htc@m10ux.ATT.COM (Hyun-Taek Chang-- MHx ) (04/02/89)
I have an 20Mhz, 80386 clone computer. Its motherboard is made by Unitron Technology, built around Chips & Technologies' 386 Chipset with Phoenix 80386 BIOS PLUS Version 1.10 02. I recently upgraded harddisk from Miniscribe 6053 MFM disk to CDC Wren III 150MB ESDI disk. Since then, I got in trouble with running MS Window 386 v2.1. (Of course, there was no problem with my old Miniscribe disk) I have a fairly long story about this problem. Actually, new disk come with Western Digital's WD1007A-WA2 controller with no on board BIOS ROM. Since my clone BIOS didn't have a right parameter for my new disk, I wrote a simple utility for altering hard disk parameter table and successfully modified the table on BIOS ROM. It worked O.K. except some applications invoked inside MS Window/386 v2.1. If I invoked any application encasulated by PIFEDITOR (even COMMANDW.PIF), Window/386 cannot read disk properly. Sometimes, it generated a "Drive C: not ready" error message or disk access was *extremely* slow. I claimed it to dealer and they replaced my disk controller with DTC 6280. Since DTC controller has on board BIOS ROM, I reinstalled my original Phoenix BIOS. After I installed the DTC controller, I encountered another problem, "optional ROM checksum error". After I talked with technical support person in DTC, I found out that the problem was caused by my Video 7 VRAM VGA card. I set the VGA card's ROM access mode as 8-bit mode and I switched BIOS address in DTC controller to D800h. It indeed solved checksum error problem, but I couldn't even invoke MS Window/386. As soon as I invoked it, system got hung. Also, system was frequently got hung even for invoking DOS command. I complained this problem to DTC tech person. He said the firmware and BIOS ROM in my disk controller were older versions and he sent the latest firmware and BIOS ROM of DTC controller to me. After replacing these stuffs, alas, I encountered exact same problem happened with Western Digital controller. What's wrong? Is this problem caused by disk controller or Window 386, or something else? My tolerate dealer asked me to try another disk controller (Adaptec AD2322). Is there any person having similar problem? Is ADAPTEC controller woking fine with Window 386? Although I've tried to talk with tech support person in both Microsoft and Adaptec, I cannot get through the busy signal so far. Please reply me either direct mail or post it on the news. Thanks in advance. Hyun-Taek Chang ...!research!m10ux!htc htc%m10ux@research.att.com