Catch 22

Are you using pnp capable controllers or have you check your IRQs as that might be your problem. I haven't had much to tinker with when it comes to 386 or older systems but if you got a Good controller then you shouldn't have to much of a problem using both. The CF card shouldn't be using that much resources neither flooding that controller.

The CF adapter I'm using plugs straigh into the controller so I can only use one at a time - CF or HDD.

it doesn't matter if you can plug in directly or not!!! each IDE controller MUST use separate IRQs and port addresses... if you have not configured your card this way, they will not work!

TheMAN wrote:

it doesn't matter if you can plug in directly or not!!!

No need to shout. I'm well aware that it doesn't matter how you connect the card. I stated that the card is plugged in directly to illustrate the fact that I'm only using one IDE device at a time (since I can't connect teh card via standard cable).

TheMAN wrote:

each IDE controller MUST use separate IRQs and port addresses... if you have not configured your card this way, they will not work!

I feel that perhaps I wasn't understood so let me draw you a picture:
- IDE controller + HDD, CD-ROM works fine
- IDE controller + CF, CD-ROM totally fails

In both cases the CD-ROM is connected to the sound card.

I haven't checked the IRQs. The sound card is PnP and I can set it up through software. The IDE controller has a bunch of jumpers so I'll look into it.

I checked the sound card settings and they are as follows:

SB Pro I/O: 220
SB Pro IRQ: 5
DMA: 1

MPU401 I/O: 330
MPU401 IRQ: 2/9

CD-ROM I/O: 170/IDE
CD-ROM IRQ: 15/IDE
DMA: Disabled

HDD controller hasn't got any pins for configuring IRQ/Port and has its own BIOS but I don't know how to access it. It has only one IDE channel so I guess it's only using one IRQ.

How can I see what resources the HDD controller is using?

Cheers

Help?

Half-Saint wrote:

HDD controller hasn't got any pins for configuring IRQ/Port and has its own BIOS but I don't know how to access it. It has only one IDE channel so I guess it's only using one IRQ.

How can I see what resources the HDD controller is using?

Cheers

Typically the Primary IDE channel should use IRQ 14.

TBH I'd probably say your issue is the CF card itself, you are using something designed for a much more modern ATAPI interface on an old ISA IDE interface. The possibilities for compatability isssues are relatively high.

Also you say the HDD controller has no switches/jumpers for configuration, this sounds like it's an ISA PnP card which could run into issues in a non PnP enabled 386 board.

Try a different CF card that is from a different brand, Kingston and Trandcend often end up being the best plus there is a utility to change them into fixed disk mode. Trandcend does this outright but Kingston you may have to change the bit. Some CF cards are horrible.

I tried this with a 128MB Sandisk and a 512MB Viking (rebranded Toshiba) with same results...

Any other creative ideas?

Half-Saint wrote:

Any other creative ideas?

Possibly your IDE card isnt up to the task of effectively handling/throttling the data rates that the CF cards are throwing at it, you could try sourcing a good DMA capable IDE controller like a Promise EIDE Max.

In all honesty though if it were my machine I'd discard the CF cards, replace with an Adaptec 154x & a decent narrow SCSI Drive. This will be as fast as the ISA bus & 386 will be able to handle and will be way more compatible.

(Copy of another reply of mine)

Try the XTIDE bios http://code.google.com/p/xtideuniversalbios/ The 1.1.5 version allows HDD/CFs up to 8GB in size, the 2.0.0 Beta 3 allows greater than 8GB. You'll need to burn it into an EPROM (27C256) and then insert it into something that has a bootrom socket, such as most ISA network cards. I'm using V1.1.5 on my Amiga A2286 bridgeboard and running DOS 6.2 on a Transcend 8GB CF card, booting from the IDE port on my SB16 soundcard. This might work better with the CF and CD-ROM combination that you're trying to get working.

Sorry for double-post but did someone managed to get a cf (Master) and a CDrom drive (slave) working together using only a (non-pnp) soundcard's IDE port?
Currently the cf only seems to work combined with the Xtide Bios attached on a network card.
When I connect a hdd as slave instead of the CD Drive both are successfully detected.
Even when i boot with floppy (Xtide pulled out)
with drivers and connect only the CDrom it won't work.
Before i used unisound on a pnp card and it worked fine.

EDIT: CDRom works now with and without xtide BIOS booted by Floppy but when i combine it with a cf or hdd vide-cdd.sys does not detect the CDRom drive.