VOGONS

Search

Common searches

Obtaining CHS values from a PATA disk

Topic actions

First post, by serialShinobi

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Hello. I managed to try IDEINFO.exe but it reports that I have n0 IDE/AT drive(s). I am trying to find information similar to that of IDEINFO, which includes CHS values.

My hard drives certainly are IDE/AT drives. However the interface(s) I've tried seem to be incompatible with IDEINFO. IDEINFO seems to require an ISA based interface as it sends commands to an IDE interface that used to be ISA but in my case it is local bus PCI. IDEINFO can not send its commands, however because the motherboard port used, BIOS is aware of the hard disk connected there and so IDEINFO at least counts one hard disk as present. On my other interface with its option rom, BIOS is uninformed of the presence of my disk and IDEINFO reports no hard drives at all.

Would like a program I can run in dos , preferably a bootable CD, that shows CHS values for my disks. My drives work okay on my Pentium III but not so much on my Pentium 100 machine nor my 486. I want to see if the CHS values reveal any unusual activity from BIOS on these older machines.

Thanks

Reply 1 of 2, by Chkcpu

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

Hello serialShinobi,

My favorite tool for checking CHS values and BIOS translation for IDE drives on Socket 3/5/7 systems is the WD Table Check utility from Western digital.
This tool displays CHS and other IDE drive information from the drive itself and from the BIOS, including the Fixed Disk Parameter Tables from the first 2 drives. The location of these tables is stored in Interrupt vectors 41h and 46h respectively and you may already have the raw data from these tables via jakethompson1’s Debug recipe from your earlier thread.

You can download this tool from my http://www.steunebrink.info/bioslim.htm page.
This webpage contains “The BIOS IDE Harddisk Limitations” article I wrote 24 years ago, and I hope it helps you to understand what is the problem is with the IDE detection on your Socket 5 board.
The WD Table Check utility comes in a self-extracting file called chkbios.exe. When you run this file, you will get the WDTBLCHK.EXE tool and a WDTBLCHK.TXT file with explanations.
Run WDTBLCHK from a clean boot DOS prompt with your drives connected and Setup in the BIOS. The various pages this tool displays should give you ample information about your issue.
When you exit the tool, you can have a report generated for later study.

Cheers, Jan

CPU Identification utility
The Unofficial K6-2+ / K6-III+ page

Reply 2 of 2, by serialShinobi

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Thanks. I am seriously in need of a program like the one you mention. I am working on getting needed tools together to work with machines from the 90s. One future project (from the 1980s) might be a 286. Very interested in that type of machine because of its ability to render color graphics. Thanks.

Go to top of page Go to top of page
Back to General Old Hardware
Close window
Close window