Brutus814 wrote on 2020-03-28, 07:28:

Hello gurus at Vogons! I have posted twice before to this site with questions to my 486 build and both times the great people o […]
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Hello gurus at Vogons! I have posted twice before to this site with questions to my 486 build and both times the great people of this community have come through and helped me fix my problem. As a refresher, I have built a 486 DX2-66 system for retro gaming. I was able to get everything up and running perfectly. I have been enjoying my system for past several months but thought I would do a bit of tinkering. I dislike having to transfer files from my modern computer to the 486 via floppy/CD-ROM. I decided to add a compact flash drive to my setup. I would like to keep my HDD for DOS (and eventually Windows) and would like the CF drive to store games/programs. I added the CF interface as a slave device to my VLB controller card with my HDD as the master. My BIOS recognized the card I have as 8GB and I was able to successfully partition the 8 GB card and divide it into 4 drives (D, E, F and G). Things worked well without problems. The problem I then ran into was that I would also like to keep my CD-ROM drive installed to play games that come on CD. I bought an ISA controller card (IODE-3292U) and installed it. I have disabled all of the ports on the card except the IDE interface via jumpers. I connected the CD-ROM drive (which was previously working fine as a slave to the HDD on the VLB controller card). There is an option on the card for the IDE address to be 1F0H or 170h on the jumpers. The computer will not find the CD-ROM unless the jumper is set to 170h and the CD drive is set to slave. When I do this, I can successfully install the driver CR_ATAPI.SYS (which is from the manufacturer). However, when the computer reboots, while it is trying to load the driver from the config.sys, it will find the CD drive and then will state it is installing the driver, then the computer will freeze. If I take the load driver line out of the config.sys, the computer will boot just fine to DOS without the CD-ROM. I have tried different drivers (OAKCDROM and GSCDROM) without success. These drivers can't even find the CD-ROM drive. So, I am wondering, is it possible to have a HDD and CF on one IDE interface and a CD-ROM on a separate interface/card? Should I just save myself the headache and get rid of the HDD and just use the CF with the CD drive as a slave? I feel like it should work with the three drives since it can find the CD-ROM but that there may be a conflict somwhere? I have listed my specs below for reference. Thank you everyone again in advance!

a Chicony CH-471a Rev 3.0 VLB motherboard
Intel 486 DX2-66 (SX955) processor
Diamond Speedstar Pro VLB graphics card
Sound Blaster Pro 2.0 sound card
2x36 (8MB) FPM Parity 70NS 72-pin SIMM x2 memory modules
ISSI IS61C1024-15N 128k x 8 High Speed CMOS Static RAM x4 for 512 KB of L2 cache
ISSI IS61C256AH-15N 32k x 8 Static RAM x1 for TAG SRAM for L2 cache
Imation 3.5" internal floppy drive
Chinon 5.25" internal floppy drive
Western Digital Caviar 420 MB 3.5" IDE hard drive
HP Panasonic CR-583-B 8x IDE CD-ROM drive
Tyan S1345 VL400GW-VI VLB IDE/Multi-IO controller card
IODE-3292U HDD/Floppy ISA controller card
Bestec BPS-2994-4U AT 350W power supply
Microsoft serial PS/2 compatible mouse
IBM Model M keyboard

The Tyan S1345 VL400GW-VI VLB IDE/Multi-IO controller card has only one IDE connector? Interesting.
Please provide a picture of the IODE-3292U HDD/Floppy ISA controller card and double check, that you have set it correctly as secondary IDE (address 170 and IRQ 15).
You should set the CD ROM to Master. Having only a slave with no master present does not make sense.
I guess the BIOS has only support for 2 harddisks, so your setup is right: The harddisks (including the compact flash card) on the first IDE controller, and then you should be able to have up to 2 CD or DVD drives on the secondary IDE controller.

Which OS do you run?
Pure DOS?
You can also do a check, by using a Windows 98 boot floppy disk. It will provide support for (almost) all IDE CD ROM drives.

CoffeeOne,
Thanks for your response. I have attached a picture of the card. I also was surprised that the Tyan card only has one IDE connector. I have the port set to 170 on the second card. It doesn't have an option to set the IRQ. I found a page with the jumper settings at:

https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-disk-floppy … IODE-3292U.html

I have everything on the card set to disabled except the IDE. I think my bios supports 4 hard drives. When I do autodetect drives in my bios it has spots for primary master and slave and secondary master and slave. I am using only DOS 6.22 for now. I plan on installing Windows 3.11 eventually. Thanks again!

all of the ISA multi I/O+IDE+FDC cards I've seen with jumpers to change the IDE port do not also offer the option to change the IRQ

Brutus814 wrote on 2020-03-28, 14:14:

CoffeeOne, Thanks for your response. I have attached a picture of the card. I also was surprised that the Tyan card only has on […]
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CoffeeOne,
Thanks for your response. I have attached a picture of the card. I also was surprised that the Tyan card only has one IDE connector. I have the port set to 170 on the second card. It doesn't have an option to set the IRQ. I found a page with the jumper settings at:

https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-disk-floppy … IODE-3292U.html

I have everything on the card set to disabled except the IDE. I think my bios supports 4 hard drives. When I do autodetect drives in my bios it has spots for primary master and slave and secondary master and slave. I am using only DOS 6.22 for now. I plan on installing Windows 3.11 eventually. Thanks again!

Hmm, That's not a picture of the card, with the actual jumper setting, or is it?
All Jumpers seem to be in 2-3 or 1-2? That is not correct. 😁

EDIT: Your photo shows that all jumpers are in position 1-2, I am about 90% sure.
Can you make a picture of the card with the actual setting?

Yes you should be able to have two IDE controllers but I do not think you will get that IDE card to work properly since you can not set it to IRQ15.

CoffeeOne wrote on 2020-03-28, 14:54:

Hmm, That's not a picture of the card, with the actual jumper setting, or is it? All Jumpers seem to be in 2-3 or 1-2? That is n […]
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Brutus814 wrote on 2020-03-28, 14:14:

CoffeeOne, Thanks for your response. I have attached a picture of the card. I also was surprised that the Tyan card only has on […]
Show full quote

CoffeeOne,
Thanks for your response. I have attached a picture of the card. I also was surprised that the Tyan card only has one IDE connector. I have the port set to 170 on the second card. It doesn't have an option to set the IRQ. I found a page with the jumper settings at:

https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-disk-floppy … IODE-3292U.html

I have everything on the card set to disabled except the IDE. I think my bios supports 4 hard drives. When I do autodetect drives in my bios it has spots for primary master and slave and secondary master and slave. I am using only DOS 6.22 for now. I plan on installing Windows 3.11 eventually. Thanks again!

Hmm, That's not a picture of the card, with the actual jumper setting, or is it?
All Jumpers seem to be in 2-3 or 1-2? That is not correct. 😁

EDIT: Your photo shows that all jumpers are in position 1-2, I am about 90% sure.
Can you make a picture of the card with the actual setting?

it's very likely that he just found a stock photo of his card online rather than bothering to stage a photo shoot of his own

I doubt the OP is braindead enough to not understand jumper settings

Sorry, that is actually a picture I took of the board before I started messing around with jumpers and putting it into my computer. It was easy to access on my phone. I am not at the computer right now, but I will take it out when I get home and take a picture of it as it currently is. I can tell you from my notes that I have JP2-JP6 with pins 2&3 closed, JP 7 with pins 1&2 closed, JP9-JP11 jumper removed (since these are disabled), JP 12 has pins 2&3 closed and JP16-JP17 are removed also.

After I sent my last post, I did make some progress. I moved the CD-ROM jumper to the master position. I then went to the bios setup and did the IDE HDD autodetect. It will correctly detect the HDD as primary IDE master and the CF as primary IDE slave. I usually just skipped the secondary IDE master/slave since there is no HDD on those. This time, however, I let the bios try and autodetect the secondary master. It came back with a listing of zeros in all the slots and I typed Y to accept and then skipped the secondary IDE slave. I restart and it correctly identifies the CD-ROM and boots to the DOS prompt without problems. I can access the HDD, all of the CF drives and the CD-ROM. When I CTRL-ALT-DEL and reboot, it will load without problems. Then, if I reset the computer or turn it off and back on, it will run through the memory test then it will stop. It will say press DEL to enter BIOS setup at the bottom of the screen. If I enter the BIOS and go through the process listed above (let the BIOS try and autodetect the secondary IDE master) it will then reboot to the DOS prompt. If I let it sit long enough on the screen after the memory test, it will eventually say "Hard Disk(s) Fail (10)." Any ideas?

Thanks!

So, tried again and letting the BIOS autodetect the secondary IDE doesn't make a difference. I can let it find the HDD and CF on the primary IDE and skip the secondary IDE and it will start normally. If I reboot/restart, it will hang after the memory test and eventually give the Hard Disk error. If I enter bios and let it autodetect the HDD and CF, then save and exit, it will boot just fine. But again, if I reboot/restart, it will hang after the memory test/give the Hard Disk error. Is the BIOS autodetect somehow finding the disks but the system can't find them when just restarted?

just override the auto detect and set secondary master and slave to "not installed"

the BIOS does NOT need to be aware of the CDROM for it to work

Brutus814 wrote on 2020-03-28, 16:49:

Sorry, that is actually a picture I took of the board before I started messing around with jumpers and putting it into my computer. It was easy to access on my phone. I am not at the computer right now, but I will take it out when I get home and take a picture of it as it currently is. I can tell you from my notes that I have JP2-JP6 with pins 2&3 closed, JP 7 with pins 1&2 closed, JP9-JP11 jumper removed (since these are disabled), JP 12 has pins 2&3 closed and JP16-JP17 are removed also.

After I sent my last post, I did make some progress. I moved the CD-ROM jumper to the master position. I then went to the bios setup and did the IDE HDD autodetect. It will correctly detect the HDD as primary IDE master and the CF as primary IDE slave. I usually just skipped the secondary IDE master/slave since there is no HDD on those. This time, however, I let the bios try and autodetect the secondary master. It came back with a listing of zeros in all the slots and I typed Y to accept and then skipped the secondary IDE slave. I restart and it correctly identifies the CD-ROM and boots to the DOS prompt without problems. I can access the HDD, all of the CF drives and the CD-ROM. When I CTRL-ALT-DEL and reboot, it will load without problems. Then, if I reset the computer or turn it off and back on, it will run through the memory test then it will stop. It will say press DEL to enter BIOS setup at the bottom of the screen. If I enter the BIOS and go through the process listed above (let the BIOS try and autodetect the secondary IDE master) it will then reboot to the DOS prompt. If I let it sit long enough on the screen after the memory test, it will eventually say "Hard Disk(s) Fail (10)." Any ideas?

Thanks!

Hello,
OK, the jumper settings are correct. I would not remove any jumpers, so better put back 9,10,11,16,17 to default 1-2.
But I don't think that's a problem, but who knows.

As already mentioned, for the CD ROM do not use auto-detect, just use "None".
So what is the problem now exactly?
It works, but when you power down and then up again it does not work?
Is your CMOS battery empty?

I will replace the jumpers. I have tried a few different things and it seems that for some reason, the computer can not correctly identify the HDD and CF when it starts up. If I go into the BIOS and look, it lists the HDD and CF card correctly (see picture), however, it will only boot up correctly if I autodetect the drives, save settings and reboot. I replaced the CMOS battery yesterday with a fresh one.

Brutus814 wrote on 2020-03-28, 18:18:

I will replace the jumpers. I have tried a few different things and it seems that for some reason, the computer can not correctly identify the HDD and CF when it starts up. If I go into the BIOS and look, it lists the HDD and CF card correctly (see picture), however, it will only boot up correctly if I autodetect the drives, save settings and reboot. I replaced the CMOS battery yesterday with a fresh one.

Can't you set primary master and primary slave to "auto" instead of type "USER"?
When that is supported by BIOS it would autodetect it on every boot.

Unfortunately it doesn't give me an option for an "auto." My only options for TYPE are 1-45, USER and NONE. The USER settings are what it found with autodetect. When I do autodetect again, it doesn't change anything because it was already set. That's why it is confusing to me because it is already in there as a USER setting.

Brutus814 wrote on 2020-03-28, 18:52:

Unfortunately it doesn't give me an option for an "auto." My only options for TYPE are 1-45, USER and NONE. The USER settings are what it found with autodetect. When I do autodetect again, it doesn't change anything because it was already set. That's why it is confusing to me because it is already in there as a USER setting.

Is there an "AUTO" for mode, or only NORMAL, LARGE and LBA?

Unfortunately only NORMAL, LARGE AND LBA; NO AUTO

Brutus814 wrote on 2020-03-28, 19:18:

Unfortunately only NORMAL, LARGE AND LBA; NO AUTO

I am out of ideas unfortunately.
Did you check if there is a newer BIOS for this mainboard?

How about run auto detect first, then go back to standard setup menu and change the entry for the secondary to "none"

Thanks for your help CoffeeOne. I'll take a look and see if there is a newer bios.

Maxtherabbit, after autodetect, it shows the correct settings in the IDE setup part but after a reset, the system can not correctly identify the drives unless I go back in to BIOS and redo the autodetect, even though it still shows the same, correct settings on the screenshot I posted above without doing the autodetect.

Brutus814 wrote on 2020-03-28, 22:52:

Thanks for your help CoffeeOne. I'll take a look and see if there is a newer bios.

Maxtherabbit, after autodetect, it shows the correct settings in the IDE setup part but after a reset, the system can not correctly identify the drives unless I go back in to BIOS and redo the autodetect, even though it still shows the same, correct settings on the screenshot I posted above without doing the autodetect.

I have one more thing to try out....
Maybe it is just a timing issue. Try out the following: Boot up the machine, go to BIOS. Do not change anything (as you said the parameters for the drives are already correct). Wait one minute, then save and exit.
Does it work now, too?