[Coco] Glenside IDE Controller Question...

[Randy Just]

After swapping out a few drives and changing my controller to a FD-501, the
thing came to life.  While the IDE card was plugged in and power on, I changed
the jumper to 70 from 50 and then the thing starting working.  I am a 
bit puzzled
as I thought the floppy was at 70 and per the Glenside doc, the 
jumper should be
in the 50 setting with a multipak controller.  Oh well.  At least I 
know the card is
reporting a real life hard drive on the end of it.  I also used an 80 
pin cable.  Don't
know if it helped, but...

OK.  My OS9 knowledge is pretty limited.  I am very good with 
operating systems (DOS
level commands, etc), but when it comes to configuring boot diskettes 
and setting
up descriptors, that is alien talk to me at the moment.

Is there a step-by-step procedure I can find somewhere to get a boot 
diskette set-up where
I can lformat the drive?

Also, I see the update files for the IDE controller, but what is the 
process to get them copied
to 5.25" floppy diskettes?  Are CoCo diskettes in the same format as 
DOS and I just need
a DOS machine with a 5.25" drive to copy the files over?

Randy

> >5) Assuming I get all of the above set-up correctly, what the heck do
> >I do to actually get drivers
> >installed, do a lformat (uncertain how to set-up a hd0 or whatever
> >link) and so forth.  I have a 120MB
> >IDE drive in a case attached.
>
>OK, first get the newest drivers.  The Glenside drivers are Boyle's
>10/99 Beta  at:
>http://www.sdc.org/~goosey/
>ftp://ftp.rtsi.com/
>ftp://ftp.maltedmedia.com/
>
>Or spring for Cloud-9's SuperDriver set.
>
> >6) I tried using the detect_ide.b09 program, but don't seem to have
> >success with it.
>
>Make sure your drive is set on "master."  Some old IDE drives, when
>installed on a PC with no other drive, aren't set master or slave.
>This doesn't fly with the CoCo, the ATA spec says drive 0 is master
>and drive 1 is slave and none of that PC laziness.
>
>Try the newest detect_ide.b09 it works better.  Also, the drivers are
>fussy about old IDE drives that don't actually meet the ATA spec.  If
>the drive doesn't work, try sticking it back in a PC and formating
>it.  Might help.  If it doesn't, all I can say is "try another drive."
>
>I don't know if it really helps, but I use one of the newer 80-line
>IDE cables.  If nothing else, the extra ground lines are good.
>
>If you go the SuperDriver route I can't really help because I haven't
>used it.
>
>Once you have a drive that detect_ide likes, you should be able to
>use makedesc to make a device descriptor for each partition you want.
>I recommend <128M partitions, that way you can use 1 sector clusters.
>OS-9, and some of its programs, have problems with larger clusers.
>
>Once you've made your descriptors, build a new boot disk with the
>driver (either the 4 partition or the 11 partition) and descriptors.
>Reboot.  You should then be able to lformat.
>
>If that all works, your last step is to create a /dd descriptor.  Make
>sure you have all the necessary files the partition you're calling
>/dd.  Build a new boot disk, replacing dd_ds40.dd with your dd.ide.
>This disk only needs to contain OS9Boot, cmds/grfdrv, and maybe sysgo
>(depending on your version of OS9).   If it all works (cross your
>fingers, toes, and I think it helps to sacrifice a chicken:) this
>will cut your boot-time way down.
>
>I've done this several times.  Let me know if you need more detailed
>help.
>
>Willard
>--
>Willard Goosey  goosey at sdc.org
>Socorro, New Mexico, USA
>"I've never been to Contempt!  Isn't that somewhere in New Mexico?"
>    --- Yacko
>
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