Trantor T130B scsi in Tandy 1000 TX help

I have been working a Tandy TX and been wanting to get an internal (bootable) harddrive going on it.

I have a Trantor T130B scsi (with boot rom) installed and it will not boot from the drive.All the drives are detected and format after i load the trantor drivers but the hardrive will not boot.

I used the TFORMAT program provided and all seemed to go fine. I was able to Partition,Format and transfer system files to the drive but after rebooting the computer hangs after seeking the floppy.

If you put a bootable floppy (with trantor drivers loaded) in before turning on the computer it will boot from floppy just fine and the scsi/harddrives all functional well too. The card also has the boot ROM enabled.

I have also been trying different irq and address settings with no results, although i havent tried them all yet.Im not very good at finding free address settings and such yet, but im trying.

Could this be a TERMPOWER problem?
i havent tried any external drives yet as they could provide termpower

Hardrives are working good but not bootable so im almost there.

if anybody can help it will be great

I'd say keep working on the address/IRQ problem, that's the likeliest. If the trempwr setting were wrong, it would not work at all, so don't worry about that. It's just not seeing the boot ROM.

--T

I did forget to mention that the boot rom does show up at the top of the screen while booting. It also detects and shows type of harddrive while booting. It proceeds and says "WAITING FOR SCSI BOOT DEVICE OR FLOPPY TO BECOME READY" then freezes up.

If i put a bootable floppy in (with scsi drivers) before turning on the computer it boots and the scsi drives work fine.

Does this mean my boot rom is working?

or maybe the boot rom still needs to be configured?

I have the drive set at ID 0

im hoping it will boot from the harddisk and not have to install drivers and run from floppy.it will conserve memory that alot of my programs need.





i will check to see if dos hidden files are indeed on the drive with little program i have that shows the hidden files.

Things just don't sound too promising at the moment for booting off a SCSI harddisk using a standard PC controller. Since you can boot off the floppy and operate the HDD without any problems, your termination is probably fine. You should try out your controller and drive in a regular PC to see what happens.

But, I am pretty sure you need a customized boot ROM for your SCSI card to get it to work in the Tandy. Surely other people in the past have tried this. The Tandy 1000 series was pretty popular. If you can't find a customised ROM image on the internet, you would probably have to modify one yourself (but that's probably beyond most people's abilities). So, your only other choice would be to get a SCSI controller that is Tandy 1000 specific, and that is like finding a needle in a haystack.

Anyway, just make sure you've tried everything before giving up on your current configuration.

I agree, take whatever you can get and be happy with it, it's more than most folks have, given that the T1K is a strange beast.

--T

I found a little information in the newsgroups about harddisk controllers that you might be interested in:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.tandy/browse_thread/thread/84720190902af30a/

I thought this quote was interesting:

"The Seagate ST01 SCSI controller could be used in all the 1000's, except the
TL3, RL, RLX, RSX, original 1000, A and 1000HD. Most smaller SCSI drives have
been discontinued for awhile [sic]."

It would seem to indicate that the Seagate ST01 is compatible with Tandy 1000 systems. Perhaps you can even boot from it. The ST01 is a modified version of the Future Domain TMC-850 cards. It has quite a lot of limitations. The limitations are as follows:

-Early BIOS revisions only work with Seagate SCSI HDDs
-Only 2 SCSI drives supported
-No ASPI drivers (so you can't install a CD-ROM drive)

However, the later BIOS versions of ST01 are unlocked and CAN support any harddrive. I know this because I have one. I want to say that the BIOS version is 3.31, but it's been a while and I don't currently have it with me.

This other quote also caught my attention:

"NOTE: Some hard drive controllers will not work in the 1000's. We recommend
you stick with one of the above cards we have listed. In volume 2, we will
have complete jumper setting on hard drive controllers...."

The ST01 was the only SCSI controller mentioned, but they did talk about IDE also.

AC - how about dumping the ROM on that card - or is it soldered?
I know Seagate was notorious for soldering PROM's on the controllers,
especially the ST-11 series (MFM and RLL)

T

I can dump the ROM, but I'm working in China right now and my card is in the U.S. If nobody else has the unlocked ROM, I'll make a copy of it when I go back in May.

I believe my ROMs are not soldered, but even if they were you can use a software dumping utility anyway. So, it's not a serious problem.

I went ahead and tried the T130b in another computer (regular PC) and it worked fine. It booted from the scsi drive and worked fine.

The Tandy wouldn't boot no matter what setting i used so it must be incompatable with the tandy. Works fine with drivers installed so at least i have something.

I guess i will have to be happy with it the way it is. Its probably more than what most tandy owners would dream of anyway. I will have to load 2 drivers to get it running every time. This won't be good for memory hungry programs. Im going to look for a larger capacity harddrive for it and mount it on the inside. Im going to use it as a backup drive for my games.

There's also a Bournelli Box (90mb) with IOMEGA PC2B card installed. It has 4 disks that i have been using as a main drive (only needs 1 driver). The PCB2 allows booting from the disk but i couldn't get it to boot bournelli disks either, so im stuck with booting from floppy.

I was trying to get rid of some external drive clutter and run the tandy cpu only, with the exception of the zip 100 drive installed. The zip 100 loads leaving the most memory, but runs slower than the bournelli.

Before my scsi efforts i had a 20mb hardcard (hardcard plus) working on it and it worked for a long time. I switched dip switch 2 off on the motherboard and it use to boot fine. This drive was modded to fit it in the tandy. I cut the metal frame so the drive could be turned to fit. That drive was getting wore out (had to tap it when it was not run for more than a month) and died. It was also slower than the bournelli.

If there was a way to get a compatable Tandy ROM for the T130B than i would be more than happy to buy and/or pay shipping. Finding another tandy compatable card would be next to impossable but i will keep my eyes out untill then. Thanks for the link showing all those compatable cards. At least i know what to look for now.

Try installing an EPP parallel port on your Tandy if you haven't done so already. It should allow for much better transfer rates with your Zip100 drive.

I'm not really sure one way or another if the ST01 can allow your Tandy to boot. I did a lot of searching for Tandy 1000s and SCSI, and I didn't find too much. There's just that one newsgroup reference I sent you that says the ST01 works on the Tandy 1000 series, but I wouldn't necessarily assume it would allow booting. Just about any 8-bit SCSI card "works" on the Tandy with the exception of the ROM BIOS. If that is the case, the Trantor or TMC850 would be best.

If you do decide to try out the ST01 or ST02 at some point in the future, don't pay too much for these cards. They only cost $25 when new, and they are practically worthless now. And like I said, you should go with ROM BIOS version 3.3.1 or later, because earlier versions may only work with small Seagate drives.

Do you have a ST01 or ST02 with the 3.3.1 BIOS? I have one or two of these cards, but they have older BIOS revisions on them. I'd like to upgrade them in much the same way you guys have been downgrading Future Domain cards.

It's been a long time since I've seen my ST01/ST02 cards. I am certain that my ST01 can boot any manufacturer's drive, and version number 3.3.1 sounds pretty familiar. However, I have heard there is also a 3.2.x version that also supports this feature. (something like 3.2.002).

My cards are several thousand miles away from me at the moment, but sometime in May I'll be briefly reunited with them. If you can wait until then, I'll dump them for you (seeing as how I owe you for the v8.2 TMC850 images).

Did you happen to see the link to the extension I posted that supposedly allows CD-ROM drive access on ST01/ST02 cards?

Dump images when you get a chance .. It's good to have copies floating around, for lots of reasons.

I did the link to the CD-ROM drive access software ... it's on the todo list to try it.

Well, i just bought a Seagate St-01 off ebay (says its tested and working).

Im not sure what bios version it is yet. Looks like it may be a socketed rom from the blurry looking pic.

I just went ahead and got it before someone else did. I guess i will take my chances since they are supposed to be compatable with tandy's. Card didn't cost me too much ($25.00) so if it has trouble it won't be too much of a loss. The T130B only cost me a buck and i was planning on spending $25 or so anyway.

If i will need a different bios version i will be interested if you have a copy.i haven't looked for any drivers for it and would appreciate any input where i can get the software for it.

I have a Trantor parallel to scsi adapter that works on my tandy so i still will be able to get external drives going on it if i need to.

Im still going to try to get a bootable harddrive going on it so any help will be great.

My TX came with a WD 9433R based hard card, one of which I note, with interest, went for 184 bucks US on FleaBay recently.

It even works.

Yeah, $25 for an ST01 is definetly too much. But, whatever works for you. I think it's pretty likely you'll get an older BIOS version, but I'll make my ROM images available as soon as possible.

There isn't too much software available for the ST01. You can still get the documentation for it on Seagate's FTP server. I posted a message about the ST01 in the PCs and Clones section with a few links to some 3rd party software which may or may not work.

There are no ASPI drivers, but I found a "DOS Redirector" program that supposedly allows you to use SCSI CD-ROM drives. I haven't tried it out yet. I also heard that Corel SCSI 3.0 might also have a similar driver, but I haven't been able to find a copy of the Corel software yet. I also found the ASM source code for a program that claims it allows use of tape drives.

There is a low level formatting routine built into the ST01 that is accessable via debug, but there might also be some 3rd party programs that let you do this too. Two companies that sold the ST01 were SyQuest (for SyQuest 44/88meg removable media), and NEC for VERY early model external CD-ROM drives (sold under the T100 label). I found a few bits of software from both of those companies, but not anything remotely useful.

I guess i did pay a bit much for the ST01, as $25 is what they cost new. I forgot about the earlier post mentioning that. Oh well,maybe i will have some luck with it.

Here is a pic of the bios from the blurry pic that may indicate what bios it has.Sorry, its an attachment, i havent figured out how to insert images yet. I can barely make out maybe a 1.7 in the corner of the rom, but im not sure.almost looks like it has socket or maybe its soldered in. I can probably ask the seller but i will prabably just wait for the card to come in.

If i need a later version rom i will probably need a rom chip already made rather than try to dump an image to a rom. I dont have a rom burner or know how to do this.

Maybe i will find a compatable low capacity drive seagate drive for it. im guessing they are pretty rare. thats if i need one, if i indeed have a low version rom that needs one.

Maybe i will find another 20mb hardcard plus to put back in it as i know those work. i could just use the my old hardcard frame (altered to fit in the tandy) to put a working one in.

I did see the other post about the ST01 and syquest 88mb drives and it reminded me that i picked up a bag 2 weeks ago full of the 88mb disks (22 or so 95% new). Didn't come with a drive though. maybe I can make some use of these if i find a drive and use with the ST01 or perhaps maybe you may want some to trade for an updated rom chip.

maybe im trying too hard to upgrade my tandy or perhaps maybe not. IBMs compatables have so many interchangable universal parts and i have fun getting things to work on the tandy. I guess its kind of a hobby of mine.

I have a feeling that the SyQuest version of the ST01 might have had a different BIOS. In some Syquest ST01 document I found, it mentioned a SyDOS BIOS v3.3.2. 3.3.1 is the last BIOS from Seagate that I am aware of. You should give the SyQuest drivers a try anyway though, it just might work. Unfortunately I don't have an EPROM burner either, so you might have to get someone else to burn ROMs for you. I figure if you've gone to all this trouble already, getting a replacement BIOS is the least of your troubles.

I am not really sure where you are getting the "1.7" from in that image. It is so small and blurry it is impossible to determine the BIOS version or if the chip is socketted.

Also, you should know that if you do get a BIOS that only supports small Seagate drives, you don't necessarily have to hook up a small one. As long as the drive ID reads "SEAGATE" it should work okay. It seems somebody on the newsgroups found a way to modify the drive ID on a non-seagate model to read "SEAGATE" and was able to fool the ST01. I doubt it's an easy thing to do, but it was just to prove that the method chosen to lock the card down to Seagate drives isn't very complex.

I have been trying the ST01 on the tandy and no go. Just hangs at at scsi rom screen. oh well, this is a trial and error thing.

Im going to try the st01 on a regular pc soon and see what happens.

Has socketed Rom version 006. Also says 1.7 in the corner of chip. i believe 1.7 also showed up on screen and not sure what that meens. There is a "V" printed next to the 006.

I also noticed the card does not have any terminaters on the card. It has a place on the card to solder some in.

Do these cards need to have these terminators on the card?

im not sure why it doesn't have the usual terminators. All the other cards have them.

I tried all jumper settings on the card (not much to choose from) and on the Tandy motherboard and the tandy hangs.

Also does not display detected harddrives or give a message indicating that its trying to seek a hardrive.

When i unplug the harddrive it displays "scsi initalization error" or something and still hangs. Im guessing it needs term power from the drive or just wants one plugged in.




I do have some 40 and 80 mb external drives that were for Macintosh that i can try. Im not sure if these are old seagate drives. The st01 does not have an external port but i do have a cable that will connect the internal port to an external drive for testing these mac drives.

Hmm, this gets me thinking.I didn't try any of these mac drives with the Trantor card's external port. Maybe i will have some luck booting to an external drive.maybe not

I have since put my tandy back together and put the trantor card back in as its the only working one i have. I will have to find a decent size harddrive for it for backup purposes and run my programs from the driver loading ZIP and Bournelli drives.

Zip loads (giving me the most memory for programs) but couldn't run a very small % of my programs from the zip drive, if i can remember right. Maybe some programs don't work on zip drives?

Booting from floppy isn't all that bad.

My first Tandy scsi attempts started with a Future Domain TMC-840. I believe this card was bad from the start.

I first tried the TMC-840 with an internal drive and it would not detect any drive. Tried it on a regular pc and would not detect any drive either.

I read and saved a link indicating something about early FD cards having a propietary external port and cable that goes with it. Later FD changed there cards
to standard apple style scsi ports. they also indicated that using the wrong cable could damage things.

I have a feeling my FD card is damaged because it would not detect an internal harddrive from the get go.

My second scsi attempt was the trantor card and it works without selfboot.

My third attempt is the Seagate st01 and the computer hangs.

my next attempt will have to be either a known working Tandy TX card, a very cheap unknown scsi card,IDE card or hardcard.

I wont give up if the opportunity is easy.