mattw@netcom.COM (Matt Warnock) (03/22/91)
ABOUT ME: I am new to Minix and the net. I own PH Minix 1.3 but
have been unable to get the disk drivers to work with my 6 mhz
2MB DTK AT-286 clone, Adaptek 16-bit 2372B RLL controller, and
Toshiba 105mb RLL drive. The contoller is supposed to be
upwardly chip-compatible with AT controllers, though it does
allow sector translation and RLL formats and such. Translation
is disabled since it confuses DOS (more than 1024 tracks).
Because I am unable to use the hard drive, I run Minix in 640k
with a 1200mb ramdisk, with a 1.2mb and a 360kb floppy. I hope
to figure out how to add and mount a second ramdisk to get at the
other 208k (beleive me, it matters). I also hope to upgrade to
1.5.10 or better, especially to add UUCP, news and mail to my own
system. Right now I log into a UNIX host at 1200bps, long
distance (20 miles), no UUCP (at my end), no FTP because no
direct internet access. The following problems are presented for
your consideration, in order of importance (to me):
ONE: the hard disk mentioned above. Minix boots ok, and the fsck
menu is displayed. Choosing the HD option lights the disk
activity light, then returns with a message "Magic Number not
found; fatal" or words to that effect. When "=" is pressed, the
root drive is copied to RAM, but the system then freezes.
Characters are echoed to the screen, but that is all. I have
isolated the problem to the initialization of the at_wini.c
driver, and have worked around it by setting nr_drives = 0 in
init_params, instead of nr_drives = (int) *buf. This solves the
boot problem, but of course it also locks me out of any use of
the hard drive.
A recent post here (probably a FAQ file) said that the RLL
solution was to change NR_SECTORS or something like that to
25/26. Fine for xt_wini.c, but at_wini.c has no such animal.
Should I be using xt_wini.c? The corresponding variable in
at_wini.c appears to be wini.wn_maxsec, which is apparently
copied from a BIOS table. I know the Adaptec keeps a table of
its own somewhere to support disks other than those with exact
IBM type numbers. Is this the problem? Has anyone solved this
one before?
My initial reaction is that since fsck seems to work (I assume
using the BIOS) and since the file system is a single-threading
system anyway, there can be little harm in using the BIOS calls
for disk IO, so long as they are called in asynch mode, right?
Is there a driver that does this? In the alternative, can anyone
enlighten me on how to interface to the 2372B? I would like to
have a disk drive running sometime soon.
TWO: I need to get the upgrade to 1.5.10, or the latest and the
greatest. I particularly need a UUCP/mail/news suite. I do not
have FTP, so I need to use a mail-server to get the code. What
files do I need, and from where?
THREE: Minix will not run on any of the older HP Vectra (AT
clone) machines at the office. The new ones do work. The old
ones crash with an "Unexpected exception" error before you the
fsck menu appears. Anyone know why or have this problem? A ROM
upgrade to the Vectra doesn't help. I suspect it all comes of
doing things "the HP way". ;-}
RESPONSES: For reasons set out above, I am currently running
mostly DOS (fflltt!) except when trying to hack Minix. And at
1200 bps, long-distance, it takes 3 hrs of download time to read
3 weeks worth of news (and that's just this group) I can't afford
to do it often. (A faster modem is on the way). So post any
responses that will be generally instructive, but PLEASE, PLEASE,
PLEASE respond by email. Thanks in advance.
Matt Warnock mattw@netcom.com UUCP: uunet!apple!netcom!mattw
First Law of Litigation and Sausage-Stuffing:
In like a pig-- out like a weenie.