stevewa@upvax.UUCP (Steve Ward) (04/27/88)
I have an AT compatible with Award ROM BIOS 3.01. I also have a Miniscribe 3650 hard drive with WD controller. My problem is this: The 3650 (808 cyl, 6 heads, 17 sectors, 128 precomp) is not listed in the drive table of the SETUP program. Currently I have to use OnTrack's Disk Manager to configure my disk as two logical drives to make it work properly. This is not a problem except for the fact that Disk Manager is a memory-hog. I need the RAM it gobbles up for applications. I'd much rather figure out a way to use DOS 3.3's extended DOS partitions and save the RAM. I remember seeing an ad for a ROM chip(s) you could buy to put in the extra sockets in the AT to provide additional drive table entries. The problem is I don't remember where I saw it and I can't find it. I thought it was being sold by OnTrack, but I can't find any reference to it. I think it might have been on the registration card? If anyone knows anything about this I'd be most grateful. Also, I noticed that the last several entries in the drive table are blank (all zeros). Is there any way to add a table entry into my existing ROM? I do have access to an EPROM burner and eraser, but I don't want to wipe out my BIOS! Thanks in advance. Steve Ward stevewa@upvax.UUCP !tektronix!upvax!stevewa
keithe@tekgvs.TEK.COM (Keith Ericson) (05/01/88)
Expires: Sender: Followup-To: In article <423@upvax.UUCP> stevewa@upvax.UUCP (Steve Ward) writes: > >[problem with disk not being listed in the BIOS ROM table] > >I remember seeing an ad for a ROM chip(s) you could buy to put in the >extra sockets in the AT to provide additional drive table entries. >The problem is I don't remember where I saw it and I can't find it. I've just started playing with modifying the BIOS ROM (copying it to a PROM programmer, editing it, burning new PROMs) and indeed I can make any disk type entry I need. (The following applies to my Intel Motherboard 386AT with Phoenix BIOS ROMs and MS-DOS 3.3.) Two problems: 1. Something is incapable of recognizing any more than 1024 cylinders. I know it's not the controller (a Western Digital WD-1003A-WA2) because I've used it with a UNIX installation that utilized the 1224 cylinders of my Maxtor XT-2190. I can't get fdisk to acknowledge any more than 1023 cylinders. In fact, with the 1224 cylinder entry fdisk thought there were only 199 cylinders. Somewhere the tenth bit of the cylinder count is getting dropped. Anyone know where? Even Norton Utilities Partition Table Editor can't handle it. 2. The IBM diagnostics disk - which contains the setup program to write the information in the CMOS RAM - now reports that I'm now running it (the setup program) on a non-IBM machine and I should use the setup disk that came with the machine. Well. I hate to tell it this, but it wasn't an IBM machine _before_ I modified the ROMs, either! What gives? I remembered to change the last byte of the PROM to obtain a checksum of 0. Actually, I changed the last byte in both PROMs (high- and low-byte) so that each PROM would have a 0 checksum (as they did before the modification). As the punchline to the old joke* goes: "How do it _know_?!?!" keith *One old geezer was remarking to another that the smartest thing in the world had to be a thermos bottle because it knew how to keep hot things hot and cold things cold. Replying to the rebuttal that "That ain't so great" the first geezer exclaimed, "Yeah, but how do it _know_?"
phil@amdcad.AMD.COM (Phil Ngai) (05/02/88)
In article <3400@tekgvs.TEK.COM> keithe@tekgvs.UUCP (Keith Ericson) writes: >I've just started playing with modifying the BIOS ROM (copying it to a >PROM programmer, editing it, burning new PROMs) and indeed I can make >any disk type entry I need. (The following applies to my Intel >Motherboard 386AT with Phoenix BIOS ROMs and MS-DOS 3.3.) Keith, How did you find the disk type table? Did you just look through memory til you found something that looked right? -- Make Japan the 51st state! I speak for myself, not the company. Phil Ngai, {ucbvax,decwrl,allegra}!amdcad!phil or phil@amd.com
keithe@tekgvs.TEK.COM (Keith Ericson) (05/13/88)
In article <21377@amdcad.AMD.COM> phil@amdcad.UUCP (Phil Ngai) writes: >In article <3400@tekgvs.TEK.COM> keithe@tekgvs.UUCP (Keith Ericson) writes: >>I've just started playing with modifying the BIOS ROM (copying it to a > >Keith, > >How did you find the disk type table? Did you just look through >memory til you found something that looked right? I cheated - a co-worker had already found it. In all the machines I've used it can be investigated by using debug to dump beginning at F000:E400. Another co-worker has written a simple program to dump out the table in human-readable form. I submitted it to the binaries group a while back, including source. It's called drvtypes. keith
keithe@tekgvs.TEK.COM (Keith Ericson) (05/13/88)
In article <21377@amdcad.AMD.COM> phil@amdcad.UUCP (Phil Ngai) writes: >In article <3400@tekgvs.TEK.COM> keithe@tekgvs.UUCP (Keith Ericson) writes: >>I've just started playing with modifying the BIOS ROM (copying it to a > >Keith, > >memory til you found something that looked right? I cheated - a co-worker had already found it. In all the machines I've used it can be investigated by using debug to dump beginning at F000:E400. Another co-worker has written a simple program to dump out the table in human-readable form. I submitted it to the binaries group a while back, including source. It's called drvtypes.