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Help with XT-IDE - file allocation table bad

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First post, by p6889k

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I purchased XT-IDE Deluxe ISA card with integrated CF controller on board from: https://monotech.fwscart.com/XT-IDE_Deluxe_-_ … 4_19478732.aspx

I'm playing around with it to see if I can get both the XT-IDE Deluxe ISA onboard controller working as well as motherboard onboard controller working at the same time using the XT-IDE BIOS.

I configured XT-IDE for two controllers, it recognizes both controllers upon boot, when booting from motherboard connected HDD I get "file allocation table bad" message upon boot to command prompt. Booting from a CF card connected to the XT-IDE works just fine. I'm using the F2 XT-IDE boot menu to choose boot drive. If I disconnect the XT-IDE controller, the motherboard connected HDD boots without problems.

Any advice how to overcome the problem? Here's my configuration:

Configuration for Pentium Pro 200
......Pentium Pro 200
......Intel VS440FX motherboar
......1 80GB IDE HDD connected to primary onboard controller
......XT-IDE Deluxe with 2 GB CF Card inserted

XT-IDE Config Tool
BIOS v2.0.0
EEPROM: v2.0.0ß3+ (2019-02-14)
Primary IDE Controller:
......Device Type: [16-bit]
......Base address: [1F0h]
......Control Block Address: [3F0h]
......Enable Interrupt [Yes]
......IRQ: [14]
......Master Drive:
............Block Mode Transfers: Yes
............CHS translation method: Auto
............Internal Write Cache: Disabled
............User CHS: No
............User LBA: No
......Slave Drive:
............Block Mode Transfers: Yes
............CHS translation method: Auto
............Internal Write Cache: Disabled
............User CHS: No
............User LBA: No
Secondary IDE Controller:
......Device Type: XTIDE r2
......Base address: [300h]
......Control Block Address: [308h]
......Enable Interrupt [no]
......Master Drive:
............Block Mode Transfers: Yes
............CHS translation method: Auto
............Internal Write Cache: Disabled
............User CHS: No
............User LBA: No
......Slave Drive:
............Block Mode Transfers: Yes
............CHS translation method: Auto
............Internal Write Cache: Disabled
............User CHS: No
............User LBA: No

Boot Settings:
......Display Mode: [Default]
......Color Theme: [Classic]
......Number of Floppy Drives: [Auto]
......Scan for Serial Drives: [No]
......Default Boot Drive: [80h]
......Selection Timeout: [546]
......Remove other hard drives: [Yes]
kiB to steal from RAM: [1]
IDE controllers: [2]
Power Management: [Disabled]

Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k, 48k+, 128k, +2
Amiga 1200, 68030/40mhz
386DX/33, ET4000, SBPro2, MT32
Dual PPro/200, Millennium II, Voodoo 2, AWE32, SC-55
etc.

Reply 1 of 9, by jakethompson1

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The BIOS probably uses a different translation scheme.
While there are easier ways if you have the right tools, here is how you could see what translated cylinder/head/sector numbers the BIOS is using.
First boot from media with the DOS DEBUG utility - that could be DOS 6.22 disk 1, a Windows 95 startup disk, etc.

At the debug prompt type: d 0:104
That tells you the location of the fixed disk parameter table, 2 bytes for the offset and 2 bytes for the segment. You have to flip each pair of bytes (due to byte-order), and also enter the address as d seg:off so as you can see in the screenshot I had to enter d 9fc0:003d

Now, the resulting dump has 2 bytes for cylinders, 1 byte for heads, 11 bytes you don't care about, and 1 for the number of sectors. So for the screenshot, there are 0x0208 cylinders, 0x80 heads, and 0x3f sectors, or 520 cylinders, 128 heads, and 63 sectors.

Try this once without XT-IDE bios, and once with it. You might want to disconnect the CF card just to avoid any possible confusion while you do this.

As an 80 GB HDD is well over the 8.4 GB limit, I expect XT-IDE would use 1024 cylinders, 255 heads, and 63 sectors. It will be interesting to hear what the normal BIOS uses. What OS are you using and are you sure you're able to access all 80 GB from it?

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    debug.png
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    7.25 KiB
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Reply 2 of 9, by p6889k

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I haven't done the DOS DEBUG utility yet. But found the following. The motherboard BIOS reports the drive as C/H/S 23937/16/63, capacity 65,535MB. When I boot to Windows98 it shows the capacity as 74.4GB. The XT-IDE BIOS reports the drive as LBA, size 74.5GiB.

Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k, 48k+, 128k, +2
Amiga 1200, 68030/40mhz
386DX/33, ET4000, SBPro2, MT32
Dual PPro/200, Millennium II, Voodoo 2, AWE32, SC-55
etc.

Reply 3 of 9, by p6889k

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And here is the Debug.exe info. To be honest I have no idea what it's telling me.

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  • XTIDE BIOS.jpg
    Filename
    XTIDE BIOS.jpg
    File size
    443.47 KiB
    Views
    825 views
    File license
    Public domain
  • MotherBoard BIOS.jpg
    Filename
    MotherBoard BIOS.jpg
    File size
    655.05 KiB
    Views
    825 views
    File license
    Public domain

Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k, 48k+, 128k, +2
Amiga 1200, 68030/40mhz
386DX/33, ET4000, SBPro2, MT32
Dual PPro/200, Millennium II, Voodoo 2, AWE32, SC-55
etc.

Reply 5 of 9, by p6889k

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jakethompson1 wrote on 2020-10-04, 15:36:

For the first debug session you needed to follow up with d 9f80:03d0 and for the second one you needed to follow up with d f000:e401

Here it is.

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Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k, 48k+, 128k, +2
Amiga 1200, 68030/40mhz
386DX/33, ET4000, SBPro2, MT32
Dual PPro/200, Millennium II, Voodoo 2, AWE32, SC-55
etc.

Reply 6 of 9, by jakethompson1

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Yeah your regular BIOS is doing 1024/16/63 while XT-IDE is 1024/255/63 so the former is not doing any translation. Does the XT-IDE have the option to disable CHS translation, and if necessary let you set the parameters to 1024, 16, and 63?

Reply 7 of 9, by p6889k

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jakethompson1 wrote on 2020-10-05, 15:36:

Yeah your regular BIOS is doing 1024/16/63 while XT-IDE is 1024/255/63 so the former is not doing any translation. Does the XT-IDE have the option to disable CHS translation, and if necessary let you set the parameters to 1024, 16, and 63?

Thanks for the advice. Yes the XT-IDE had those options, but by the time I was able to try it the HDD data got corrupted by the various other troubleshooting tests I've done. So now I need to start with fresh install...fun stuff.

Btw, how did you translate the debug info to CHS configuration? Would like to learn how to read it, where do I start?

Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k, 48k+, 128k, +2
Amiga 1200, 68030/40mhz
386DX/33, ET4000, SBPro2, MT32
Dual PPro/200, Millennium II, Voodoo 2, AWE32, SC-55
etc.

Reply 8 of 9, by jakethompson1

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p6889k wrote on 2020-10-10, 14:49:

Thanks for the advice. Yes the XT-IDE had those options, but by the time I was able to try it the HDD data got corrupted by the various other troubleshooting tests I've done. So now I need to start with fresh install...fun stuff.

Btw, how did you translate the debug info to CHS configuration? Would like to learn how to read it, where do I start?

00 04 -> 0x0400 -> 1024 cylinders
ff -> 0xff -> 255 heads
3f -> 0x3f -> 63 sectors

Reply 9 of 9, by dr.zeissler

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Sorry for capturing. Is there a project that produces XT-IDE 3,5 drives with CF card?
I am thinking about fitting such a HDD-Replacement in my Tandy1000 or HD20 (Schneider)

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

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