XTIDE Universal BIOS v2.0.0 beta testing thread

[AlexC]

request for real-mode binary

request for real-mode binary

Can someone please make a real-mode binary of IDE_XT.BIN that can be launched from a bootloader such as grub or syslinux (just like memtest86+ can)? I believe this would require only minor changes before compilation.

This would allow more machines to launch the XUB from a floppy drive, which would be useful for testing and also for PCs where a physical (E)EPROM solution might be impractical. It would work in a similar way to the 'rescue floppy' created by Ontrack Disk Manager (DDLOADER.BIN) or similar DDOs.

It would be good if it could be configurable via a tweaked version of XTIDECFG.COM. If not, defaulting to a single 16bit-in-8bit-slot controller at 1F0/3F0 would allow widespread testing on XT-class PCs.

I do have a method for loading the XUB from a floppy, but currently it only works on some machines. See my thread here for details: http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?52543-XT-IDE-via-floppy-boot-instead-of-EPROM

 

[ibmapc]

I've been trying to follow instructions here to build my own XTIDE UNIVERSAL BIOS. Unfortunately, I didn't get very far. When using Tortoise to download source, it appears the link for the repository (http://xtideuniversalbios.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/) is dead. Is there another link or an alternate way to acquire sources. I am not experienced with this stuff, but I learn quickly if someone is willing to teach.

 

[Malc]

Yes the old google code link is dead, The new repository url is, http://www.xtideuniversalbios.org/svn/xtideuniversalbios/

That is, xtideuniversalbios.org/svn/xtideuniversalbios/ ( with http://www in front)

 

[ibmapc]

Thanks Malc. That worked. Maybe someone could update the wiki to include that link?

 

[Malc]

Yes the wiki and docs are on the list to be updated on the new XTIDE Universal Bios website, The Pre-Built binaries can be downloaded from the Pre-built binaries download center.

 

[pearce_jj]

Thanks Malc for posting the pointers on this. If you (or anyone else) have some time that could be put in to updating the wiki, please PM me for access.

 

[ibmapc]

The following are some comments and responses from another thread that I've been hijacking. I think this is a more appropriate place for this conversation.

...mine (XTIDE rev 3) works perfectly with XUB up to r588 with "Chuck MOD" (They're up to r591) but anything newer than r588 and it fails to id the DOM or any drive connected including spinning hdd. I wonder if the later revs are leaving the older designs behind, focusing on James' designs. I have hi-jacked this tread far enough now. Prolly should start a new one or tack on to another more appropriate thread?!

Nope, FWIW I've had no problems with r591 and my XT-IDE R 1 card using CF and / or spinning disk. I don't own any DOM's.

I have only tried the newer revs with the "high speed" jumpers installed with IDE Controller Type set in XTIDECONFIG to match, "Rev 2 or modded rev 1". The bios comes up during boot but does not find any drives unless I downgrade to r588 or earlier. I have not tried it in "compatibility mode". Is your Rev 1 card stock? Or has it been "Chuck Modded"? This should probably be discussed in another thread. Any sugestions which one? There are several threads regarding XTIDE.

My Rev 1 card is stock, I never did the 'Chuck mod', I'd use the XTIDE Universal BIOS v2.0.0 beta testing thread.

Load a suitable BIOS file from r591 in XTIDECFG and then do an autodetect (a drive must be connected when doing this). If that doesn't work then you likely have a hardware problem.

Thank you Malc and Krille for your responses.

Malc, I will have to do some re-configuring and see if I can get my rev 3 card to work in compatibility mode with r591.

Krille, please note that it works perfectly with r588 and older. If it's a hardware problem, it doesn't show up until r589 and newer Bios.

This would be a good time to tell you about my machine. It is far from "Stock";

-IBM 5155
-later XT Motherboard 64 - 256k version with 1megXT MOD (256k chips in all ram banks, 640k base memory, D000h to EFFFh used as UMA)
-Bios updated to 5-9-86 version.
-AST Hot Shot 286 Accelerator at 10mhz
-ATI EGA Wonder
-Sound Blaster 2.0 with CMS "Upgrade"
-XTIDE rev 3 with 1gig DOM

I'll try to find time this weekend to put it in my stock 5155 to rule out (or rule IN) compatibility issues.

Is anyone using a rev 2 or 3 card in "High Speed" mode with r589 or newer?

 

[Krille]

Thanks Malc for posting the pointers on this. If you (or anyone else) have some time that could be put in to updating the wiki, please PM me for access.

Would it be possible to have the Wiki in several languages? I don't know how much need there is for the manuals in languages other than english but I'm thinking it would be nice to have if there is a need (and if someone is prepared to maintain the pages for each language of course).

Krille, please note that it works perfectly with r588 and older. If it's a hardware problem, it doesn't show up until r589 and newer Bios.

Your posts earlier in this thread indicates that you might be using a build you made yourself. If so, did you make sure to include;

• MODULE_8BIT_IDE? If not, there is no support for the XT-IDE cards in the build.
• NO_ATAID_VALIDATION? If not, some drives might not be detected.

If you're using the official builds from http://xtideuniversalbios.org/binaries then both of these defines are included so it should work unless you somehow made a mistake when configuring the BIOS (which is why I wanted you to try the autodetection).

-AST Hot Shot 286 Accelerator at 10mhz

If there really is a compatibility problem then this would be my primary suspect but I doubt that's the problem.

 

[ibmapc]

Your posts earlier in this thread indicates that you might be using a build you made yourself. If so, did you make sure to include;

• MODULE_8BIT_IDE? If not, there is no support for the XT-IDE cards in the build.
• NO_ATAID_VALIDATION? If not, some drives might not be detected.

If you're using the official builds from http://xtideuniversalbios.org/binaries then both of these defines are included so it should work unless you somehow made a mistake when configuring the BIOS

I've tried it both with "Official" builds and my own configured builds with the two modules you mentioned as a minimum. I've tried several combos with boot menu or hot keys. None worked.

(which is why I wanted you to try the autodetection).

I did try the "auto configure". It say's "found 0 controllers" unless I use r588 or older. I always use the configurator that's the same version as the bios that I'm loading. With r588 it finds my controller and configures it correctly.

If there really is a compatibility problem then this (AST Hot Shot 286 Accelerator) would be my primary suspect but I doubt that's the problem.

I agree. Right now, it's jumpered to startup in 286 mode. I can change it to start in 8088 mode next time I remove the cover and see if that makes any difference.

 

[ibmapc]

I did try the "auto configure". It say's "found 0 controllers"

OK, I did some more testing tonight. It seems I was remembering it wrong when I made that statement. The "found 0 controllers" message only comes up after a failed boot. Meaning that if I flash the EEPROM with r589 or newer and then re-boot, it fails to id the drive connected to the XTIDE and then boots to drive A. Then, I run XTIDECFG, load bios from file, or from EEPROM and select "auto configure" and the message "found 0 controllers" is displayed. So it seems during the failed boot, the XTIDE locks up and XTIDECFG can not auto configure it, no matter what bios I attempt to load. If I power cycle the unit and boot with XTIDE bios disabled, (booting to floppy),then enable bios and run XTIDECFG and load r588 everything works fine, including "auto configure". This was all done with the AST HotShot set to start in 286 mode during power on. So then I switched the HotShot to 8088 mode(ALT+8 switches between processors) and did a "three finger re-boot" (during soft boot, the HotShot stays in the same mode). I then flashed the EEPROM with r591. It re-booted and it successfully identified the DOM and booted dos. All seemed to work fine until I switched to 286 mode. It then started having trouble finding files on the DOM and directory listing became gibberish. So I again downgraded to r588 and ran several tests in both 286 and 8088 mode and found no failures. So, it seems like there is a timing issue when using the r589 and newer when in accelerated 286 mode. Maybe r588 is a little slower than the newer versions thereby keeping the timing from being a problem? I still need to remove the cover so that I can move the jumpers on the XTIDE to "Compatibility mode" and re-load r591 configured for same. If that works in 286 mode, I would then run some benchmarks to see which is faster, r591 in "compatibility mode" or r588 in "high speed mode"

 

[alecv]

Did anyone try to run XTIDEUNIVERSALBIOS on the 16-bit MFM (WDxxxx) controllers ? As it is known MFM controllers perform IDE commands subset (uses the same TaskList register set) but does not respond for IDE ATA Identification commands. I tried to setup C/H/S manually with XTIDECFG w/o success. Is it possible to run XUB and MFM?

 

[Holmes]

I know this is a very old thread, but I have a question about updating my XTIDE BIOS to post-version 1.1.5.

So my system is an IBM PC 5150, running the original XTIDE version 1 hardware, built from the kit. I have not done the Chuck speed mod to it. The XTIDE has a 1GB IDE hard drive attached to it, and it is working well. It currently has the 1.1.5 BIOS.

I am interested in upgrading it to the 2.0.x BIOS, but am worried about the warnings about corruption of data when upgrading, and something about L-CHS parameters changing in the BIOS revision. I tried looking into this technically, and it seems like messing that info up would seriously mess the data integrity up.

How would you go about upgrading this, while keeping my hard drive contents. My understanding is that a new hard drive would need to be repartitioned and reformatted with the new BIOS to be safe.

Any ideas on how I would migrate my hard drive after updating the XTIDE BIOS to version 2?

I guess I could get a USB-to-IDE adapter cord. Then I could transfer the hard-drive contents to a modern computer. What would I do then? Update the XTIDE BIOS to v2, repartition/reformat the IDE hard drive with the new BIOS v2, connect the IDE hard drive back to my modern PC and then transfer the backup contents back to the IDE hard drive? Would that work?

Any suggestions would be great, thanks.

 

[Malc]

....So my system is an IBM PC 5150, running the original XTIDE version 1 hardware, built from the kit. I have not done the Chuck speed mod to it. The XTIDE has a 1GB IDE hard drive attached to it, and it is working well. It currently has the 1.1.5 BIOS.

I have the same R1 cards, didn't do the 'Chuck mod' either, One of my 5160's is still running the 1.1.5 BIOS, Never felt the need to upgrade that one.

I am interested in upgrading it to the 2.0.x BIOS, but am worried about the warnings about corruption of data when upgrading, and something about L-CHS parameters changing in the BIOS revision. I tried looking into this technically, and it seems like messing that info up would seriously mess the data integrity up.

Yes, I can't remember exactly when it changed without looking back, It was a long time ago now, Basically i found an FDISK / Partition / Format and Re-install was best.

How would you go about upgrading this, while keeping my hard drive contents. My understanding is that a new hard drive would need to be repartitioned and reformatted with the new BIOS to be safe.

Any ideas on how I would migrate my hard drive after updating the XTIDE BIOS to version 2?

I guess I could get a USB-to-IDE adapter cord. Then I could transfer the hard-drive contents to a modern computer. What would I do then? Update the XTIDE BIOS to v2, repartition/reformat the IDE hard drive with the new BIOS v2, connect the IDE hard drive back to my modern PC and then transfer the backup contents back to the IDE hard drive? Would that work?

Any suggestions would be great, thanks.

What exactly do you want to transfer over to the new drive ?, This is what i would do and have done successfully in the past.

I would recommend you upgrade to the latest available revision of the XUB which is R591
Remove your current hard drive and put it somewhere safe.
Fit your new drive as master and using a DOS boot disk with the XUB and XTIDECFG.COM on the floppy, Boot the machine / Configure the BIOS using XTIDECFG.COM and flash the EEPROM. Reboot / FDISK / Partition and format the new drive and install the operating system.

Fit your old drive as a Slave ( I'm assuming your PSU will cope with 2 drives ) and boot the machine, You will not be able to boot from your old hard drive but should be able to read and copy any data over to the new drive.

 

[Holmes]

I have the same R1 cards, didn't do the 'Chuck mod' either, One of my 5160's is still running the 1.1.5 BIOS, Never felt the need to upgrade that one.



Yes, I can't remember exactly when it changed without looking back, It was a long time ago now, Basically i found an FDISK / Partition / Format and Re-install was best.



What exactly do you want to transfer over to the new drive ?, This is what i would do and have done successfully in the past.

I would recommend you upgrade to the latest available revision of the XUB which is R591
Remove your current hard drive and put it somewhere safe.
Fit your new drive as master and using a DOS boot disk with the XUB and XTIDECFG.COM on the floppy, Boot the machine / Configure the BIOS using XTIDECFG.COM and flash the EEPROM. Reboot / FDISK / Partition and format the new drive and install the operating system.

Fit your old drive as a Slave ( I'm assuming your PSU will cope with 2 drives ) and boot the machine, You will not be able to boot from your old hard drive but should be able to read and copy any data over to the new drive.

Thanks for the reply!

I need to transfer a whole bunch of junk on the old hard drive. I have lots of applications (Word, Windows, Lotus 123, etc.), games, documents. It's not mission critical, though. I'd hate to have to reinstall everything all over again. I think originally I transferred the install files over using a serial connection and Fastlynx.

So you feel I should be able to read the old drive as a slave under the new XUB bios? That was my chief concern, as I wasn't sure if the XUB would still read the old drive okay, or if it would garble that with the new drive "layout".

 

[Malc]

Yes should be fine, ( Famous last words ) Seriously though i never had any problems reading the old hard drive as a slave and copying data to the new drive. As i said you won't be able to boot from the old (slave) hard drive but once you have all the data off you could wipe the drive / fdisk / partion and format and use the drive as a slave if you wanted to.

 

[Holmes]

Yes should be fine, ( Famous last words ) Seriously though i never had any problems reading the old hard drive as a slave and copying data to the new drive. As i said you won't be able to boot from the old (slave) hard drive but once you have all the data off you could wipe the drive / fdisk / partion and format and use the drive as a slave if you wanted to.

OK, thank you very much!

 

[Holmes]

Hello all again.

So I also switched my configuration to running off a CF card. With the old 1.1.5 BIOS, I copied everything on my hard drive over to my CF card, and I had my system running well with just my CF card as the master. So then I attempted to update the BIOS with the plan to reformat my CF card after this.

So I plugged the CF card into my Windows 8 laptop, downloaded the XUB 2.0.0 Beta 3 from here: https://code.google.com/archive/p/xtideuniversalbios/downloads

I couldn't find out which actual release it was. Please point me to where I should be downloading it please if this is wrong.

I copied over the BIOS files to the CF card, plugged it back into my IBM 5150, and booted from it. I located to the XTIDE BIOS directory I just created on it, and flashed my BIOS.

I pretty much left it with its default settings. It did identify my XTIDE as Rev 1 correctly.

It looks like the flash worked just fine.



I rebooted, to find that the menu from 1.1.5 was now gone. It basically shows the line of items on the top, but it proceeds so fast, I can't use any of the hotkeys. It defaults to booting off C: (which is my CF card), but then says:



I was under the impression that it would give me a few seconds to choose which device to boot from. I've tried several times to try to get it to boot from A, which is my DOS 5.0 floppy, so I can partition the CF with the new BIOS. Unfortunately I can't. I just hit the "A" key as soon as this menu comes up, right?

Does anyone have any idea why it's not finding my OS? Is it directly because of the new BIOS reorganizing the layout of the CF, and thus looking in the wrong place?

Thanks.

 

[Chuck(G)]

Does anyone have any idea why it's not finding my OS? Is it directly because of the new BIOS reorganizing the layout of the CF, and thus looking in the wrong place?

That's quite likely, particularly with old OSes, as they tend to use CHS addressing, rather than LBA. That used to bug me back in the day--my old HP Vectra P1 system insisted on remapping IDE drives to have 254 heads, while everyone else used 255. Create a hard disk setup on one system and plug the drive into the Vectra and urp! No soap. Very irritating.

 

[modem7]

I was under the impression that it would give me a few seconds to choose which device to boot from. I've tried several times to try to get it to boot from A, which is my DOS 5.0 floppy, so I can partition the CF with the new BIOS. Unfortunately I can't. I just hit the "A" key as soon as this menu comes up, right?

Late last year, member giobbi upgraded to a 2.x version of the XTIDE Universal BIOS, and discovered no boot menu.
The answer was to recompile the BIOS with the BOOT_MENU module added.
The posts about that start at [here].

 

[Holmes]

That's quite likely, particularly with old OSes, as they tend to use CHS addressing, rather than LBA. That used to bug me back in the day--my old HP Vectra P1 system insisted on remapping IDE drives to have 254 heads, while everyone else used 255. Create a hard disk setup on one system and plug the drive into the Vectra and urp! No soap. Very irritating.

Ok, thanks. I'll focus my efforts on getting the cf partitioned and formatted. Unfortunately, I've been able to get the timing right to get it to boot to a: but detection the cf has been erratic with the xub 2.0.0b3. If I can't get it to work, I may just go back to 1.1.5 since that worked great for my setup. I did want to do your speed mod, though.

Late last year, member giobbi upgraded to a 2.x version of the XTIDE Universal BIOS, and discovered no boot menu.
The answer was to recompile the BIOS with the BOOT_MENU module added.
The posts about that start at [here].

Ok, thanks for the link! I just took a look at it, and I definitely feel the menu going away was not good, at least for me. I sometimes spend a year away from my pc, and I'm likely to be confused again coming back to it. A menu makes it nice and easy. I'll read more of the thread. I definitely never would have found it buried in that general thread.