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XTIDE on 3C509B card

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First post, by Viserion

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I have an IBM Valuepoint 100MHz DX4 VLB/ISA that I am trying to tweak to my needs

One of the things I have tried is getting XTIDE to work instead of the built in bios, as it only can handle 500mb or so hdd size.

I got a 3com 3C509B network card with 27512 chips, as I already had a few of them from another project.
I've used this older thread XTIDE ROM - 3COM 3C509B-C - W27E512-70 as a guide (last post on first page), and XTIDE does show up when booting computer, but will not detect anything.
Tried with sd-ide adapter, and also real ide harddrives, but no difference.

Sometimes system displays loading MS-DOS after bios hasn't found anything, but crashes before shortly after.
Sometimes it just chrash.

I have an Adpatech 1342CP isa scsi card with scsi2sd rev 5.1 installed, but if I take card out, it changes nothing.

So something I do is wrong.
I've tried a lot of things, so don't have complete overview what is done or not, but started of the same as in link above, except making a 64kb or else it would not show up.
Tried tweaking some settings by XTIDECFG and 3C5X9CFG programs, bot to no avail.
Not that knowledgeable about these things, so probably got some setting(s) wrong.
Do need help in figuring out what they are.

I could just use it as a SCSI system, but have tinkered with this long enough that I really want this to work, and then decide if I keep it SCSI or not.

Reply 1 of 32, by mdog69

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It looks like you have got the hardware side of the ROM working - any problem is with the XTIDE image configuration (done with XTIDECFG), or CMOS configuration.

I would try the following:
1) Clear the CMOS contents, boot the PC, open the (XTIDE) setup menu, and ensure that everything is set correctly, try again.
I'd do this first because it requires less effort than the next step.
2) Start again with a plain XT IDE image. Configure it using XTIDECFG, noting exactly what you've configured. Do the padding/EPROM programming steps (no need to repeat 3c509cfg).
Clear the CMOS, do setup, and test
3) Repeat step 2 until you get a working setup, or some kind of pattern emerges.

I would do the above using a small "real" hard disc (<504Mb).
Then install a larger "real" HDD - create a partition no bigger than 2.1Gb, install MS-DOS and make it bootable.
Repeat the tests with that drive.
When that works, move onto "non-real" IDE drives - e.g. CF or IDE-SD.
Start simple, then ramp up the complexity.

Reply 2 of 32, by maxtherabbit

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I experimented trying to get it working on a 3c509b in my 286 system with SCSI as well. Tried both a stock 12k image as well as one that I configured using the tool. In both cases the ROM loaded fine but detected nothing, just like yours

Reply 4 of 32, by Kubik

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Just to make sure I understand it correctly - you're trying to use the onboard IDE controller with XT-IDE BIOS in EPROM inserted into the 3Com network card, so there's just one IDE controller in the system. Is that correct?

Reply 5 of 32, by maxtherabbit

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I can't speak for the OP, but in my case yes the CMOS was set to "not installed" for both disks and there is only one IDE channel on the primary port

Reply 6 of 32, by Viserion

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Yes,

I did turn off the ide controller in bios.
Whenever you do a change, and bios detect it, like changing ram it will always beep, and you have the choice to enter bios, or press escape key to skip.
No matter how many times I enter bios, and save setting it always will beep, that something has chaged.
Normally that will go away once you save settings.

It is correct that I try to use on board ide controller with XTIDE bios.
No other controllers apart for sometime the SCSI one.

Reply 7 of 32, by Predator99

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Viserion wrote:

Yes,

I did turn off the ide controller in bios.

The controller needs to be activated of course! But you should enter that no hard disk is connected.

Does your onboard IDE-controller detect any hard drive without the XT-IDE installed? If no, there is something wrong with your onboard-IDE.

Reply 8 of 32, by canthearu

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Normally, for XT-IDE, you want to actually put some hard drive parameters in for each connected IDE hard drive. Anything that will get you past boot will do. Win9x's IDE driver does not work correctly if there is no cmos entry for your IDE hard drive.

To that end, the XT-IDE bios will actually try to program a fake cmos hard drive entry if it sees a BIOS it understands.

So make sure your IDE controller is enabled, and each hard drive has some parameters added.

Reply 9 of 32, by LeFlash

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XTIDE will not work with SCSI-controllers! It needs plain standard IDE adapters and will help mostly, when your BIOS has no working autodetect or bad translations. When you are using just small disks that your BIOS handles well, there is not reason using XTIDE.

Reply 10 of 32, by maxtherabbit

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LeFlash wrote:

XTIDE will not work with SCSI-controllers! It needs plain standard IDE adapters and will help mostly, when your BIOS has no working autodetect or bad translations. When you are using just small disks that your BIOS handles well, there is not reason using XTIDE.

no one here is trying to use XT-IDE to support a SCSI disk - the thread is about using the XT-IDE ROM to support an IDE disk on a system that also contains a SCSI contorller

Reply 11 of 32, by Viserion

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Maxtherabbit is correct. I'm trying to get it to accept bigger ide hard drives. Not SCSI ones.
SCSI card does that already.

Do not think I can have ide controllers on, and have hard drives being run by XTIDE.

Will try to find time later, as my Socket 370 project arrived 😀

Reply 12 of 32, by Kubik

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Did you consider using some sort of disk manager, like EZ-Drive or Ontrack Disk Manager? That's software supposed to do exactly what you're trying to achieve and it should be able to cope with existing BIOS support for IDE drives.

EZ-Drive Dynamic Drive Overlay

Reply 13 of 32, by Lennart

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Viserion wrote:

I have an IBM Valuepoint 100MHz DX4 VLB/ISA that I am trying to tweak to my needs

Out of curiosity, which model Valuepoint do you have exactly? I have a Valuepoint 6492, which is also a 100MHz DX4 VLB/ISA system, and that one works fine with HDDs larger than 500MB. Although the BIOS shows an incorrect size (2GB I believe), it works fine with a 6GB HDD here.

You may want to check whether there is a BIOS update for your PC. This site has a backup of old IBM files.

Reply 14 of 32, by Viserion

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Boy is my face red right now.

Turned on controller in bios, and it all worked.
It now detects ide drives.

It does the bios error still, so have to press Esc every time I boot it.
That was until it suddenly decided it hadn't had a temper tantrum for a while, and now gives ram error I believe it is.

Have not had time to try and sort out the problem, but did manage to install dos 7.1, as I had it in my Gotek drive.

Could not boot from SCSI any more, so removed the chip again, but it does work.

I have updated to latest I could find. It was something with 18 in it.

I have model is a 6482.

I haven't really considered disk managers, as I never have used any before.
Don't know much about them really.

Anyway first priority, is to get the darned thing to boot again.

Reply 15 of 32, by canthearu

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Now explicitly configure your hard drive as a 500meg drive, so the system doesn't error out during bootup on detecting the hard drive.

XT-IDE will take over managing the geometry of your hard drive once it kicks in.

Reply 16 of 32, by ZipoBibrok

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Viserion wrote:

I have updated to latest I could find. It was something with 18 in it.

I have model is a 6482.

http://ps-2.kev009.com/pccbbs/valuepnt/ldjt81a.exe is the latest BIOS upgrade for 6472, 6482, 6492, 6484 and 6494. I think it should support drives at least up to 8.4GB. Quantum Fireball 6.4GB drive worked fine on my 6482 without disk manager or addon roms.

Reply 17 of 32, by Lennart

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ZipoBibrok wrote:

http://ps-2.kev009.com/pccbbs/valuepnt/ldjt81a.exe is the latest BIOS upgrade for 6472, 6482, 6492, 6484 and 6494. I think it should support drives at least up to 8.4GB. Quantum Fireball 6.4GB drive worked fine on my 6482 without disk manager or addon roms.

I believe I have the exact same drive in my 6492. I can confirm that it works fine without disk manager or addon roms.

Viserion wrote:

Anyway first priority, is to get the darned thing to boot again.

Sorry to hear that it stopped booting 😢 I would advise to remove all expansion cards and perhaps all but 1 RAM stick and try to see whether it boots and recognizes your drive again.

Reply 18 of 32, by orcish75

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Whilst burning multiple copies of the bios into a large EPROM does work for the most part, it is far better to use the correct capacity EPROM for the file size of the bios. The standard XTIDE bios is 8KB, so use a 27C64 EPROM, the large XTIDE bios is 12KB, so use a 27C128 EPROM. By using a much bigger EPROM, you are using up precious reserved memory space for other bios's such as the video card bios and in this case, the SCSI card bios. You're increasing the chances that the different bios's will overlap each other in the memory map and you'll have less memory available when you run memmaker and other such utilities to scanvenge every last bit of 640K memory.

27C64 and 27C128's are going for less than 1 US dollar on Aliexpress.

Use the 3Com setup utility and keep changing the address of the boot ROM until you come right. Take note of the bios address on your SCSI card and make sure you set the 3C509 boot ROM address to something different. The 3C509 is one of the best cards for hosting a boot ROM as it gives you the option for an 8K sized ROM whilst most other ISA NIC's I've used only start from 16K. PM me if you still struggle, I'll send you a 27C64 or 128 pre-programmed and tested on my 3C509.

If you're going to use XTIDE with Windows 9X, download this patched version and follow the instructions in the posts to ensure you get 32 bit disk access and not slow MS-DOS compatibility mode. If you're using DOS, it doesn't matter which version you use.

http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?514 … 95-issues/page3

Reply 19 of 32, by canthearu

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orcish75 wrote:

If you're going to use XTIDE with Windows 9X, download this patched version and follow the instructions in the posts to ensure you get 32 bit disk access and not slow MS-DOS compatibility mode. If you're using DOS, it doesn't matter which version you use.

http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?514 … 95-issues/page3

For windows 95, you only need to make sure your CMOS includes a definition for your hard drive.

Using r598 of the XTIDE ROM is also advised, but the important thing is that the CMOS BIOS settings has your hard drive defined in it. You cannot set it to None. You do not have the have the correct geometry, just a geometry that doesn't cause a boot error or prevent your system from POSTing.

If you set the drive to None in the CMOS setup, then when the windows 95 IDE driver checks the CMOS settings for the presence of the hard drives, it won't find it. If the driver doesn't see the hard drives in the CMOS settings for the primary IDE controller, it will not load and the compatibility shims will take over (thunking all disk commands back to INT 13 bios calls). I assume this braindead design was to handle some equally braindead computers of the time, as Windows 95 had a huge focus on wide compatibility.

The patched versions of XTIDE (along with r598) actually attempt to patch a drive into your CMOS settings to fix this issue with windows 95. That is why if you use XTIDE on a compatible motherboard, on bootup, you will see drive type 0 on the BIOS summary screen, rather than None for any drive that XTIDE has patched the CMOS for. The more general and reliable fix is to simply set hard drive settings yourself that work enough to get you past boot. Once you pass boot, XTIDE will determine the correct geometry for your drive and use that. The windows 95 IDE driver, while it does look at the CMOS, doesn't use the CMOS geometry information either, so it doesn't matter what geometry you use in the CMOS, simply that the drive exists in the CMOS.