XT-IDE - Sound Blaster AWE32 \ VOGONS

XT-IDE - Sound Blaster AWE32

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First post, by OVERK|LL

Posted on 2025-02-10, 15:04

OVERK|LL Offline

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Given I think I'm starting to have some issues with my old Western Digital (as detailed in my other threads) that I have Windows 95 on (which is using Ontrack), I've gone down the rabbit hole of XT-IDE, downloaded the 386 version, tried the DIP28 EPROM's I had kicking around, discovered they are all write-once, so had to order one. Thankfully they are cheap.

When I ran the configuration utility, it found two IDE controllers. The 2nd one of course being the controller on the AWE32, which I have my CD-ROM drive connected to. I'm not sure if that is beneficial or not? I assume it can't hurt having it aware of both the onboard and the AWE32 controller, but I also can't see it being of benefit, since the AWE32 is never going to have a hard drive connected to it.

So, my question is: Should I remove the AWE32 and run the configuration utility, to get a ROM that's unaware of the AWE32, or should I leave it as is, so that it knows the AWE32 is there, even if there's never going to be a hard drive attached to it?

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Reply 1 of 5, by jmarsh

Posted on 2025-02-10, 15:42

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If there's no HDD connected to the AWE32's IDE then there's no point making the XTIDE aware of it. Worst case it's going to foul things up if the AWE32 is PnP and doesn't get initialized before the ROM starts, because then its IDE won't be available...

Reply 2 of 5, by OVERK|LL

Posted on 2025-02-10, 16:01

OVERK|LL Offline

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jmarsh wrote on 2025-02-10, 15:42:

If there's no HDD connected to the AWE32's IDE then there's no point making the XTIDE aware of it. Worst case it's going to foul things up if the AWE32 is PnP and doesn't get initialized before the ROM starts, because then its IDE won't be available...

Thanks for your input. It's not a PnP AWE32, but you make a good point.

Reply 3 of 5, by wierd_w

Posted on 2025-02-10, 16:03

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If it were me, i'd consider it a perk, but that's because i'd never use an awe32 in anything older than a pentium 90 with pnp bios...

Being able to have dos see 3 controllers worth of drives would be handy, imo, but I can see the need to restrict the xub for more flexible deployment.

BITD, I had a 'junker' hdd and a cdrom attached to my AWE32, which only showed up when windows was loaded. Being able to see it from dos would have been a perk.

But yes, when configuring the xtide bios, you can restrict which io ports it probes, for this very reason.

Reply 4 of 5, by OVERK|LL

Posted on 2025-02-10, 17:35

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wierd_w wrote on 2025-02-10, 16:03:
If it were me, i'd consider it a perk, but that's because i'd never use an awe32 in anything older than a pentium 90 with pnp bi […]
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If it were me, i'd consider it a perk, but that's because i'd never use an awe32 in anything older than a pentium 90 with pnp bios...

Being able to have dos see 3 controllers worth of drives would be handy, imo, but I can see the need to restrict the xub for more flexible deployment.

BITD, I had a 'junker' hdd and a cdrom attached to my AWE32, which only showed up when windows was loaded. Being able to see it from dos would have been a perk.

But yes, when configuring the xtide bios, you can restrict which io ports it probes, for this very reason.

Thanks. Yeah, this is a very old AWE32, a CT3910, which is all jumpers and no PnP. Works perfectly in Duke Nukem, Rise of the Triad, Doom...etc.

Had not considered hooking anything other than the CD-RW I currently have connected to it, so kind of wild to hear your experience.

Reply 5 of 5, by wierd_w

Posted on 2025-02-10, 19:40

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Consider the wide assortment of uses, such as having an LS120 and CDrom present, and being able to boot the LS120.

Keep in mind that the ide controller on an SB card is always going to be slow as hell, so try to keep it restricted to devices you dont mind being slow.

In my case, I used the junker drive to house my software/game .iso collection, so I had 'real cdrom' and 'virtual cdrom host' on the same controller, and it being slow was unimportant. Being able to see it from dos, for use with the full shushcdx package (includes a disc image mount driver!) Would have been a perk.

Again, your mileage may vary. Just dont try to run windows off that controller. That way will lie great pain.

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