I dont think you are able to use a Hard Drive on the IDE Port of a CT3990 under DOS because it needs to be initialized by a driver first. And this driver only support CD-ROM drives.

You can however connect a IDE-HD to Soundcards which are configured with Jumpers and boot from them via XT-IDE.

Correct me if I am not right 😉

Predator99 wrote on 2020-03-11, 19:54:

I dont think you are able to use a Hard Drive on the IDE Port of a CT3990 under DOS because it needs to be initialized by a driver first. And this driver only support CD-ROM drives.

You can however connect a IDE-HD to Soundcards which are configured with Jumpers and boot from them via XT-IDE.

Correct me if I am not right 😉

I wasn't sure, as it just says "IDE" and I thought I read somewhere that it was for any device, though I can't get it to recognize the optical drive. There is an INF file for the IDE port on the driver CD, and I reinstalled the drivers with the cdrom connected to see if it detects it that way and sets up the start up files.

Another issue I forgot to mention is that I keep changing the midi port to 300 with CTCU (I have an MPU-IPC-T in here using 330,) but DIAGNOSE keeps setting it back to 330.

You can attach a hard disk to it and no driver is needed, but the port is normally IDE channel 3 or 4, so no BIOS support. DOS won't see it. You would need to run Win9x.

XT-IDE supports IDE channel 3 and 4, however.

derSammler wrote on 2020-03-11, 20:49:

You can attach a hard disk to it and no driver is needed, but the port is normally IDE channel 3 or 4, so no BIOS support. DOS won't see it. You would need to run Win9x.

XT-IDE supports IDE channel 3 and 4, however.

I'm thinking of moving to something newer. I have a Pentium II system lying around, and I may just turn that into a DOS/WFW311/Win98 box and use Moslo Deluxe, and try to put multiple sound cards in it such as a Live!, AWE32, and the MPU. I would put my SCC-1 in it instead of the MPU, but I could never get it to talk to my MT-32.

If I just bite the bullet and go newer instead of trying to stay period correct as possible for speeds (I don't mind the QoL components like CF-IDE, etc,) I think that I would have less frustration, and have the best of multiple worlds. I am getting close to using 86box and DOSBox exclusively, due to the frustration of working with these older machines. It sucks, because I used to really love tinkering with PCs!

Perhaps am Asus P28 mobo will have a better chance at seeing the SSD, though I still need to solve how to use the AWE32 IDE, and getting it to save the midi address at 300.

Not sure newer will help with some of these issues. The problem is just that DOS was so %@^$ stupid, and had no real architecture for hardware that didn't exist on an 8088. Everything had to be hacked in by drivers that intercepted software interrupts and lied to DOS. If a driver doesn't exist for a specific purpose (like enumerating hard drives on a tertiary IDE port) then the Pentium itself isn't the problem.

An easy workaround would be to just run WIn95 and do everything in a DOS prompt. That way, Windows can load your drivers, provide ISO mounting, SB emulation, MIDI, and so on and so forth.

SirNickity wrote on 2020-03-11, 23:37:

Not sure newer will help with some of these issues. The problem is just that DOS was so %@^$ stupid, and had no real architecture for hardware that didn't exist on an 8088. Everything had to be hacked in by drivers that intercepted software interrupts and lied to DOS. If a driver doesn't exist for a specific purpose (like enumerating hard drives on a tertiary IDE port) then the Pentium itself isn't the problem.

An easy workaround would be to just run WIn95 and do everything in a DOS prompt. That way, Windows can load your drivers, provide ISO mounting, SB emulation, MIDI, and so on and so forth.

I'll need an optical drive for DOS. I have been sitting here thinking about what I want to do. I had a desire to play some does games a couple of weeks ago, and have been trying top solve these issues ever since. I remember having a fairly large HD on my old P3. The idea is to avoid having multiple builds and having to swap discs. I can't find any information on getting this cdrom to work with the AWE32, and I don't know if Win9x will see any large drives since the bios doesn't.

This all began because my 486 died...

Scythifuge wrote on 2020-03-11, 19:48:

I have been trying to connect a SATA SSD to this machine (socket 5, Pentium 133Mhz) in order to store ISO images for mounting with a drive emulator in MS-DOS.

Which drive emulator do you use?

However, even when you get this solution to work:
You will have activated a hand brake on both rear and front wheels then:
ISA-Bus + PIO-Mode
You won't get much more than 2 MB/s with a SSD that usually can deliver much more than 60 MB/s.

You'd better connect your SSD to one of the motherboard's ports. Usually SATA to PATA converters can be jumpered as Master/Slave/CS too like normal PATA drives.

When you do not like to boot from the SSD you probably do not need to configure the SSD in BIOS. Windows 9x may detect it without the BIOS. Be sure it is partitionend and formattet properly. DOS 6.22 may have a problem with disks greater than 8,4 GB. You may try to increase the partition size from 8 GB to 32 GB to 128 GB. Remember the 48-Bit-LBA limit at 128 GiB = 137 GB.

Disruptor wrote on 2020-03-12, 09:33:

You will have activated a hand brake on both rear and front wheels then:
ISA-Bus + PIO-Mode
You won't get much more than 2 MB/s with a SSD that usually can deliver much more than 60 MB/s.

Still... that's roughly equivalent to a 12X CD-ROM. For any DOS application, that's pretty darn fast -- especially when you consider the near-zero access time.

Disruptor wrote on 2020-03-12, 09:33:

Which drive emulator do you use? […]
Show full quote

Scythifuge wrote on 2020-03-11, 19:48:

I have been trying to connect a SATA SSD to this machine (socket 5, Pentium 133Mhz) in order to store ISO images for mounting with a drive emulator in MS-DOS.

Which drive emulator do you use?

However, even when you get this solution to work:
You will have activated a hand brake on both rear and front wheels then:
ISA-Bus + PIO-Mode
You won't get much more than 2 MB/s with a SSD that usually can deliver much more than 60 MB/s.

You'd better connect your SSD to one of the motherboard's ports. Usually SATA to PATA converters can be jumpered as Master/Slave/CS too like normal PATA drives.

When you do not like to boot from the SSD you probably do not need to configure the SSD in BIOS. Windows 9x may detect it without the BIOS. Be sure it is partitionend and formattet properly. DOS 6.22 may have a problem with disks greater than 8,4 GB. You may try to increase the partition size from 8 GB to 32 GB to 128 GB. Remember the 48-Bit-LBA limit at 128 GiB = 137 GB.

I plan on trying to use SHSUCD (I think that that is what it is called.)

I'm using the SSD because it was an older 480gb that I had lying around. I located a 1tb mechanical SATA drive, and I can't get that to work, either. I have tried both the CT3990 and the secondary IDE port.

I tried using fdisk from Windows 95 OSR2, and it does not see the drive.