weedeewee wrote on 2023-04-28, 19:22:

It's odd then that fdisk /mbr gave you an error message about invalid parameter. […]
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Socket3 wrote on 2023-04-28, 18:39:

weedeewee wrote on 2023-04-28, 18:14:

I assume you are using the fdisk from msdos 6.22 ?
Did you recreate the partition & installed the system files on the hard drive after the low level format ?
ie used FDISK to create the primary partition then restarted from floppy and then formatted the hard drive partition with the option to install the system files, ie FORMAT C: /S ?

I did. Like I said, got the drive up and running (that means formatting, I used FDISK from dos 6.22), even copied over my sound card utilities, Volkov Commander, CTM driver and a few games (a bit painful using 360k disks). I even tried installing MS-DOS 4.01 (EMERSON DOS 4) - it installed fine, but still won't boot. Spent the last couple of hours playing Shadow Nights, Dyna blaster, planet X3 and Prehistoric 😀

It's odd then that fdisk /mbr gave you an error message about invalid parameter.

Socket3 wrote on 2023-04-28, 18:39:

I think the problem might be with the PC itself, because I did find a post on AncientElectronics.com about another Hyundai Super 16, and the owner is complaining about the same problem. https://ancientelectronics.wordpress.com/2019 … super-16-turbo/

There must be a configuration disk for the Super 16 someware that will let me select boot devices. Other then that, maybe the controller is not setup correctly. I noticed it's setup to use address 320h- maybe that's a bit to close to the sound card's midi port? Or maybe I'm spouting nonsense...

It's possible that your bios is being annoying.
Given the IO options, I'm going with the card only using 8 consecutive addresses so I doubt that being a problem.

The bios on you card is enabled, the drive gets detected by the system, yet somehow still fails to boot from it.
I 'm fairly certain that if you disable the bios on the card, the hard drive won't by found by dos. (just a thought)
You're using it on an XT which, for all I know, doesn't use any setup programs, they all used jumpers, yet none of them controls the boot device.
maybe your XT is different.
Good luck !

looking at this post Hyundai SUPER-16TE xt clone: restoration and info your xt isn't that different and no configuration program will exist since it doesn't have any RTC memory nor a battery.

You could try setting the machine in 4.77MHz mode, maybe, just maybe that will allow a boot, though it's just another guess.

Yeah I have the exact same machine - Hyundai Super-16TE with 640k of ram an a 10MHz (for some reason I thought it was 8MHz) CPU.

I tried the slowdown key combo (CTRL-ALT-ENTER) but that no longer seems to work - the PC seems to be stuck in 10MHz mode. This may be keyboard related. I remember CTRL-ALT-ENTER worked, but I was using a different keyboard (that went bad - A key no longer works). I also do not own any XT keyboards - all of mine are AT/XT keyboards with a switch at the bottom that lets you chose between the two modes.

The BIOS on the controller card is enabled... W7 on my card is open, which means it should be enabled, and so is W8 witch sets the controller address to C800h. I'll try messing around with these tomorrow.

Socket3 wrote on 2023-04-28, 16:29:

No luck.... […]
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Jo22 wrote on 2023-04-28, 13:06:

Socket3 wrote on 2023-04-28, 13:03:

thanks for the advice, I'll low level format the drive and report back

Ok, good luck. 🙂🤞

No luck....

I low-level formatted the HDD using debug.exe from DOS 6.22.

A:\debug.exe
- G=C800:6

I used interleave 3 and added the two defects printed on the drive's label. This time around instead of 19.8 MB of usable space I got 20.23, and I got no bad blocks while formatting the drive with DOS format like I did last time around - but the PC still refuses to boot of the HDD.

hdd.jpg

It seeks the HDD on boot, then seeks the floppy, and if no bootable floppy is inserted it just hangs. Also, to add to my string of retro hardware bad luck, it seems my 14" CRT is going as well. The focus pot on the high voltage transformer is really loose - not the pot itself, just the knob, so even moving the monitor will cause it to go blurry...

Any other ideas? I tried FDISK.EXE /MBR but that just spat out "invalid parameter MBR".

Are you sure you have the correct version of FDISK? The /MBR switch wasn't added until quite late in the command's life.

FDISK /MBR shouldn't be necessary anyway, the low-level format would zero out sector 0 so FDISK should write the entire sector by default instead of just updating an existing partition table.

jmarsh wrote on 2023-04-29, 15:03:

FDISK /MBR shouldn't be necessary anyway, the low-level format would zero out sector 0 so FDISK should write the entire sector by default instead of just updating an existing partition table.

this is true

Original manual for SMS OMTI 552x series... Yes the 3425 is listed...

maxtherabbit wrote on 2023-04-29, 14:59:

Socket3 wrote on 2023-04-28, 16:29:

No luck.... […]
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Jo22 wrote on 2023-04-28, 13:06:

Ok, good luck. 🙂🤞

No luck....

I low-level formatted the HDD using debug.exe from DOS 6.22.

A:\debug.exe
- G=C800:6

I used interleave 3 and added the two defects printed on the drive's label. This time around instead of 19.8 MB of usable space I got 20.23, and I got no bad blocks while formatting the drive with DOS format like I did last time around - but the PC still refuses to boot of the HDD.

hdd.jpg

It seeks the HDD on boot, then seeks the floppy, and if no bootable floppy is inserted it just hangs. Also, to add to my string of retro hardware bad luck, it seems my 14" CRT is going as well. The focus pot on the high voltage transformer is really loose - not the pot itself, just the knob, so even moving the monitor will cause it to go blurry...

Any other ideas? I tried FDISK.EXE /MBR but that just spat out "invalid parameter MBR".

Are you sure you have the correct version of FDISK? The /MBR switch wasn't added until quite late in the command's life.

Tried both DOS 6.22 and DOS 4.01 FDISK versions. The 4.01 version spits out the aforementioned error. I tried it on DOS 6.22 FDISK, and while displaying nothing, it does not throw any error. In fact it "thinks" for a couple of seconds and goes back to command prompt. It did not solve my no-boot off the HDD issue either.

Horun wrote on 2023-04-29, 16:35:

Original manual for SMS OMTI 552x series... Yes the 3425 is listed...

Thanks, that will come in handy!

Still no progress on the no HDD boot issue.

So far I have tried:

- correctly configuring the drive with the controller via jumpers - result = the HDD is now correctly recognized as 20mb. Still no boot.
- low level formatting the HDD using the DEBUG command. Format completes successfully, and I've even added the two defects printed on the label. No bad sectors on the drive after low level format + regular format in dos 6. I used interleave "3". Still no boot.
- removing the sound card - still no boot
- another MFM HDD I found this morning in a huge box of assorted hardware - a 10MB Seagate ST212 MDM drive. Again I correctly configured the controller acording to the manual, low-level format + defects, interleave 5 this time around - then format in dos. Everything works except for booting.
- FDISK.EXE /MBR command using dos 6.22 fdisk - nothing.
- made sure the controller BIOS is enabled - it is.

none of the above seem to make the PC boot off the hard disk drive. I have a feeling it has a configuration disk like the Hyundai super 16T (mine is the TE) and that the PC is set to boot from floppy only. Unfortunatly I do not have said utility and so far I have been unable to find it. I highly doubt the utility from the Super 16T works with my 16TE but I'll give it a shot anyway.

[UPDATE]

I found an image of the original configuration / setup utility disk for the Super 16T - and it's a 360k .img file that both WinImage and PowerISO refuse to open.... Any ideas on how to view contents of a 360k disk under windows 10? What could I even use to mount this image?

Socket3 wrote on 2023-04-29, 17:50:

I tried it on DOS 6.22 FDISK, and while displaying nothing, it does not throw any error. In fact it "thinks" for a couple of seconds and goes back to command prompt. It did not solve my no-boot off the HDD issue either.

That's how it's supposed to act. There is no special output message after FDISK /MBR did finish its work successfully.
However, while thinking, the fixed-disk should be busy (watch HDD LED). That's when FDISK does update parts of the MBR.

Edit: That being said, the booting issue might have a different origin.

Let's think about it, in which way does the new HDD differ from the old one?
Does it have more sectors/tracks etc, which may cause the XT BIOS refuse booting?

Old XTs and DOSes had a lot of limitations.
Maybe the drive geometry of the new HDD isn't fully compatible with the XT BIOS or the MFM/RLL controller BIOS?

It's just a wild guess. I'm no XT expert by any means. 😞

Socket3 wrote on 2023-04-29, 17:50:

I found an image of the original configuration / setup utility disk for the Super 16T - and it's a 360k .img file that both WinImage and PowerISO refuse to open.... Any ideas on how to view contents of a 360k disk under windows 10? What could I even use to mount this image?

A really old image might have non-standard descriptor byte and invalid BPB due to custom boot sector for example. You won't be able to just "mount it" in Windows (and possibly also Linux without tons of manual arguments on the command line). There are a few ways to deal with it, assuming it is a DOS FAT12 formatted floppy. You can use DiskExplorer but that might require manual settings of all the FAT parameters - difficult. It migt be easier to write this image to a floppy and then just access the floppy from DOS - but that requires a machine with 5.25" drive, and a way to transfer that file to it. Or - if you want to stick to Windows - set up a virtual machine with DOS and then mount that file as a floppy drive image for it.

Socket3 wrote on 2023-04-29, 17:50:

I found an image of the original configuration / setup utility disk for the Super 16T - and it's a 360k .img file that both WinImage and PowerISO refuse to open.... Any ideas on how to view contents of a 360k disk under windows 10? What could I even use to mount this image?

If it is the same disk as on minus-zero then it is only a Diagnostic disk, not a setup disk. You can post it here (just add as an attachment like a picture)....

Jo22 wrote on 2023-04-29, 19:01:

That's how it's supposed to act. There is no special output message after FDISK /MBR did finish its work successfully. However, […]
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Socket3 wrote on 2023-04-29, 17:50:

I tried it on DOS 6.22 FDISK, and while displaying nothing, it does not throw any error. In fact it "thinks" for a couple of seconds and goes back to command prompt. It did not solve my no-boot off the HDD issue either.

That's how it's supposed to act. There is no special output message after FDISK /MBR did finish its work successfully.
However, while thinking, the fixed-disk should be busy (watch HDD LED). That's when FDISK does update parts of the MBR.

Edit: That being said, the booting issue might have a different origin.

Let's think about it, in which way does the new HDD differ from the old one?
Does it have more sectors/tracks etc, which may cause the XT BIOS refuse booting?

Old XTs and DOSes had a lot of limitations.
Maybe the drive geometry of the new HDD isn't fully compatible with the XT BIOS or the MFM/RLL controller BIOS?

It's just a wild guess. I'm no XT expert by any means. 😞

Actually.... the PC refused to boot off the old HDD as well. I should have mentioned that from the get-go - it's probably relevant. For as long as I've had this machine I've been booting from various 360k disks and using the HDD for storage alone.

Think is, I'm running out of 360k disks.... They are getting pretty hard to find but thankfully not very expensive and seem to be a bit more reliable then their 3.5" counterparts.

Deunan wrote on 2023-04-29, 20:33:

Socket3 wrote on 2023-04-29, 17:50:

I found an image of the original configuration / setup utility disk for the Super 16T - and it's a 360k .img file that both WinImage and PowerISO refuse to open.... Any ideas on how to view contents of a 360k disk under windows 10? What could I even use to mount this image?

A really old image might have non-standard descriptor byte and invalid BPB due to custom boot sector for example. You won't be able to just "mount it" in Windows (and possibly also Linux without tons of manual arguments on the command line). There are a few ways to deal with it, assuming it is a DOS FAT12 formatted floppy. You can use DiskExplorer but that might require manual settings of all the FAT parameters - difficult. It migt be easier to write this image to a floppy and then just access the floppy from DOS - but that requires a machine with 5.25" drive, and a way to transfer that file to it. Or - if you want to stick to Windows - set up a virtual machine with DOS and then mount that file as a floppy drive image for it.

I tried dosbox, it won't mount it either. I came across some threads on other forums about this exact problem... seems only some very old dos utilities MAY be able to mount this image in real dos.

Horun wrote on 2023-04-29, 23:35:

Socket3 wrote on 2023-04-29, 17:50:

I found an image of the original configuration / setup utility disk for the Super 16T - and it's a 360k .img file that both WinImage and PowerISO refuse to open.... Any ideas on how to view contents of a 360k disk under windows 10? What could I even use to mount this image?

If it is the same disk as on minus-zero then it is only a Diagnostic disk, not a setup disk. You can post it here (just add as an attachment like a picture)....

Here it is:

[EDIT] Wow winrar compressed it down to 16kb!!! Must not be much on it then.... I tried attaching the file directly but the forum will not let me attach .img files so I archived it.

DosBox is not a true VM, more of an emulator, you need actual DOS. But that might be a moot point as the disk in question does have a custom bootloader as I suspected and has neither BPB nor a valid media byte. Even DOS might refuse to accept it - not that it would help you any. As far as I can tell this is indeed a FAT12 format but the FAT is actually empty, a volume name of "DIAGNOSTICS" is all there is. There is no entry for the executable file, even if you could mount the disk it would look like an empty one.

How it works is the custom bootloader just loads hardcoded number of sectors from a hardcoded CHS starting address and then jumps to it. It might be possible to extract that data as a COM file but I suspect it won't work - I havent looked that hard but unless the executable structure is loaded at 0x100 (like a COM would be, something DOS inherited from CP/M) it won't work properly. Not without some extensive hacking anyway.

So, TL;DR: This is a bootable disk that needs to be booted. It requires no OS to work but will only be useful on a specific machine it was designed for.

Here's the relevant data from the diagnostics disc, saved to a file and renamed to a .COM file. it seems to start in dosbox, then crashes the dosbox.