XT-IDE (Texelec SD version) problem with 5150. Any ideas?

[Dokken]

IBM 5150, 10/27/82 bios, 256 RAM all good, 2 stock floppy drives with controller card, boots fine and will boot to dos 2.x from floppy.

I've been using the Texelec SD XT-IDE boards and have several of them installed in various machines. This includes a 5160 XT and a 5170, both with dos 6.22 and they all boot just fine to the XT-IDE SD.

But my trusty old 5150 will not seem to work with the XT-IDE.

with an unformatted SD card I can boot to A:dos, but the C drive is not visible or available for formatting. neither is a D or E.
with the working SD 6.22 from my 5170 or 5160, it will start to boot from C with 'starting MS DOS' but just hangs with no progress.

I'm not sure why I am having issues with the 5150. The Texelec XT-IDE SD cards are fantastic, I just cannot get it to work in this one machine.

Any thoughts?

 

[modem7]

I've been using the Texelec SD XT-IDE boards and have several of them installed in various machines.

Presumably, the card pictured at [here].

with an unformatted SD card I can boot to A:dos, but the C drive is not visible or available for formatting.

Are you aware that the SD card may need to be partitioned first, using FDISK ?

( Per [here], C: is actually a partition. )

If you discover that FDISK has some kind of problem with the existing contents of the SD card, try wiping the SD card.

And after you have partitioned then formatted the SD card, be aware of the first problem shown at [here].

with the working SD 6.22 from my 5170 or 5160, it will start to boot from C with 'starting MS DOS' but just hangs with no progress.

So at least the first sector in the DOS partition is being read then executed.

Per [here], a possible cause is an insufficient amount of RAM. Even though you have 256K KB fitted, it is possible for the BIOS (and hence DOS) to believe that less is fitted (e.g. via incorrect motherboard switch settings). Does diagnostic software inform you that you have 256 KB ? Alternately, if you enter the following two commands into Cassette BASIC, expect the figure of 256 to be displayed.

def seg = &h40
print peek(&h14)*256 + peek(&h13)

 

[FreddyV]

First time I see a basic command to display a BIOS ram variable

 

[ugadawg84]

I just received a TexElec IDE/SD card SKU: TETEIDE2SD. I have a 5150 with original floppy disk controller. Right now, DOS 3.1 is not "seeing" the card via FDISK. The company recommended a very small SD card. I just ordered a new 16Mb SD card and I'm awaiting receipt. Separately, I do wish TexElec would provide even the basic semblance of documentation. Right now, there isn't any for this device. I feel like it's one of those situations where the vendor thinks everyone knows "Step 1" and beyond. Minimum requirements, gotchas, don't use ..., that sort of stuff would be great. Getting info from them is email only and tedious.

 

[Lutiana]

Separately, I do wish TexElec would provide even the basic semblance of documentation.

The lack of documentation is mostly due the fact that most of the things they sell are actually just open source hardware projects, not made or designed by them and therefore they don't have the documentation to post. Nothing wrong with this, except for the fact that proper attribution is almost never give by them, which actually violates the licence in which most of the creators release their designs. Still, they sell products that you could otherwise not get anywhere else, so it's a necessary evil as they say, and at least their prices remain mostly reasonable.