?
Like a SCSI controller, or some other controller ?
patscc
 
What slot did you install this card in? Slot 8 on a 5160 is different from the others and some cards won't work in it.

Do you get a signon at boot time from the card BIOS?

This has to have a simple answer--if you can access the disk after boot with no other drivers installed, it's got to be something simple--perhaps the wrong EPROM on the card--ISTR these were popular with Tandy 1000 owners.
 
Here what I've now checked. Yes it was set to master, I also tried slave just in case it was mislabled. NO boot.

I've fdisked with PCDOS 3.3 with a primary and then using extended several 32 MB logical drives. Formated with format c: /s and using chkdsk it showed the system files being used. Yes I did mark the partition active.

I then redid it with MSDOS 6.22 fdisked a single 504mb, marked as active, formatted it with format c: /s and checked it with dir /ah and all the system files show up fine. NO BOOT.

I then tried a 100MB partition with the balance using a extended partition and several logical drives, again formatted it with format c: /s and tried to boot. NO BOOT.

I've also tried several old IDE drive I had in a drawer and they worked perfect and booted right up. I can only think that the cheap CF adapter I got from china might be the problem. Because it's working with a regular IDE drive I really don't know why I'm wasting my time on this problem.

I will try it in another system just to see later tonight.

Thanks for the input.

framer


I've formatted and Fdisk my to 480 MB since i had trouble getting out the full capacity using my 512 MB CF, it boot just fine. My 2 GB CF also no problem so far(same partition size).

But i've noticed trouble with the smaller CF in Vista, on my other machine. It seem to have older/different controller hardware.

JT
 
Pinnacle

Pinnacle

The pinnacle of ripp-off.
They probably drive over to Wierd Stuff Warehouse when an order comes in and root through the $5 per board boxes in the back.

patscc
 
I was using a 2g Sandisk Ultra II



framer

I use same CF, and it works however once formated you will only be able to write the system once. How did you get the systemfiles on your CF?

I use floppy on the XT command "sys A: C:", i do not know enough about systems but maybe there is compability issues if you move the system files to the CF on another machine and your XT unable to find them. That is all i can think of.

JT
 
I finally got the compact flash card to boot. Size does not matter.

Even though it was fdisked with version 3.3 I booted from floppy 6.22 and did a FDISK /MBR and it boots fine. Tried a 2gig disk that was fdisked at 500MB no problem and a 128M compact Flash Card also no problem.

framer
 
making compact flash bootable

making compact flash bootable

The compact flash card was never intended to be a bootable device form the factory. To make it bootable you must run the command, from the dos prompt, "fdisk /mbr". (space between k and /) When it has executed (you will see nothing run on the screen) it will return you to the a: prompt. This command can be run before or after you have run the regular fdisk routine
If you have already setup the disk and loaded dos to it you do not have to start over. Run the command once and you are done. Pull your floppy and you are ready to boot from the compact flash card.
 
I need a card

I need a card

Hi, im really apreciate where can found this card Silicon Valley Computer 8 bit Hard Disk Adapter ADP50L, or any other XT - IDE controlle. Actually i have a old system working with a flloppy disk and we would like change to a CF disk if it possible.

Thanks in advance (im sorry for my english)
 
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