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XTIDE tech support thread

I admit, I am feeling like a total noob now...And I quite so am at this.
For 2 of my machines, I bought a XT-IDE/CF Lite solution some time ago. Both came with a DOS loaded CF cards. They work like a charm.
For my last one, I bought a XT-CF lite 4.1 without a card.
So did some research and tried it on my W10 like instructed here:
http://theinstructionlimit.com/installing-ms- … -to-ide-adapter

In Oracle it boots fine, in my machine (IBM clone with Turbo XT board) , the card gets detected but hangs at C>C.
So back to the W10 machine and through Oracle, I do FDISK /MBR, I put it back in the machine and then it says 'Missing Operating System.
I dug out my DOS 5 discs and I try to do it in the XT but I always get the message: there are no fixed disks.

Next attempt: try it with a socket 7 system. Again, the CF gets detected but DOS and FDISK say: no hard drive to be found dude...
Third system: Tandy 1000TL with also a CF lite installed: same thing.

My 2 premade cards work fine so I am missing something here.
Is this an issue with these adapters, the cards (tried 3),something else?
BIOS issue on these 2 adapters? One seems from 2013 and the other from 2015 so not really up to date ��
 
Got the XT-CF installed in my Compaq Portable and it ain't working. It sees the card and formats, but upon formatting completion, it shows an error saying not ready reading drive C.

I have it in the last slot since slot 3 is playing tricks with the XT-CF card. Has anyone had issues with this before? My BIOS ROM says Rev C (U40) and I even tried a second BIOS ROM and still nothing.
 
some cf cards do not work like the sandisk, in my case I had to take a 2GB transcend on my ibm 5155,
and it worked, I had the same problems as you, and I reinstalled the bios of the XT-IDE card before.
I have used dos 6.22, fdisk, reboot, format c:, sys c:, fdisk/ MBR and reboot.
 
Has anyone used an XT-IDE rom in an Emerson machine? I have a 286 that seems to refuse to run the XT-IDE code, whether it's on an XT-IDE v4 board or installed into a network card.

I've tried several combinations of IO addresses and every rom address combination. Some addresses stop the computer from booting at all or cause errors with the on-board extended memory.

It's very confusing, I've had little trouble with this device in any other machine I've tried...
 
I've built an CF-XT Lite card for an IBM XT replica (Xi 8088 ).
While the machine seems to be working nicely (backplane, CPU, VGA...), I can't get to boot on the CF card ("Boot failed, press any key to try again").

What I've tried so far:
- Checking the CF card. It boots FreeDOS and DOS 5 nicely on an i686 machine, so it doesn't seem to be the culprit.
- Checking the DIP switches, and try about every reasonable EEPROM address.
- Checking the ISA card. While I can see no solder bridge on the connector using an eye loupe, the multimeter beeps on many pins. This might be expected as they're most likely the ground pins and they could be connected together on the card. Or should they?
Furthermore the card LED turns on at boot when no CF card is inserted, but stays off when a card is inserted. Strange.

What would be the best way from here to troubleshoot this issue?
 
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theor said:
... the multimeter beeps on many pins.
Click to expand...
'Beeps' suggests that you have your multimeter in its 'continuity' mode. See my comment about that at [here].

theor said:
- Checking the CF card. It boots FreeDOS and DOS 5 nicely on an i686 machine, so it doesn't seem to be the culprit.
Click to expand...
Sometimes though, there can be a drive portability problem because BIOS #1 and BIOS #2 use different sector translation algorithms.

theor said:
I've built an CF-XT Lite card for an IBM XT replica (Xi 8088 ).
Click to expand...
Confirm for us that this is the 'XT-CF-Lite Version 4.1' card shown at [here].

theor said:
While the machine seems to be working nicely (backplane, CPU, VGA...), I can't get to boot on the CF card ("Boot failed, press any key to try again").
Click to expand...
Sometimes, knowing what is generating the error message helps.
"Boot failed, press any key to try again" appears in the motherboard BIOS supplied for the Xi 8088.
Looking at the source code for that BIOS, the subject error will occur if:
- A reset of hard drive (or CF) 0 fails (includes no hard drive).
- A read of the hard drive's (or CF's) very first sector failed.
- Read of the hard drive's (or CF's) very first sector was successful, but the 'signature' in that read sector was found not to be AA55.

theor said:
Furthermore the card LED turns on at boot when no CF card is inserted, but stays off when a card is inserted. Strange.
Click to expand...
Or possibly, turning on but only for a very short period, a period not long enough for you to perceive.

theor said:
What would be the best way from here to troubleshoot this issue?
Click to expand...
Per the bottom of [here], if your card is the 'XT-CF-Lite Version 4.1', is the XTIDE Universal BIOS (XUB) 'Device type' setting, set to 'XTCF PIO' ?

At computer power-on time, the XUB normally displays something on screen. Are you seeing that ?

On the Xi 8088 machine, run the test program at [here], seeing if it successfully locates the XUB.
 
Apologies for the late answer.

modem7 said:
'Beeps' suggests that you have your multimeter in its 'continuity' mode. See my comment about that at [here].
Click to expand...
Good point. Several pins, some of them a few pins apart, show a 3 ohm resistance. This may be normal though as they're likely to be the ground pins.

modem7 said:
Confirm for us that this is the 'XT-CF-Lite Version 4.1' card shown at [here].
Click to expand...
Yes, this very board.

modem7 said:
Per the bottom of [here], if your card is the 'XT-CF-Lite Version 4.1', is the XTIDE Universal BIOS (XUB) 'Device type' setting, set to 'XTCF PIO' ?
Click to expand...

I initially started with the bios-xi8088-xtide.bin ROM built from the latest version (0.9.8 ).
However I realized the XTIDE embedded inside was fairly outdated, so I used the xi8088.bin instead, with the latest XUB ROM on the XT CF board. I then configured it through DOSBox (I don't have a floppy controller to boot the Xi).
Apparently "XTCF PIO" is the default device type in the ROM, but I noticed its SHA256 changed after I wrote the settings so I made sure to flash the newly reconfigured one.

modem7 said:
At computer power-on time, the XUB normally displays something on screen. Are you seeing that ?
Click to expand...

I do not, unfortunately.
If that helps, on the XT CF board, SW1 is set to the default base address (0x300), as in the ROM configuration tool.
SW2.1 (ROM enable) is set to ON, SW2.2 (ROM write enable) is set to OFF, and SW2[3-7] are set to 0xD0000. All pretty standard.

On the Xi 8088 board, SW2.{2,3,4} are set to ON.

modem7 said:
On the Xi 8088 machine, run the test program at [here], seeing if it successfully locates the XUB.
Click to expand...

That makes sense, unfortunately I don't have a floppy controller or a machine that can read a floppy, so I will need to find an alternative for now.

Thank you for your answers.
 
JFYI:

Seems there is a HUGE BUG in the (most) KTC FC1307A firmware.
This chip is very popular and is used as the convertor on the CF-SD or IDE-SD boards
and widespread on the Aliexpress and eBay.

In brief: making a FAT16 and FAT12 partition brain-damages KTC FC1307A firmware.
FAT32 and Linux partitions work.

To reproduce the problem you need an adapter with FC1307A in the chain:
- IDE - SD
- IDE - CF - SD
- USB - IDE - CF -SD
- USB - CF - SD

- Try to make a FAT16 partition
- Reset a card (removing/inserting or power-cycle)
- Read Sector 0 from this drive

(Most?) KTC FC1307A firmware. will return *IDE Identification* instead of sector 0 !
(and garbage on the rest of the flash, seems a firmware blocks)
Again, FAT32 or Linux partitions work OK.
Tested with 256...2G SD cards.


Further reading @Vogons
https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=909901

P.S. I wrote about similar situation about 6 years ago :
https://www.vcfed.org/forum/forum/te...710#post567710
Interesting, KTC FC1307A firmware works in the 8-bit CF mode in the CF-Lite adapter.

Upd:
Code: 
[root@mini ~]# hexdump -C /dev/sdc
00000000 8a 84 41 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 40 02 3f 00 01 00 |..A.......@.?...|
00000010 00 00 00 00 43 43 44 44 41 44 44 42 20 20 20 20 |....CCDDADDB |
00000020 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 01 00 10 00 04 00 65 52 | ......eR|
00000030 20 76 2e 31 20 33 43 46 31 2d 30 33 20 37 44 53 | v.1 3CF1-03 7DS|
00000040 74 20 20 6f 46 43 41 20 61 64 74 70 72 65 53 20 |t oFCA adtpreS |
00000050 45 50 44 45 56 20 2e 31 20 33 20 20 20 20 01 80 |EPDEV .1 3 ..|
00000060 00 00 00 0f 00 00 00 02 00 00 03 00 41 00 10 00 |............A...|
00000070 3f 00 00 00 01 00 01 01 00 00 01 00 00 00 07 01 |?...............|
00000080 03 00 78 00 78 00 f0 00 78 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |..x.x...x.......|
00000090 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
000000a0 00 00 00 00 01 88 04 50 00 40 00 88 04 50 00 40 |.......P.@...P.@|
000000b0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
*
00000140 f4 81 00 00 00 00 12 00 5b 8b 00 00 00 00 00 00 |........[.......|
00000150 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
*
00000200 cc dd da bd 4e 4b 31 33 30 37 a0 17 0a 5e 01 57 |....NK1307...^.W|
00000210 4b 90 0c 96 4a 13 60 13 48 dd 02 ff 60 df 62 79 |K...J.`.H...`.by|
00000220 ff 12 1c 8c be c5 f5 91 1b 0d 10 4f ee 15 a0 1e |...........O....|
00000230 2b 16 af 1e e7 38 7d 90 ab d1 0a 9f 19 73 c9 66 |+....8}......s.f|
00000240 77 24 63 09 5b 5d 2b 87 82 bb 04 bb 94 b5 44 31 |w$c.[]+.......D1|
00000250 87 ef ac 9b bd 0f 5b 7a c5 86 05 ac b0 19 24 1b |......[z......$.|
00000260 77 30 95 09 15 09 b4 98 46 d0 53 d2 0a c8 89 cb |w0......F.S.....|
00000270 cf 85 ba fb ba 79 9f 33 80 87 f0 97 d0 7d 20 7d |.....y.3.....} }|
00000280 4b 29 78 1a ed 96 2f 12 16 31 04 ab 50 aa 46 ae |K)x.../..1..P.F.|
00000290 f7 64 55 80 7e 40 5d 1f 2c 2b 44 fa fe e6 ac 90 |.dU.~@].,+D.....|
000002a0 6f 0c 8d 0a 67 1a f6 82 60 cf 0b dd 4b da 59 b2 |o...g...`...K.Y.|
000002b0 6c 13 ac 3a a4 50 3e 16 e0 59 28 d2 21 fb e8 d7 |l..:.P>..Y(.!...|
000002c0 3b f3 b3 b6 bb 81 bf 9b 41 ea a0 98 81 9a c1 52 |;.......A......R|
000002d0 6f c1 ee 88 ee 02 94 00 20 ff 54 fa 9f af a0 a3 |o....... .T.....|
000002e0 5a 5c 5d 4d ff 07 ff 3c 5c 3f 1c 0f 04 d3 8b 5f |Z\]M...<\?....._|
000002f0 f8 4d 0e 05 0b 2d ce 65 29 67 63 57 62 ff 14 3b |.M...-.e)gcWb..;|
 
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I’ve been using one of these IDE-SD adapters in a VIA C3-based doorstop set up with pure DOS and FAT-16 partitioning (FDISK’ed with IBM PC-DOS 7) and it works flawlessly. Not saying that your bug observation isn’t true in some circumstances (formatter/partitioner related glitch?), but it doesn’t seem to be a universal problem.

These are the *only* devices I use in my 8-bit XT-CF adapters in XT-class machines, simply because they *always* work for that application. Far fewer compatibility issues than with real CF cards.
 
I have the 44 pin and 40 pin adapters with the DKT FC1307A chip, I use them in Thin clients and my old IBM's, Running DOS 6.22, Have been using them for about 3 years and i found they work flawlessly, They do not work with my lo-tech ISA - CF adapter though.
 
Malc said:
They do not work with my lo-tech ISA - CF adapter though.
Click to expand...

It’s funny people have such divergent experiences with these things. I specifically redesigned my Tandy 1000EX/HX multi-I/O board to accommodate direct plugging the 44 pin laptop versions of these things after discovering how well they worked. So far as I know my board should be functionally identical to the Lo-tech 8-bit adapters. (The 74xx-logic based ones at least, although mine uses a GAL for the decoding/inverting instead.)
 
When my sd card adapters are connected to my lo-tech isa - cf adapter nothing is found, Apparently They are supposed to work with ATA2 compliant hard drives, I have several supposedly ATA2 compliant drives but none are found, CF / Adapters work fine.
 
Malc said:
When my sd card adapters are connected to my lo-tech isa - cf adapter nothing is found, Apparently They are supposed to work with ATA2 compliant hard drives, I have several supposedly ATA2 compliant drives but none are found, CF / Adapters work fine.
Click to expand...

Odd. First prototype of my homemade ones were not quite straight across copies of this:

https://www.lo-tech.co.uk/wiki/Lo-te...er_revision_2b

Second prototype used substantially different decode logic (shared with serial ports) and the third is GAL based but they all worked with them. (Tested a 40 pin one only on the first model because the second two had 44 pin connectors. Did try a 44 pin on the first one as well using a goofy stack of adapters.)

For laughs I have tried a couple different real hard disks and, yeah, this was stupid, an m.sata to PATA adapter, and none of them ever worked.
 
So I just fixed my IBM P70 portable computer. The hard drive was shot and then I realized I found a loose SMD cap stuck in the bottom of the case. IT came from the ESDI HDD drive. I replaced all 3 SMD caps and the drive is still dead (no big surprise there). here is my question. Im not a PS/2 computer fan, I hate the things; But I love luggables. The computer works fine now otherwise. IS there a microchannel XTIDE device out yet?
 
I dont know if Id call the customer base small. Seems alot of people collect them (though I am not sure why but who am I to judge). We are a small customer base (vintage computer enthusiasts). So any new cards for any of these machines is a miracle. They just made a MCA sound card recently, why shouldnt an IDE board be possible?
 
The XTIDE is an 8 bit bus interface controller. To the best of my knowledge, an 8 bit MCA system has never existed. So you want a MC-to-IDE controller.

They've been made. e.g. Arco AC-1070, Procom MC-IDE, Sigma Data 931204...

Or you can use a MC SCSI controller and drive a SCSI disk or use a SCSI-to-SD adapter.

No need to launch a new niche product now.
 
Yeah I have gone down the SCSI route rabbit hole. None I have come across have a BIOS that detects at boot; I.e. cannot be used as a boot device.
 
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I know one guy is using XTIDE Universal BIOS with an Arco Computer Products AC-1075 so I added autodetection for that controller and the AC-1070 (which apparently is very similar) to XTIDECFG in r609. I have no idea if you can use those cards in your portable though. They are probably also not that easy to aquire, I imagine.
 
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