Tom's Guide | Tom's Hardware | Tom's Games
 |
 |
 |
Hi, I've been trying to get a system running DOS 5 from a memory card with an IDE converter so I can easily add programs and games without stuffing around in dos. For some reason no matter what I have tried I cant get the PC to boot with the memory cards, it just freezes at verifying DMI data. DOS will install fine but wont boot. If I boot the PC from a floppy I can access the memory card and run dos from it without any probs. What's the problem here? Should I try a newer version? I have dos 6.1 also, but wanted to use DOS 5. I have tried with both CF and SD to IDE converters and with 1, 2 and 4GB cards but without success. Any help would be appreciated!
Mattwizz3
Gigabyte P35-DS3R
4GB DDR2 800
9800GT
E4500
I did some googling, and it appears as if most CF cards dont support full IDE. Some SanDisk Ultra cards do.
However that explains my problems with the CF cards, but my SD card adapter has its own IDE interface that should work fine regardless of the type of SD card in......
Any help?
Mattwizz3
Gigabyte P35-DS3R
4GB DDR2 800
9800GT
E4500
0 
I don't have one of those adapters but I'm looking for one.
I assume you partitioned and formated the CF/SD with DOS 5.
Does the adapter have it's own BIOS?
Does it conflict with the mobo IDE?
=====================================
If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.M2
0
Ive tried with 4 different PC's and get the same result. The CF to IDE card has minimal electronics on it as CF is pretty much a miniaturized version of IDE anyways, so card compatibility does matter with the CF adapter. With my SD card adapter it does have its own interface electronics and in the BIOS it appears as "SD memory card adapter" or something to that effect anyways. I partitioned and formatted them with the DOS 5 disks but it cant boot from the cards anyway. It works flawlessly during partitioning, formatting and installation but it refuses to boot from the memory cards. Could it be because of a lack of a boot sector? I have read that some people have had success with the format C: /S command line and are able to get a prompt. I may try that as I only need a simple command line interface for DOS Shell and old games.
Mattwizz3
Gigabyte P35-DS3R
4GB DDR2 800
9800GT
E4500
0
As I understand it, at the beginning of the boot process the BIOS code goes to a standard address location where the MBR (Master Boot Record) of an IDE disk resides and from there reads the location to the Boot Sector of the active partition. Have you tried to look at the MBR with one of these DOS disk editing utilities. I would first take an old IDE disk drive which was set up to boot DOS and look at what it looks like with the disk editing utility (because I wouldn't know what a working MBR is supposed to look like!). Then, I'd look at these flash memory cards you have with the IDE interface. See what's different. I suspect that the MBR isn't getting set up properly for some reason, because if it was a boot sector error you'd be getting the "missing operating system" error message from your BIOS. If you don't have the disk editing utility, then you could just try the DOS FDISK /MBR switch which will write a new MBR to the disk, then do the format /s. But, I really don't know if any of this will help with your problem.
0
You may need to prepare the cards so they are seen, and act, more like hard drives. Lexar has a utility called Bootit that does that for its USB drives:
http://www.pendriveapps.com/bootit-...
There's another tool from HP that appears to do the same thing. The download file is SP27213.exe. Here's some info:
http://forums.pcper.com/showthread....
I don't know if either of these will work on SD or CF cards but I think if you can flip the removable bit you won't have any further problems in getting the cards to boot.
Edit
I did a bit of googling after posting and found this:http://mydellmini.com/forum/sdhc-us...
About 2/3 of the way down on that page is a link to xpefiles.com which has a hitachi microdrive driver update that appears to convert at least that particular SD card.
0
Hi DAVE,
cool
=====================================
If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.M2
0
Hi, been busy today! 46*C heat, shopping, bushfires, closed roads, birthday parties and swimming. Sorry for not replying, I'll check out your ideas tomorrow as its 1.30 AM here. Gotta go to bed.
Mattwizz3
Gigabyte P35-DS3R
4GB DDR2 800
9800GT
E4500
0
I think it is more likely the ide adapter than the flash. Be sure the adapter is properly configured in bios with use of DMA.
"Best Practices", Event viewer, host file, perfmon, antivirus, anti-spyware, Live CD's, backups, are in my top 10
0
I've been house sitting for the last week and will be until this Sunday. I'll be able to do a proper test then.
I had a brand new SD to IDE converter sent to me so now I can try again. I'll let you guys know as soon as I can get to it!
Mattwizz3
Gigabyte P35-DS3R
4GB DDR2 800
9800GT
E4500
0
Hmmmm. I got an old computer for free and Just for fun I thought I'd try the CF/IDE adapter with Win2K.....
It works! Running Win2K from a 2GB CF card 80MB of ram, 166MHz P54C and an S3Trio all rockin on my 22" LCD. It is admittedly a smidge slow to respond but its actually fine to use, boot time is good and its quiet too. So it seems that booting from any CF should be possible(At least with Win 2k. I am yet to try it with an SD card.
Mattwizz3
Gigabyte P35-DS3R
4GB DDR2 800
9800GT
E4500
0
I tried to install the os in cf to ide and sd to ide, but it failed, I find someone said it must be format to fat not fat32. now it works well on my 1gb cf card.
I bought a sd to sata adapter from China last week, it works good. maybe you can try this one if your sd card cannot install the os, here is link:
sd to sata adapter
0
There are flags on the CF card (and hard drives for that matter) that describe what actions the device can perform. One of the flags is "bootable".. I ran into this while installing linux to a 1 Gig CF card (in a Chinese IDE adapter), and the linux distro was nice enough to inform me of the fact and to tell me how to fix it! Linux worked! I then tried reformatting and loading with DOS, which also worked! I'm sure there is a more direct way, but I KNOW this works:
Download "Puppy Linux" ( http://puppylinux.org ), burn it to a CD. Install the CF card in place of the hard drive and boot from the CD. Follow directions for installing Puppy. Verify that the machine will now boot from the CF card. Boot from your DOS floppy and FDISK, FORMAT and SYS just like it was a normal hard drive.
Worked for me!Good luck!
0
I am having a similar problem. Can anyone offer advice?
I purchased a "bootable female 3.5 IDE HD to SD SDHC memory adaptor from eBay. I want to use as bootup drive in an old HP Pavillion that I would like to become a NAS server.
The HP Pavillion has Phoenix Bios 4 Release 6. The BIOS appears to recognize an SD card in the adaptor as a removable drive but when I install freeNAS the OS won't load.
I have tried enabling LBA mode and disabling DMA transfer mode.
Sounds very similar to the OP. Any advice?
0
Follow up.
Replaced the card and adaptor with an old IDE drive. Recognised and FreeNas installs and runs fine.
Put the SD IDE card adaptor back. "Operating System unable to Load"
0
No won't boot using the card.
I created a bootable CD from the FreeNAS ISI Image. FreeNAS appears to go through the install to the SD card albeit it indicates some errors during the install process.
On boot up the BIOS recognise the SD as "IDE Removable
Disk: Memory Card Adaptor." Then I go to a flashing cursor for about 30 seconds followed by "Operating System not Found"Went through the identical process with an old IDE drive and all works fine.
Also I am getting conflicting advice from manufacturers if Direct Memory Addressing or Logical Block Addressing should be on or off using the SD?
0
I believe that SD Cards are only compatable with ATA66/100/133 IDE Interfaces, I had this problem on a IDE ATA 33 only PC.............
""""
Compact Flash Media used in an SerialATA Adaptor is recognised as a hard drive, whilst in an IDE Adaptor is only recognised as a hard drive if the motherboard bios is ATA66 or later complient. Flash Media Card Readers are available with the following connections and may support boot from flash media.
"""""
0
@ MWCC that actually makes a lot of sense after reading this:
"Compact Flash Media used in an SerialATA Adaptor is recognised as a hard drive, whilst in an IDE Adaptor is only recognised as a hard drive if the motherboard BIOS is ATA66 or later compliant."
Now all I have to do is find if the Phoenix 4 Release 6 BIOS is ATA66 compliant? Or perhaps try another box or motherboard?
0
Well it's working !
Put the SD IDE adaptor onto another board with different BIOS. Auto set drive up. Wrote down settings. Put SD IDE adaptor back into the HP Pavilion with Phoeneix BIOS and manually set drive settings. Works!
FreeNAS up and running. Will try CF when it gets here.
0  |
 |
 |
This post is quite old and has been locked from receiving new replies. Please create a new posting instead.
| Ads by Google |
