XT-IDE on PCjr

[Brutman]

I owe you this so here it is ....

http://www.brutman.com/PCjr/images/jrIDE_sidecar.jpg


Mike

[Vorticon]

OK! I got my IDE card in the mail today (thanks Alan!) and I rushed to test it out. Unfortunately, I ran into some issues that hopefully someone here can help me with:

1- Both my 512MB CF and my 2G hard drive are recognized as drive 0. Good so far...
2- I am able to create an MS-DOS partition using FDISK under DOS 3.2 which shows up as drive C at reboot - Even better...
3- I am able to format and then access that C: drive using FORMAT C: /S, and it looks like the system files are being transferred correctly. Great!
4- At this point, I should have a bootable C: drive, but unfortunately when I try to boot from it the system hangs and 05 is shown on the POST display of the IDE card. I get the same issue with either the CF card or the hard drive.
5- I can still boot from the A: drive and then access the newly created C: drive reliably. However, I have to use a plain DOS 3.2 disk because my regular boot disk with JRConfig simply goes into ROM BASIC when a IDE drive is connected... This is obviously problematic since I need 640K for most of my software. Another thorny issue is how do I get palmzip to coexist with the IDE drive so I can transfer my files from the zip drive to the C: drive.

What am I missing?

Walid

[Brutman]

When you partition the drives are you marking the DOS partition as "active" ? If the partition is not active, it will not be bootable.

Also, try FDISK /MBR if that is supported.

I'm using both DOS 3.3 (straight) and DOS 5.02 on my drives.

JRConfig is supported - I am using it. An earlier version of my BIOS did not allow for the BASIC cartridge to be installed. Are you using the latest BIOS from the thread here in the forum?


Mike

[Vorticon]

When you partition the drives are you marking the DOS partition as "active" ? If the partition is not active, it will not be bootable.

Also, try FDISK /MBR if that is supported.

I'm using both DOS 3.3 (straight) and DOS 5.02 on my drives.

JRConfig is supported - I am using it. An earlier version of my BIOS did not allow for the BASIC cartridge to be installed. Are you using the latest BIOS from the thread here in the forum?


Mike

There is only one partition for the whole disk, and it is active.I have BIOS version 0.11 from 4/22/11. Is that the latest?
Now there is another issue: when I try to FDISK the C: drive, it shows that I have a non-DOS partition, and Fdisk won't let me delete it so I can set up a DOS partition! How do I get rid of that partition? It's interesting that this is showing a non-DOS partition despite the fact that I can still access the C: drive normally (just not boot from it)...

Walid

[jmetal88]

If you meant to type 4/22/12, then that is the latest.

I don't have any issues at all with the current version of the BIOS. It works well with jrconfig, although jrconfig makes the drive detection happen twice. I have DOS 3.2 installed to a small laptop hard drive with several 32mb partitions, and it's actually drawing its power from the PCjr without any issues (except for the power supply getting kind of hot). Boots up just fine, runs jrconfig, detects all 736kb of RAM, lets me load the time from the RTC.

Maybe try re-flashing the BIOS anyway, even if you are already up to date. Couldn't hurt.

[Vorticon]

Thank you for the suggestions. I ended up having to use a third party disk manager to initialize the CF drive and I was then able to get it to boot. However, it will only boot with DOS 5 installed, not DOS 3.2 for some reason... JR Config and Palmzip work with it and I was able to transfer my files from the Zip drive to the fixed disk.
One odd thing I noticed was that, while drive access is very fast, it takes a long time to give me the file and disk size after a DIR command, like what the Zip drive did.
Overall, it's a huge improvement over the Zip drive, and I want to thank all of you who participated in the development of this wonderful addition to the PCjr.

Walid

[Brutman]

Some quick suggestions:

Get rid of DOS 3.2. DOS 3.3 should be the minimum you use with a hard drive. Only use something older if you are trying to be "all original" (DOS 2.1) or just like pain.

DOS 5.0 and up take forever to compute the amount of free space on the drive. And unfortunately, they do that often. It's a well known problem. It happens randomly too, so you can do a few operations quickly and then get hit with the delay.

Jrconfig looks like it runs twice because it really is running twice. The first time the machine boots Jrconfig fixes up the BIOS memory counters and moves the video memory lower in memory to give DOS more contiguous space. (Unless you just use the space for a RAM disk - then it just fixes up memory counters.) Either way, it has DOS load above the video memory. Then it causes a second reboot to get DOS to pick up the memory counter changes. You are actually seeing two boot cycles.

[jmetal88]

Whoops, I meant to type DOS 3.3! It's definitely 3.3 that I'm using.

But yes, DOS 3.3 should be the lowest version you should consider using.

[Vorticon]

I only have DOS 3.2 disks... Originals go for crazy amounts on the net, so purchasing a copy makes no sense. In any case, DOS 5 seems to be doing the job just fine, and I can live with the occasional delay in drive space recomputation
I'm a very happy person right now

[cewsmoke]

If a person were interested in getting on the waiting list for one of the boards, what are the appropriate steps to take?