I cloned Win2k to a 128GB card and it won't boot. BSOD with an Inaccessible Boot Device error. Popped the 32GB card back in, booted just fine with Ultra DMA still enabled.

I suppose I could try and port XP's ATAPI.sys driver back to 98SE by internalising all the code it imports from ntoskrnl and hal.

It's tedious though, and I'm not even sure it'll work. So I'm not all that motivated to try and do it.

Forgive my possible ignorance in this, but is the 2k driver, being older, perhaps any less complex to work with? I only mention it because it seems to work well, and from a relatively simple thought process, it seems it could be less complex due to not having support for more modern hardware. I did check my 2k vs a XP install and the driver is different. The 2k driver is around 10kB less and dated as quite older so perhaps it would be less work to dig through?

Windows 95, 98 and ME had a different kernel. Windows NT and 2000 already have the NT kernel. They are completely different systems. I don't think that's going to be possible.

@divideBYzero @Vridek

That's why I was thinking of internalising all the code that it gets from ntoskrnl and hal.
That way it won't have any dependency on the NT kernel and can just do everything it needs to do by itself.

But yeah, that's tedious.

I'm already quite desperate, today I made WeeCee revision 0.4. Unfortunately the BIOS does not see the SD card. I have rechecked the paths and everything is fine. Does anyone have any experience of what this could be? According to the schematic there should be nothing wrong. Thank you for any help.

Vridek wrote on 2023-01-13, 23:30:

I'm already quite desperate, today I made WeeCee revision 0.4. Unfortunately the BIOS does not see the SD card. I have rechecked the paths and everything is fine. Does anyone have any experience of what this could be? According to the schematic there should be nothing wrong. Thank you for any help.

Did you follow the instructions sent you by ICOP?
If so you need to revert the change:

"Set “OnBoard IDE Operate Mode” to “Legacy IDE" SD Card

It's obviously not a BIOS setting. I set it up the same way as with version 0.3, which I have at home, and it works great. But version 0.4 refuses the SD Card. I still have the SOM304RD52VINE1. I've checked the paths, resistors and haven't found a problem. I kept with https://workspace.circuitmaker.com/Projects/D … /rasteri/weeCee including the revision of the components.

Vridek wrote on 2023-01-14, 13:48:

It's obviously not a BIOS setting. I set it up the same way as with version 0.3, which I have at home, and it works great. But version 0.4 refuses the SD Card. I still have the SOM304RD52VINE1. I've checked the paths, resistors and haven't found a problem. I kept with https://workspace.circuitmaker.com/Projects/D … /rasteri/weeCee including the revision of the components.

You've checked continuity from the SD card slot pins to the rest of the circuit, but have you checked continuity between the pins? Have you ruled out a tiny solder ball between pins that sits unseen under the component?

Oh, yeah. Cold link to U4. Couldn't see it at first glance. Thanks for the help 😀

Don't suppose anyone knows how to get the LAN working in WinMe? Have tried the 98 and 2k drivers and neither seems to work -- installs and reports a working device, but no internet. Anyone solve that one?

@Nachtrave

1st.
Use the windows 98 driver not the 2000 one.
2nd.
To check if Internet connectivity is actually working ping a DNS server e.g
ping 8.8.8.8

If you get a ping back then you do have internet, but I'd imagine Internet Explorer wouldn't work very well on the modern internet.

If you don't get a ping back then something has gone wrong and we'll need to take a closer look.

I've been using IDA disassembler to modify the code inside ESDI_506.PDR

But every time I go to test it, I get a Windows Protection Error.

Does anyone know why this happens?
Is there a way to skip this error?

Vridek wrote on 2023-01-14, 13:48:

It's obviously not a BIOS setting. I set it up the same way as with version 0.3, which I have at home, and it works great. But version 0.4 refuses the SD Card. I still have the SOM304RD52VINE1. I've checked the paths, resistors and haven't found a problem. I kept with https://workspace.circuitmaker.com/Projects/D … /rasteri/weeCee including the revision of the components.

You put the wrong pulldowns and pullups in the spots you should had left disconnected. R10 and R19 should be NC, so you shouldn't have populated those.

In other news we got mentioned by the 8 bit guy!!! https://t.co/WzBofewDf4 -- weeCee I sent him is going to get reviewed. 😄

Apparently people in the comments think it was rasteri who sent it in, although it was actually me. :3

NachtRave wrote on 2023-01-15, 21:41:

Vridek wrote on 2023-01-14, 13:48:

It's obviously not a BIOS setting. I set it up the same way as with version 0.3, which I have at home, and it works great. But version 0.4 refuses the SD Card. I still have the SOM304RD52VINE1. I've checked the paths, resistors and haven't found a problem. I kept with https://workspace.circuitmaker.com/Projects/D … /rasteri/weeCee including the revision of the components.

You put the wrong pulldowns and pullups in the spots you should had left disconnected. R10 and R19 should be NC, so you shouldn't have populated those.

I made adjustments to the components according to revision 0.4. WeeCee is already running great.

NachtRave wrote on 2023-01-15, 21:43:

In other news we got mentioned by the 8 bit guy!!! https://t.co/WzBofewDf4 -- weeCee I sent him is going to get reviewed. 😄

Apparently people in the comments think it was rasteri who sent it in, although it was actually me. :3

Great work 😉

Vridek wrote on 2023-01-15, 23:41:

NachtRave wrote on 2023-01-15, 21:43:

In other news we got mentioned by the 8 bit guy!!! https://t.co/WzBofewDf4 -- weeCee I sent him is going to get reviewed. 😄

Apparently people in the comments think it was rasteri who sent it in, although it was actually me. :3

Great work 😉

Hopefully positive things will come from the additional exposure.

V

Is there anyone here familiar with using the wdeb386 debugger?

I'd like to use it to trace through ESDI_506.PDR to find out why it fails on the WeeCee but I've never used it before.
I'll still go at it by trail and error, but some actual expertise would be greatly appreciated.

I got a new reply about ICOP

We found the IDE driver in Real mode under Win98 can't distinguish our IDE Controller. So, under Device Manager, we will see both Primary & Secondary IDE Controller with an exclamation mark, that means we can only run in PIO mode, and it make system very slow. In Win98, even if the BIOS is changed to IDE Compatible Enabled, there is still an exclamation mark in Win98, and even if we try to change to the Intel IDE Vendor ID & Device ID, it does not work.
I have tried to modify it by following the link below, but I still can't get Win98 to drive our IDE Controller with the correct IDE Driver.

The reason why DOS is fast is that our BIOS has “PCI Bus Master Enabled” enabled, and DOS will run DMA Mode according to the BIOS plan.

I'm already sent this issue to our bios team, and keep you updated.