ux-3 wrote on 2024-05-17, 12:30:

I have been eyeing VLB IO-controllers with two IDE connectors. I can't remember what will happen in bios?
Does it show 4 drives then? Does it not work? How do I get to set the secondary IDE geometry for CF cards?

Your BIOS most likely only supports a single (the primary) IDE channel. There are some VLB IDE controllers shipped with their own ROM replacing the IDE support in the mainboard ROM and supporting 4 drives. If you have a dual-channel IDE controller without a BIOS extension, you can also add a 3rd-party IDE BIOS, e.g. in a boot ROM socket of an ISA network card. At this time, the "XT-IDE Universal BIOS" (XUB) is quite popular as general IDE BIOS with support for large drives and multiple channels.

If you use the second channel for stuff that doesn't need BIOS support (use it in Linux for the non-boot drive, use it for CD-ROM drives), you can just keep using the mainboard BIOS. If you connect a hard-drive like device (CF cards are hard-drive like) to the second channel, and you expect to be able to use it from DOS, having a BIOS that supports two channels is the easiest way, although there might be DOS drivers to be loaded from CONFIG.SYS to add support for those drives bypassing the BIOS.

mkarcher wrote on 2024-05-17, 12:58:

ux-3 wrote on 2024-05-17, 12:30:

I have been eyeing VLB IO-controllers with two IDE connectors. I can't remember what will happen in bios?
Does it show 4 drives then? Does it not work? How do I get to set the secondary IDE geometry for CF cards?

Your BIOS most likely only supports a single (the primary) IDE channel. ...

If you use the second channel for stuff that doesn't need BIOS support (use it in Linux for the non-boot drive, use it for CD-ROM drives), you can just keep using the mainboard BIOS. If you connect a hard-drive like device (CF cards are hard-drive like) to the second channel, and you expect to be able to use it from DOS, having a BIOS that supports two channels is the easiest way, although there might be DOS drivers to be loaded from CONFIG.SYS to add support for those drives bypassing the BIOS.

So that would be the plan then. Use primary IDE for two cards and secondary for a CD-rom. But then, I could just use a soundcard, albeit at slower speed.

Thank you for your input.

I just tried a few of my sound cards with IDE support. With some, the CD drive would not be detected at all. Probably needs to be enabled in the soundcard install program. With the maestro 32/96, I had success. The drive was recognized, but then I got a command.com failure message before the boot completed.

It must have been able to read from the IO controller with CF first, as MSDOS started and loaded the CD driver. Then it looked a bit as if control had passed to the soundcard ide-IO and now it no longer found the HDD.
"Good old days..."

What could this be? Atm I assume an address conflict.

Edit: Got it to work with an ESS 1868 board. Testing other soundcards now.

I bring this up again, because I still have issues with my Maestro 32/96 IDE. Machine hangs on boot.

ux-3 wrote on 2024-05-17, 15:49:

With the maestro 32/96, I had success. The drive was recognized, but then I got a command.com failure message before the boot completed.

It must have been able to read from the IO controller with CF first, as MSDOS started and loaded the CD driver. Then it looked a bit as if control had passed to the soundcard ide-IO and now it no longer found the HDD.

That's strange. This indeed sounds like a conflict, but I don't think it's an I/O address conflict. I don't know of any sound card that can be set to the primary IDE I/O adress, so port 1F0-1F7 will not be disturbed by the sound card. The next possible issue might be an IRQ conflict, but as I expected, the Maestro 32/96 does not even have a contact on the ISA pin for IRQ14, which is the IRQ used for the primary IDE port. Given these facts, I consider a conflict between the sound card and the primary IDE port unlikely.

Please check what settings (I/O and IRQ) the sound card is configured to, and post a list of further cards in your system. Also, if you get an error message trying to load command.com, please post that message. Furthermore, there are multiple well-known IDE CDROM drivers, you might want to try a different one.

I found it. The Maestro Sound part works fine with AT bus I/4 clk. But the IDE only runs at slowest 1/6 clk. Then it works. So much for that.

Which CPU do you have, and how fast is it clocked?

AMD 486-DX 40. Runs at 40.

Then you should use CLK/5 to get the ISA bus clock to ~ 8 MHz

Disruptor wrote on 2024-05-18, 14:21:

Then you should use CLK/5 to get the ISA bus clock to ~ 8 MHz

Tried that too, no luck.
The Maestro had a "wrong capacitor" problem. Maybe that has to do with it. (I fixed mine, but there was no universal solution offered iirc)