ees@vax135.UUCP (Gene Sampieri) (09/17/86)
I have upgraded a PC-6300 to a 20 meg Tandon hard disk with a WDC 1002A WX2 short controller board. Everything seems to work fine except at boot time. At the spot it usually test for the hard disk, a message is displayed "Optional Rom at ... ". It hangs at this point for 18 to 20 seconds befor going on to normall operation, booting from the hard disk and all else is fine. What if anything can be done to fix the extra long time delay?? Also when running Nortons Disk Sort, I now get a message saying "out of memory". This does not happen on a plus with a 20 meg unit. Chkdsk indicates there is well over 500K left after boot. Thanks... Gene Sampieri AT&T Bell Labs vax135!ees
thj@hpcnof.UUCP (Thomas Hjellming) (09/19/86)
/ hpcnof:net.micro.pc / ees@vax135.UUCP (Gene Sampieri) / 5:53 am Sep 17, 1986 /
I have upgraded a PC-6300 to a 20 meg Tandon hard disk with a WDC 1002A
WX2 short controller board. Everything seems to work fine except at boot
time. At the spot it usually test for the hard disk, a message is displayed
"Optional Rom at ... ". It hangs at this point for 18 to 20 seconds befor
going on to normall operation, booting from the hard disk and all else is
fine.
What if anything can be done to fix the extra long time delay??
Also when running Nortons Disk Sort, I now get a message saying "out of
memory". This does not happen on a plus with a 20 meg unit. Chkdsk indicates
there is well over 500K left after boot.
Thanks...
Gene Sampieri
AT&T Bell Labs
vax135!ees
----------
Gene,
When I upgraded my 6300 to a 20Meg (Microscience brand w/WD short
controller card) a 1.5 years ago, I experienced the exact same things you
describe.
As for the 18 to 20 second delay time, I believe that the HD
initialization code (in the optional ROM) is waiting for the drive
to come up to speed before accessing it. If this is indeed the case,
there is nothing that you can do. On a warm boot, do you still
experience the delay? (If so, it is not due to the drive coming up to speed).
As for the 'out of memory' error with Norton's, I actually saw that
message when running the 'nu' program. I do not remember what I did
to fix it (I already had 640K RAM), but it no longer does it (sorry,
I can't help you here).
Tom Hjellming
...!ihnp4!hpfcla!thj
Colorado Networks Division
Hewlett-Packard
(normal disclaimers)gnome@oliveb.UUCP (Gary) (09/22/86)
> > As for the 18 to 20 second delay time, I believe that the HD > initialization code (in the optional ROM) is waiting for the drive > to come up to speed before accessing it. If this is indeed the case, > there is nothing that you can do. On a warm boot, do you still > experience the delay? (If so, it is not due to the drive coming up to speed). > > Tom Hjellming > ...!ihnp4!hpfcla!thj Actually, it is waiting for a possible EXTERNAL HDU to power-up. New rev's of boot ROM take care of that delay. Gary
rdr@inuxh.UUCP (Robert Rindfuss) (09/23/86)
> > > > As for the 18 to 20 second delay time, I believe that the HD > > initialization code (in the optional ROM) is waiting for the drive > > to come up to speed before accessing it. If this is indeed the case, > > there is nothing that you can do. On a warm boot, do you still > > experience the delay? (If so, it is not due to the drive coming up to speed). > > > > Tom Hjellming > > ...!ihnp4!hpfcla!thj > > > Actually, it is waiting for a possible EXTERNAL HDU to power-up. > > New rev's of boot ROM take care of that delay. > > Gary I had a similar experience putting a 20Meg on my 6300 (not a +). I have the same DTC5150 controller that AT&T uses, but since I bought it myself I got the BIOS rom (you know, "Optional ROM at C800:0000") with the controller, and a manual that says how to set the dip switch on the controller board for the drive type. As it turned out, none of the 16 entries were appropriate for the ST225 - all had wrong number of heads or cylinders. So with the help of DTC I patched an entry. Everything worked fine then, except at boot I would get the same delay for 20 or 30 seconds, and with the screen overflowing with what seemed to be a controller error number (was it F4?). Then it would stop and everything would be fine. I had earlier put another harddisk (a 30Meg) on the same controller, with no delays. To make a long story short, I finally noticed that in the documentation, the first four entries were labelled IBM, the other 12 were labelled DTC. When I had used an IBM entry, no delays. With DTC entries, I got delays. So I tried patching one of the IBM entries instead of a DTC entry and the delay went away. The guy at DTC couldn't explain it. To be on the safe side, I bought a newer control ROM (BXD6) which didn't need to be patched. Bob Rindfuss AT&T Graphics Software Labs ihnp4!inuxh!rdr
rosen@mtgzz.UUCP (t.rosenfeld) (09/23/86)
>I have upgraded a PC-6300 to a 20 meg Tandon hard disk with a WDC 1002A >WX2 short controller board. Everything seems to work fine except at boot >time. At the spot it usually test for the hard disk, a message is displayed >"Optional Rom at ... ". It hangs at this point for 18 to 20 seconds befor >going on to normall operation, booting from the hard disk and all else is >fine. > >What if anything can be done to fix the extra long time delay?? [ ... ] >Gene Sampieri I have the same problem.I don't think it has to do with the disk comming to speed since it does the same thing on warm boot. Can this have something to do with the ROM BIOS. I have the old one and I hear it does not recognize a lot of hard disks. Whould anyone know if installing the 1.43 ROM help? -- ---------------- Thomas Rosenfeld @ AT&T Information Systems Labs, Middletown, NJ (201) 957-5867 UUCP: {harpo,ihnp4,burl,akgua}!mtgzz!rosen Disclaimer: I don't claim anything.
psfales@ihlpl.UUCP (Peter Fales) (09/27/86)
> > >What if anything can be done to fix the extra long time delay?? > > Can this have something to do with the ROM BIOS. I have the old one and I hear > it does not recognize a lot of hard disks. Whould anyone know if installing > the 1.43 ROM help? I recently purchased ROM BIOS 1.43 and yes, it does solve this problem. The reason is that the new ROM has all the HDU code in the ROM and does not use the code in the ROM on the controller board. I now get no startup delay and the message "Fixed disk 1: (ready)" rather than "Optional ROM at..."