Maybe someone here as done this and knows the tricks to get it working, I have never run XTIDE along with a MFM/RLL controller+drive but am guessing it is a resource issue between the MFM controller and the XTIDE card.

Yah, you ain't gonna get anywhere with two primary hard drive controllers. If MFM boots, use an IDE secondary with 32MB FAT12 partitions. If it don't boot, hang a 3.5" off the floppy controller with a 720k dos boot disk and basic utils.

Horun wrote on 2021-07-01, 16:29:

Maybe someone here as done this and knows the tricks to get it working, I have never run XTIDE along with a MFM/RLL controller+drive but am guessing it is a resource issue between the MFM controller and the XTIDE card.

Thanks for the reply! I should have clarified, the issues listed are sans the original MFM controller installed, just the XT-IDE board in slot 5 or 6.

I unfortunately only have the original IBM disk controller and afaik it can only drive 360K DSDD or 180K SSDD 5.25" drives. The 5160 is the only PC I own of the era, other than that I mostly deal with Amigas, hence not many spare parts. Australia is also a hell hole for getting spares. The only way I currently have to get software on to the 5160 is via the XTIDE. I am able to flash the XTIDE's EEPROM via my WIN10 PC using DOSBOX to configure the binary and an EEPROM programmer.

Edit: My mistake, after a little research my IBM card should support a 720k DSDD 3.5" drive. Will need to get a card edge to pin adapter to use one though. Thanks BitWrangler!

If you have HiSpeed disabled, then you must configure XTIDE Universal BIOS device as XTIDE rev 1. Configure it to rev 2 only if you have HiSpeed enabled. When you got that Hitachi detected, the settings were correct. But what did it try to boot? If you have MFM controller initialized before XTIDE (ROM address is lower than XTIDE), then the MFM drive will be C-drive and a boot drive by default.

aitotat wrote on 2021-07-02, 07:51:

If you have HiSpeed disabled, then you must configure XTIDE Universal BIOS device as XTIDE rev 1. Configure it to rev 2 only if you have HiSpeed enabled. When you got that Hitachi detected, the settings were correct. But what did it try to boot? If you have MFM controller initialized before XTIDE (ROM address is lower than XTIDE), then the MFM drive will be C-drive and a boot drive by default.

Thanks for your help!

I have removed the MFM controller card for troubleshooting. All above issues and the ones below are with the MFM card removed.

More information:
IBM 5160 XT with NEC V20 CPU (same symptoms with 8088)
640kb RAM on 64-256kb board with RAM modification. Same symptoms with XTIDE before RAM was upgraded from 512kb (256k motherboard + 256k IBM RAM card)
Only other boards installed in the chassis are the IBM MDA and Floppy controller cards.
DIP Settings on MOBO: 0-1-00-00-11 (Normal Mode - No 8087 - all RAM banks enabled - MDA card - 1 floppy drive)

- I have tried with HiSpeed off and XTIDE rev1 selected. In this mode, the 128MB CF card that was working before still is not recognised at all. The "Hitachi" disk name for the 32MB card is corrupted. This disk shows up as "Hitakhi *&.9.6.6" or something (Hitachi is mispelled now). This card has "no boot sector" from XTIDE BIOS, but I have made sure to fdisk /mbr through MSDOS 5 in Oracle VirtualBox before installing MSDOS 5
- I have tried with HiSpeed on and XTIDE rev2 selected, in this mode neither card is detected.
- When the 128MB card was working it reliably booted MSDOS 5. When attempting to prepare it again, as well as the 32mb card, I followed the same procedure as outlined below.

CF Card prep (previously worked on 128mb card before reflashing the XTIDE made it no longer detected)
On a Windows 10 PC:
- use disk manager to delete CF card partitions
- create virtual hard disk for CF card using this guide
- run VirtualBox as administrator and create a DOS VM with MSDOS 5 boot disks and the "virtual" (CF) hard disk
- exit setup to DOS and fdisk /mbr, reset VM
- exit setup to DOS and fdisk to create boot partition
- either run setup or format c: /s to format then make bootable

Something corrupts data if drive ID is not properly read (drive name). Maybe you have somehow damaged your XTIDE card when you removed the EEPROM for flashing? Do you happen to have any other computer with ISA slots to test the card? Try another IDE cable at least and make sure it is properly connected. Preparing the CF card is a waste of time if the card cannot be properly detected so try to get the detection working first.

aitotat wrote on 2021-07-02, 10:54:

Something corrupts data if drive ID is not properly read (drive name). Maybe you have somehow damaged your XTIDE card when you removed the EEPROM for flashing? Do you happen to have any other computer with ISA slots to test the card? Try another IDE cable at least and make sure it is properly connected. Preparing the CF card is a waste of time if the card cannot be properly detected so try to get the detection working first.

Thanks!

Unfortunately do not have anything else with ISA slots. I have another CF-IDE adapter on the way so I'll report back once I've given that a go, and worst case scenario I'll check all joints on the card. Hopefully haven't fried any logic chips on the XTIDE.

I have tried another IDE->CF Adapter. This time, the 32MB Hitachi CF card appears as "Hitachi XX.V.4.1.0.0" which I suspect is correct.
With a fresh partition and install of DOS5, I got a "Can't Boot OS" error. I then performed an fdisk /mbr on my DOS VM under windows and then the card gave a "Missing operating system" error on the XT.
With the new IDE->CF Adapter, the 128MB CISCO CF card is still not recognised at all and the XT-IDE says "not found" for both master and slave. One thing to note, is that the drive now has little to no delay before "not found" is displayed for Master. With the other IDE-CF adapter it took a few seconds before "not found" showed up.

Both CF cards are recognised perfectly in Windows 10, and boot just fine under my DOS VM.

At this point, I suspect the XTIDE is somehow at fault, as I see no reason that the 128MB card should just not be recognised any more or have the issues with the 32MB card that it continues to have. I am going to attempt to replace the logic chips on the card and see if that helps. I am also going to look into a dedicated CF Card solution without an external IDE-CF adapter.

Arkanix wrote on 2021-07-08, 04:18:

I have tried another IDE->CF Adapter. This time, the 32MB Hitachi CF card appears as "Hitachi XX.V.4.1.0.0" which I suspect is correct.
With a fresh partition and install of DOS5, I got a "Can't Boot OS" error. I then performed an fdisk /mbr on my DOS VM under windows and then the card gave a "Missing operating system" error on the XT.

So this drive now detects correctly. Very good! That "Can't Boot OS" must come from somewhere and that can only be the boot sector from the drive. So at least the boot sector can be read by XTIDE.

Before doing anything else I strongly recommend to get a DOS boot disk with fdisk, sys and format in it and try to make the CF bootable with those.

Currently working on getting appropriate cards and cables to use a 720k or 1.44mb 3.5" disk, will report back if/when that happens.

Good luck! 😀

PS: If nothing works, there's an alternative.
Disc On Chip modules. They can work in XTs, too.
http://www.smbaker.com/8-bit-isa-diskonchip-rtc-board

If floppy disks are not an option there may be another safer way to transfer everything to CF. I haven't actually tried this but I don't see why this shouldn't work.

1. Make disk image from the CF card. WinImage professional version should be able to do it but maybe trial version as well? Maybe there is some another software that can do the same?
2. Configure PCem to use XTIDE Universal BIOS and replace the roms\ide_xt.bin or ide_at.bin with the exact same build that you have flashed on your XTIDE (this is what makes this method more reliable. Both source and target system can have the same XTIDE Universal BIOS build to minimize issues).
3. Install DOS with PCem and make sure it is usable (fully bootable etc) in PCem.
4. Write the image back to your CF card

About that 128MB CISCO CF card. I suspect it will never work. Since there is no or very little delay before "not found" it must mean that some drive is found (ready to accept commands) but Identify device command failed (drive name and parameters are read from the returned data). This likely means the CF card does not support true IDE mode. And since there was no delay for slave drive either must mean that the CF card ignores slave bit completely (not surprising if it does not support true IDE mode) and replies for slave drive also.

aitotat wrote on 2021-07-08, 06:14:

If floppy disks are not an option there may be another safer way to transfer everything to CF. I haven't actually tried this but […]
Show full quote

If floppy disks are not an option there may be another safer way to transfer everything to CF. I haven't actually tried this but I don't see why this shouldn't work.

1. Make disk image from the CF card. WinImage professional version should be able to do it but maybe trial version as well? Maybe there is some another software that can do the same?
2. Configure PCem to use XTIDE Universal BIOS and replace the roms\ide_xt.bin or ide_at.bin with the exact same build that you have flashed on your XTIDE (this is what makes this method more reliable. Both source and target system can have the same XTIDE Universal BIOS build to minimize issues).
3. Install DOS with PCem and make sure it is usable (fully bootable etc) in PCem.
4. Write the image back to your CF card

About that 128MB CISCO CF card. I suspect it will never work. Since there is no or very little delay before "not found" it must mean that some drive is found (ready to accept commands) but Identify device command failed (drive name and parameters are read from the returned data). This likely means the CF card does not support true IDE mode. And since there was no delay for slave drive either must mean that the CF card ignores slave bit completely (not surprising if it does not support true IDE mode) and replies for slave drive also.

I'll give that a go!
The weird thing is that the CISCO 128MB drive was working before I started touching the XTIDE Universal BIOS settings, and now doesn't recognise. One very interesting thing to note is that with the 128mb CISCO card, the IDE activity light on the XTIDE card stays on and is very dim from power on, whereas with the 32mb drive it starts completely off and correctly flashes only when accessing the CF card.

Used PCem set up as an XT with the images of the 32mb drive and the 128mb drive. Each of them gave "Missing operating system".

I fixed the images using DOS 5 install disks, and got the .vhd images for both drives booting correctly. I imaged the .vhd images back to the CF cards and attempted to boot on the XT.

The 32mb card still listed "Missing operating system" on the XT and the 128mb card still would not be recognised.
I copied the ide_xt.bin from PCem to the XTIDE's BIOS EEPROM and got the same error.
I then created a new image from the 32mb card and it booted straight up in PCem with no errors from the ide_xt bios.

I found another 128mb card (SanDisk) which recognised in the drive and imaged the 128mb image to it. It gave the same "Missing operating system" error on the XT-IDE. Apparently the SanDisk 128mb card is a known compatible card.

I suspect either another faulty CF-IDE adapter or the XTIDE card.

Edit: I also have a 1.44mb drive card in the mail so hopefully will be able to use that soon enough.

Good news, I've managed to get the 360k Floppy Drive working (needed bearing lubrication, azimuth and head assembly alignments). This doesn't help much, still need the 1.44mb card I have in the mail but it's a win! I haven't had many wins with this XT so I'll take it.

I appear to have a working install!

What I think happened:
- CF-IDE adapter died. When it did, it did something to the 128MB CF Card that made it so that it could not be read in the XT-IDE (faint read light stays on from power on, card no longer detected)
- The 32MB CF Card had to be FDISK /MBR and re-partitioned on the actual XT machine. For some reason, using Disk Images or writing to the Raw Disk through Windows 10 and virtual machines was not working properly.

What I did to get it working:
- Replace CF-IDE adapter
- Use PCem set up as an 8088 XT machine to run XTIDECFG, load ide_xt.bin and choose "Auto Configure" then save to file
- Manually Flash EEPROM from XTIDE board.
- Get a new Floppy Cable that had a 34 pin IDC header for a 3.5" drive
- Solder a header on to the original IBM floppy card (empty pin header next to card edge connector)
- Connect a 3.5" drive (HD, but in 720k mode)
- Use Ubuntu's dd command to write images of DOS 5 to some HD disks formatted as 720k (with a sticker over the HD detection hole): sudo dd if={name of disk image} of=/dev/{name of floppy device}
- Use Disk 1 of DOS5 to FDISK /MBR, then use FDISK to delete and repartition the CF.
- FORMAT C: /S after rebooting back to the floppy
- Install DOS using XCOPY and creating an autoexec.bat that would ready the system.

Once I set it all up, it booted perfectly from the 32MB CF card. Surprisingly, when I tried inserting the original MFM controller the MFM drive would boot, but the CF card was still accessible as D:

Manually booting from D: using the XTIDE boot screen swapped the MFM drive and CF card drive letters, booted from the CF but allowed full access to the original MFM drive as drive D:

I'm calling this a win. I'll try to get a different CF card adapter, as the one I have currently is not accessible without opening the case and I have no room to permanently mount a 3.5" drive as my 5.25" drive is full height and my HDD faceplate is also full height. I have my MDA and CGA cards mounted, the original floppy controller and the HDD controller that came with the computer, and my XTIDE board nestled in. There are two more slots, so I might try and get a Serial Card and slot in either an AdLib or one of the Tandy sound adapters.

Thanks again for all of your help!

PS: the only thing I'd like to know what to do is set the default boot drive, although I suspect this is as simple as changing the boot drive in the XTIDE BIOS as drive 081h instead of 080h

Was able to set XTIDE to auto boot to the CF by changing the boot preference to 81h. Works perfectly on newest XTIDE Stable BIOS revision.