Using large hard drives on a 286, 386 or 486 with the XT-IDE BIOS

I go through the steps to get a 8gb SD card working on a 286 using the XT-IDE BIOS installed into an old ISA network card. This does NOT require the lo-tech 8-bit XT-IDE card. This mod is primarily for 286, 386 and 486 machines that don't support large drives in their native BIOS. I'm doing this on my Intel 80286.
Information:
www.xtideuniversalbios.org/
To download:
www.xtideuniversalbios.org/bin...
code.google.com/archive/p/xti...
--- Tools
SYBA SD to IDE Adapter: www.ebay.com/itm/SYBA-SD-CF-ID...
EPROM Eraser: www.ebay.com/itm/New-110V-to-2...
32k 27C256 EPROM: www.ebay.com/itm/1PCS-IC-M27C2...
Deoxit D5:
amzn.to/2VvOKy1
store.caig.com/s.nl/it.A/id.16...
Jonard Tools EX-2 Chip Extractor:
amzn.to/2VazxDS
www.jonard.com/Products/EX-2-...
Wiha Chip Lifter:
amzn.to/3a9ftWw
www.wihatools.com/precision-c...
O-Ring Pick Set: (I use these to lift chips off boards)
amzn.to/3a9x54J
Elenco Electronics LP-560 Logic Probe:
amzn.to/2VrT5lW
Hakko FR301 Desoldering Iron:
amzn.to/2ye6xC0
Rigol DS1054Z Four Channel Oscilloscope:
www.rigolna.com/products/digi...
Head Worn Magnifying Goggles / Dual Lens Flip-In Head Magnifier:
amzn.to/3adRbuy
TL866II Plus Chip Tester and EPROM programmer: (The MiniPro)
amzn.to/2wG4tlP
www.aliexpress.com/item/33000...
TS100 Soldering Iron:
amzn.to/2K36dJ5
www.ebay.com/itm/TS100-65W-MI...
EEVBlog 121GW Multimeter:
www.eevblog.com/product/121gw/
DSLogic Basic Logic Analyzer:
amzn.to/2RDSDQw
www.ebay.com/itm/USB-Logic-DS...
Magnetic Screw Holder:
amzn.to/3b8LOhG
www.harborfreight.com/4-inch-...
Universal ZIP sockets: (clones, used on my ZIF-64 test machine)
www.ebay.com/itm/14-16-18-20-...
RetroTink 2X Upconverter: (to hook up something like a C64 to HDMI)
www.retrotink.com/
Plato (Clone) Side Cutters: (order five)
www.ebay.com/itm/1-2-5-10PCS-...
Heat Sinks:
www.aliexpress.com/item/32537...
Little squeezy bottles: (available elsewhere too)
amzn.to/3b8LOOI

[@tarstarkusz]

Just in case anyone is wondering, fat-16 is limited to 2g because the maximum number of clusters is 16bit or 65536 clusters and 32k clusters size. 65536*32768=2,141,585,408 This also means that every file will take at least 32k of space and a file that is 32k+1 will use 64k.

[@sweetlilmre]

I know it's 6 years on, but after struggling to get the XTIDE bios to work in a network card, your video solved my issue. I'd forgotten to disable the drive in the main bios. As always, legend!

[@cpopte]

Hey Adrian, First of all I want to thank you for this video. I wasn't aware of this option ROM and made a huge difference for my vintage PC's. I just wanted to share my thoughts regarding this. As software. Version 2.0.0 beta 3 from 2013 it's OLD. The project it's still maintained here: www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?29749-XTIDE-Universal-BIOS-v2-0-0-beta-testing-thread/page38 You can get the latest binaries here: www.xtideuniversalbios.org/binaries/ For the current downloadable version r591 - you must download ide_atl.bin (the image) AND xtidecfg.com program. Put them both on a DOS pc - and run xtidecfg.com. You load the bin image in configuration program, and you can choose "auto config" and everything will be done including padding and checksum bits at the end. It will be configured for YOUR controller. You can specify 16 or 32 bit transfer mode ... etc. After you done this - you should have a 12K ide_atl.bin. I done the next part in Linux: (for ((I=12288; $I pad.bin now you have a pad to 16K with FF cat ide_atl.bin pad.bin > xtide-16k.bin now you have a 16K ROM cat xtide-16k.bin xtide-16k.bin > xtide-256.bin now you have a ROM for a 256KBIT EPROM, cat 2 times for it. OR cat xtide-16k.bin xtide-16k.bin xtide-16k.bin xtide-16k.bin > xtide-512.bin cat 4 times for a 512KBIT EPROM. There's NO REASON for not using the 12K version. Has boot menu - and alot of improvements. There's no need to calculate the addressing unless you don't want to duplicate - and write to a specific address only. For the 2015-02-20 version that I used previously - you don't need to configure anything. Just burn it. Regarding the HARDWARE. I cannot be asked to use UV erasable EPROM's anymore. They are a thing of the past. For testing I use Winbond W27C512-45Z that I bought 30 for peanuts from Aliexpress. They work fine, but they prove to be FAKES (relabeled junk, wrong signature ... ) but at least I can electrically erase them. After I've done my testing I burned everything in: ATMEL AT27C512R-45PU OTP's. They are ONE TIME programmable ones, but they are cheap. You cannot erase them. After all I prefer genuine ATMEL parts. You can get them here: www.digikey.com/products/en?keywords=AT27C512R-45PU They cost 1.63 USD / piece. They are FAST and really reliable (200 years data retention in theory). I replaced everything in my system with those. Main BIOS, Video BIOS, Video SYNC BIOS, XTIDE... They have also a really low power requirement and fully pin to pin compatible with ST Microelectronix M27C512 UV ones. Regarding the NETWORK CARD. On my 3COM Etherlink 3 Combo - a DOS utility called " 3c5x9cfg.exe " needs to be run from DOS, and there you can ENABLE THE OPTION ROM and choose the adress space it will use. To check the ROM addressing (video bios, main bios ... etc) you can use DOS utility "CheckIT" - File -> Memory Map. choose a free adress space - and from your card's config utility you must enable the option ROM before it will be even used by the system. So it's a matter of "luck" on finding your utility for your specific card make. The adressing space doesn't need to be something specific, just make sure it doesn't conflict with any other rom. What the utility has by default should be fine. DOWNLOAD. I made a ZIP archive with 2 ide_atl.bin. One it's 2015 generic version that I used, and the other it's 2016 version that's CONFIGURED for my system (2 drives only). Both are tested with Winbond and Atmel EEPROM's and work perfectly. Also included is a label for what I've exchanged in my PC exported as PDF. Maybe someone will find it useful. I printed those on Rayfilm sheets that I reccomend especially for UV EPROM's. You can find details here: www.rayfilm.cz/e-shop/select.php?skupina=-10&klic=silver&kod=&od=0&do=100000&rozsah=vse2 I used Silver Matte Rayfilm (10 sheets pack). You can get it from here: drive.google.com/file/d/1P11g2VWDdkmuTW3fzIxC3dVEHRx80JBs/view?usp=sharing Thanks again for the info. Really helpful. It would be nice to see more vintage HARDWARE content. All the best !

[@MasterMWL]

So much win in this comment. Click "Read More" on rev3rse's comment above. You won't be disappointed.

[@kosztaz87]

This comment should be pinned, awesome info!

[@shmehfleh3115]

Wow, I had no idea you could just drop any old BIOS chip into a NIC's option ROM and the PC would read it on boot. That's pretty damn clever!

[@David_Ladd]

Yes, that is a very nice option. The ROM socket on NIC's was great for the PXE boot ROM's so you could boot off of the network. Though in this case it is nice to be able to use the NIC for a updated IDE BIOS layer to support larger drives on a older system.

[@bandiras2]

My first PC was a 286. My childhood is up and running again. Thanks pal!

[@TheBrainSquared]

I absolutely love projects like this.. Makes me feel like a kid again..

[@CandyGramForMongo_]

Freaking amazing. So obvious, but it didn’t occur to me until you showed me. Well done!

[@leonardochiruzzi7642]

Fantastic!! just in these days I was trying to solve the problem for my 486. Grazie mille Adrian!

[@pipschannel1222]

Appreciate it Adrian, nice work! This works a treat. I used the 8k image trick on two 256kbit EPROMS and put them in two PCI NICs that I had lying around. They still work as NICs and I can use my CF-cards in my two Pentium 1 machines. Don't you guys forget to enable shadow ram and rom, esp. on Pentium class machines.. This will speed up your IO performance dramatically 👍 Big thumbs up again!

[@AlejandroRodolfoMendez]

Wow it's really useful. I wonder how many old computers can be improved like this one. And it's not expensive to do. Great job.

[@systemchris]

Really helpful video! Just to source an ISA board with eeprom now

[@tbbw]

That was a neat trick i was not aware of.

[@jonathancumberbatch9869]

I didnt know this existed thanks Adrian this is really useful

[@GiNodrog]

Brilliant, would have never have thought of using a network card.

[@pipschannel1222]

On a lot of those old NICs, the bootrom is disabled by default. I have an Etherlink 3, which has a flash chip on board to store its settings (it's an early PnP ISA card).. My homemade XTIDE bios EPROM did nothing on this board as well, but when I got hold of the little 3COM configuration utility for this card I could enable it and it works fine now with the 8k AT image on a 64k/256kbit EPROM and the on board IDE controller.. So now I have an oldschool IDE drive, a very fast 4 GB CF-card, which is 100 times bigger than the old, spinning rust-platter and I'm also still able to use the NIC itself so all in all this solution is totally awesome for these old beasts! 👍

[@QuaaludeCharlie]

Thank's for showing the BIOS Flashing :) QC

[@IEATCHEEZEYO]

i would love to see more like this keep it up +1 sub

[@theoisle]

I finally got this to work on my Everex EV-1806 motherboard with a C/Net 600e Plus NIC and a 128K EPROM. I have a GQ-4X programmer. I noticed that when I tried a 64K EPROM it loaded the image twice because the NIC minimum config was 16K. I also noticed that the boot screen showed a load at CA00 even though the image was configured to load at C800. Based on this I programmed a 128K EPROM with the 8K image at offset 2000 in the file and filled the area from 0000 through 1FFF with zeros. I also used the IDE_AT.BIN file. Once I got the IDE-AT running, it would format larger drives, but not all drives seem to work and the jumper settings are critical. Using cable select seems to be the best option. The major hurdles are how the image loads with the NIC and the type of hard drive used. The DOS MSD tool is great for determining where the ROM loads. I tested several old hard drives and I discovered that with this configuration, I could not get any of my Western Digital Caviar drives to be detected during the bus scan. The ones that were detected and worked the best were Seagate. I even tried a 40GB Seagate which formatted to a total of 8GB in four partitions off 2GB each.

[@DiskWizard001]

Lulz ! This is because single WD drive is just master with no jumpers attached :)

[@das250250]

really good research work making these older pcs useful . I have a few laying about and wouldn't mind ideas to make them do some work . This video has been a good start. Ideally they probably need to get off windows and onto a very efficient OS like a linux style. Have you looked at that ?

[@moonrisemetasheetdog1603]

Awesome!! I can put 40gb hd on my 386dx40. I have some old 10mbit networkcards laying around and they almost ready for scrapyard, now they can reuse for this :). I used a 27c512 large eprom but the card only takes a 2764 chip. Compared the datasheet on both chips pinouts (27c64/512) ive solder the remaining address pins (A13,A14 and A15) of the 27c512 to ground so they wont float. and bended alittle of the chip legs so they not connected in the socket. I burnt the bin file just on the first slot. The last thing was enable the network cards boot rom, or else computer wont boot from that bios! This can be a jumper or PnP jumper free if the card dont have jumpers than you need to get software for that card like the RTL8019a. I suggest google around for the networkcards jumper settings. Ive tested on RTL8019a jumper free and on the Novel NE1000 But Thanks alot for the video!! hopefully is this usable aswell Kind regards

[@emprsnm9903]

If my memory is right, those pnp nic's could enable/disable the boot rom via the softset/config utility for the card. The eeprom socket could simply be disabled, and needs to be turned on.

[@netcreature]

Very good information. Thanks.

[@eukat3ch]

dude you are brilliant.. thanks for the info

[@CoalitionGaming]

Great video! Are you using a Samsung cell phone to record by any chance? I noticed audio sync issues and i had the same problems when i used my S7E. Im not sure if its an issue across smartphones in general having like, hardcoded internal variable framerate going on (some editing programs really dont like this), but the best fix i could come up with was to convert the out of sync footage to .MOV. This worked about 3/4ths of the time. Really crappy issue to deal with.

[@CoalitionGaming]

Adrian Black Oh interesting. I've seen KZbin's encoding make vids look fuzzy or hazy but never heard it cause audio issues like that.

[@BollingHolt]

I love that case!

[@yakovkhalip9714]

I use a software called Ontrack Disk MAnager 7.0. It allows to use up to 8gb HDD's on any computer from 286 onwards. Also bigger HDDS like 20-180GB can be easily cut to 8 or 2 gb size using a program called MHDD.

[@chongtak]

NIce video, good trick. Gosh your desktop is huuuuuuuuge!

[@chongtak]

Yes I suspected something like that. Thanks for your excellent videos.

[@herbiehusker1889]

chongtak i also love Taiwan!

[@Floopy6504]

Very good! I need to buy an EEPROM programer.

[@dLLund]

thank you for posting. clever solution re having multiple 8k copies on the 32k chip. take care & stay safe.

[@alvaroacwellan9051]

This was very useful and new to me, thanks for making this video! Now I'll try to get the parts.

[@saifal-badri]

Love this video thanks

[@klausphotobaer5754]

Great job 👍🏻

[@dLLund]

luckily you have enuf room in that refrigerator-sized pc case for all that new hd space. i jest. take care n stay safe.

[@OzzFan1000]

The 504MB limitation was due to the original implementation of the ROM BIOS after it was modified to support hard drives. A BIOS update would typically kick that limitation up to 8.4GB, or using drive overlay software will provide a runtime patch that needs to be loaded at every boot. It would be nice if there were a way to provide a generic legacy BIOS that could be loaded from an expansion card and not just through initiating the boot prom on an network card. I'm currently having BIOS issues on two different legacy PCs that are flashable, but I can't seem to locate upgrades anywhere.

[@tcl78]

I remember using a software called "EZ Drive". It worked even on older 386 PCs with only a very limited support for hard disks (such as my old Olivetti 386 which only gave you a limited list of 20 or so hard disks to chose from). All you had to do is boot it from floppy and it would install itself into the boot sector of the hard disk intercepting the read/write calls to the bios and increasing the maximum size to the 2GB limit of DOS.

[@erikgallimore5131]

That's awesome! When I ran into this problem using my main pc with a larger hard drive (eons ago) I used Ontrack Disk Manager (BIOS overlay) to translate between the BIOS and the OS to get it done.

[@seasonedtoker]

I too love the vintage stuff because I grew up with it. Got my first 486DX2 in 1991 I believe. But I am just slightly nostalgic, I guess. From an IT engineer standpoint, is there any use for these old CPUs and computers? What are the scenarios? Because there are apparently many gizmos, converters and adapters in the market for making things work with new hardware.

[@mcping]

DX2 came in 1992 :)

[@ChrisNova777]

jealous of your cm-5 monitor i been after one like that for the last 3 years i thought id find one easily but nope! i used one for years when i was like ten years old! back when i had a tandy 1000, tandy 3000 and tandy 4000

[@EXITMUSIC2011]

interesting. well done :)

[@mattparker9726]

I wasn't aware of this either. Thanks! Also, on the 286 I want to do this too, (the HDD is failing) but I want the info off the drive assuming I can get it to read at all. Do you know (or can recommend) a good disk clone for ms-dos?

[@Qyngali]

Norton Ghost.

[@RatRodArgentinaJorgeENuviola]

i understand you use a network card for the bios, so far so good to there, where you put the SD memory?

[@AlejandroRodolfoMendez]

A SD card adapter, that works like a hard drive, connected to where you connect the hdd. But most cases is a CF card for convinience.

[@matttrotta57]

It was amazing just to see an fdisk screen again !

[@mattparker9726]

Hi Adrian, can you or do you have a video on cloning MS-DOS drives? My childhood 286 was just given back to me, and I know one of the issues is a semi-malfunctioning HDD. (I remember having to hit reset over and over till the drive would spin up) Other than that, it's been in a closet at my Dad's place for 20 plus years. But it's nostalgic to me, so I would like to restore it as best I can. Thanks. I have a more modern 20gb drive I could put in.

[@flyguille]

interesting usague for those eeprom slots.... which chip code was 27xxxx?

[@matthewtully1745]

Could you use this technique to install deskmate 3.0 onto a bios chip for older Tandys? It would be nice to have deskmate 3, and dos 5.0 on a Tandy 1000tx

[@VintageTechFan]

Just for advice: If you want maximum data longevity, you are supposed to erase an EPROM twice the time it took to check blank the first time. If it just barely checks blank, some charge may creep back or even power supply variations may flip bits.

[@VintageTechFan]

​@@adriansdigitalbasementAn intelligent programming algorithm should take care of that already. The EPROM is programmed in (like) 1ms-increments until it verifies correctly, and then programmed the same time again. For verifying the supply voltage is increased to 6V, which increases the threshold of the readout amplifiers and makes it a little harder to read the contents correctly. So if it works fine at 6V, it will work perfectly at 5V. You can actually reverse that effect if you want to rescue the contents of an older EPROM which just begins to get wonky bits. Read it at 4V supply (which will often allow you to read it correctly a few more times) and immidiately copy it. But yes, if the EPROMs are of questionable quality, thats all theory.

[@cpopte]

Or don't bother with that theory.... use EEPROM's or better...a brand new quality Atmel OTP.

[@daghtus]

Is that tumble dryer sound FX in the background?

[@AshtonCoolman]

I run a SIIG FastEIDE ISA controller and a Promise controller in my 486 and 286 respectively. They were made to solve this problem. Find one if you can because they're f'ing golden!

[@RetroPCUser]

I had the SIIG FastEIDE ISA card, but, sadly, it was beyond repair (the chips, minus the EPROM) were rusty, corroded, what have you. I should've salvaged the EPROM, but, I didn't have the chip pulling tool handy or one at all. I used the XT-IDE Universal BIOS on my Packard Bell Pack-Mate 28 Plus on my 3Com Etherlink III 3C509-TP card and it works without issues. Will make the 32K ROM version just in case.

[@kokodin5895]

will the already formated sd card work on the non moded motherboard. when i had 486 computer we installed windows 98 on it with my brother, but 406mb drive wasn't big enough so we ger a 40 gb seagate baracuda and it seen it as a 8gb drive. So wy went to my friend and made 4 10gb partitions on his computer and after bringing it home dos and windows seen it all ok even though bios did not so i was wondering if it would work similarly with older bies dictatrd limits

[@rednight2476]

Neat trick -- using the old optional net-boot ROM to add a LBA driver. The problem is not DOS, the problem is that PC BIOS doe snot support drives with more than 1024 cylinders. LBA is a trick where you lie about the disk geometry so it fits into the 1024 cyl limits than fix it on any DOS call. Newer BIOSs support this out of box. There are also a number of software LBA drivers that install into the MBR of a drive to do this. Many drive manufacturers shipped them in the late 486 era with drives over 500meg. SCSI drives don't have this problem as they use their own dissk routines instead of PC BIOS. Linux does not solve this problem. While Linux will find the rest of the drive if the geometry is correct, it will fail to boot of any partition that is beyond the 1024th cylinder. It also requires a 386.

[@nikicam2]

On some network card you should enable boot ROM option. Most of them have DOS utility for that. Probably that is why XT-IDE BIOS did not work on some of your cards.

[@andygozzo72]

maybe possible if you dont have a network card to make a small rom card to stick in a spare isa slot? pcbs for complete xt ide cf adapter are available, could just fit the parts for the option rom,

[@yakovkhalip9714]

There's a program called Ontack Disk MAnager 7.0 that allows to use HDD's up to 8gb on any PC from 286 to p1)

[@77tubuck]

There is also a couple of open source alternatives to MS-DOS. They are FreeDOS and PDOS. I have tried FreeDOS on a more modern computer and it works quite well.

[@yakovkhalip9714]

But why if we have good old ms-dos ? )

[@77tubuck]

@@yakovkhalip9714 FreeDOS has drivers for more modern computers. I think there is a USB joystick driver for it. I heard MS-DOS is better for older computers. So it still has it's advantages. FreeDOS also comes with a package manager and extra software. What ever works for you.

[@yakovkhalip9714]

@@77tubuck I see... usb joystick under dos - that's sounds interesting. Thanks for the info. I have collection of vintage computers. Use MS dos 6.22 on all machines from 8088 to pentium-1 CPU's...)

[@francoisrevol7926]

You should be able to generate a 16k or 32k image by copying the 8k one multiple times. Even on Windows you can do that, with, I think copy /b 8k.bin+8k.bin 16k.bin

[@garyhart6421]

I've seen a similar thing on the Amiga IE putting 2 copies of the (1.2 or 1.3 ) 256kB Rom images on a 512kB Eprom.

[@intel386DX]

cool! but why you use BIOS socket on the LAN card? does this IDE 8bit card do not have BIOS on it's own ?

[@cpopte]

this is an OPTION ROM ! Not a main system BIOS. And for all who propose a software alternative - this is the FASTEST option. No "translation" involved.

[@kpanic23]

Instead of copy&pasting, you could just concatenate the image on the command line: "copy /b 8k.bin+8k.bin+8k.bin+8k.bin 32k.bin". This leaves you with a 32k file containing 4x the 8k file.

[@AureliusR]

Not to mention the actual EPROM programming software has a feature to do this automatically for you

[@josephfrye7342]

Cool!

[@cbmeeks]

Curious...if you can program the EPROM with that USB programmer, why do you still have to "burn" it with the UV eraser? Why not just dump a bunch of 00's (or FF's) on it?

[@EddieTreat]

Eproms are erasable, not rewritable. You have to erase them in order to write new data.

[@nopochoclos]

EZ-Drive ? i use it in fixed disk 80386 notebook, amazing can put big disk. the original limit was 610mb hd ..original hd was 84mb now 6gb

[@BryonLape]

Almost like a SCSI BIOS for flash cards.

[@jeffg.445]

If you use FreeDOS you gain FAT32 support and can take full advantage of the card.

[@Vasharan]

Silpheed on the screen!

[@GORF_EMPIRE]

I remember playing all the way through that game when working at Radio shack decades ago. Got to the boss.... some litte kid came in with his dad... I paused the game and did not save...went to help the dad and his kid pressed the power button....I love kids and would never hurt one....but I was really thinking about it right then. xD I had to start at a previous save and work my way through it again..... Piss me off!

[@6p1p]

I have this problem when i was using 486 with 3.2GB harddrive , i using seagate disk manager to make a boot on harddrive and it work.. I also use 8GB harddrive in 386DX motherboard with Seagate disk manager.

[@idio-syncrasy]

Retro ADB yay

[@MatthewSuffidy]

Well if you used Liniux, you could do it, but I think maybe it needs a 386. Linux doesn't use the bios geometry at all. I think I saw some boot block thing once that may have helped with the dos mode.

[@cjhawk67]

I used EZ-Drive overlay to bypass the 504mb limit on my 486dx2 66mhz ISA VLB system it installs a very tiny partition that the system can load that then loads a driver that takes over translation of the drive and it automatically sets up 2gb partitions based on how much space your drive has for me i used a 6gb fujitsu hardrive and it made 3 2gb partitions and formatted them so the pc boots ez drive loads and tells me to press a key to boot from floppy install dos like you normally would then on reboot it again boots into ez drive and then dos 6.22. It's a very cool bit of software.

[@jothain]

I've read a bit about EZ-Drive. I was under assumption that it would allocate some memory for itself and I discarded idea of using it. Am I totally wrong? I actually tried some overlay program, but I had bizarre problems with my 486 as file system would just suddenly begin to corrupt during use, even though I tried multiple CF card which work on my other older computers. I guess it's problem of very bizarre BIOS of the machine that has only about 10 to 20 different HDD setups to choose from (blocks, heads etc.). Still have the machine, but I've haven't fiddled around with it for quite a time as I've thought only option would be to use XT-IDE type solution which I don't hardware to do atm.

[@cjhawk67]

It takes up a very very small amount if any at all. With DOS 6.22, Norton commander, my yamaha opl3-sax soundcard, and zip drive driver loaded into high mem i have around 610k base memory free.

[@jothain]

Ok, that's actually totally usable then. Thanks, I gotta remember this EZ-Drive thingy when trying system next time.

[@waynetemplar2183]

I used EZ-Drive back in the day. Had no complaints

[@20windfisch11]

I had a similar thing called EZ-BIOS (or was it the same you are talking about?) in my old Pentium Pro PC. I bought a 20GB hard drive when they became cheaper and it would only detect it as 8GB, but with EZ-BIOS I could use all 20 GB.

[@ChrisNova777]

cool oldschool shit

[@pelgervampireduck]

why can't the pc bios be flashed normally? (I mean boot with a clean boot disk and run some software like "flash blah.bin" and reboot). I don't quite get why you need all the "weird" stuff and to use the network card. the new bios code should fit on a floppy drive. edit: I used to have a 210mb hard disk on my 286, (it was from a 386 originally), but it broke. now the smaller hard disk I have is a 1.2gb one. I'm afraid to try it because I don't think the 286 bios will see it properly and it can get damaged. is there by any chance a possibility that a 286 can see a 1.2gb hard disk "normally" without having to use this trick?

[@thejackofeverything7961]

no, but it wont damage it, you just wont be able to utilize the entire drive, and you will have to partition it and format it before you can use it.

[@moz2186]

Most old pcs come with an eprom, only erasable (hence not updatable).

[@MrGoatflakes]

2:01 eep did you save it first? Could be the only non bit rotted copy :D

[@andygozzo72]

i wondered that! i'd never reprogram the original chip unless i didnt have a spare to use instead, and if not read it first !

[@moz2186]

I have a Willem programmer and have been attempting this also. I have been unable to get either the 8k or 12k image to load. I made a room image of 16k by adding 00 to the end up to 16k. It didn't work. But you point out that there's some kind of checksum at the very end that I might be missing. I'll have to have another try at it. Also, I have enabled the ROM socket at D000 and other locations testing.

[@andygozzo72]

i think you need to fit smaller rom images into the upper end of a larger one, so you'd need to add 00 from the start, or if fitting 8k into 16k, repeat it, easiest way is COPY /B 8K.BIN + 8K.BIN 16K.BIN

[@moz2186]

@@andygozzo72 pretty sure I did something like that, ended up being my NIC didn't want to play nice, a different one worked! And by then it's bought a couple XTIDE off eBay

[@spidermcgavenport8767]

Expanded memory is the most complicated thing under vintage tech, not all support EMM386.exe even while using older systems work's under 98se but won't under xp.

[@spidermcgavenport8767]

c000-efff checking msd.exe on an 98se cd. it works well I'm not a bios modder but I'd like to try... you could tell by my channel...

[@jeroenklaassen4078]

i have a 3com card with a bios. It wasnt doing anything with the bootrom until i discovered i had to start the config tool with the drivers and enable the bootrom :P, maybe that's why the first card didnt do anything with the bootrom in it.

[@dazamad]

I also have a 3com card and burnt an eprom but it doesn't do anything on boot pc. So i have to use a config tool to turn on the card bios?

[@Murrlin27]

OOO that PC's a tall drink o' water huh!

[@AmstradExin]

How about using large harddrives in an XT? Pfff....But using an Ethernet card as an universal ROM-card is a cool trick!

[@patg108]

might be a good use for a old dial up modem if it is ISA and has a slot free to be honest. Then it makes use of a otherwise almost worthless card while keeping a better one that might have a use free. Worth messing with if you have isa dial up cards that aren't valuable!

[@cpopte]

patg108 ... I don't understand your comment. First ... I never seen an ISA modem with an option ROM socket. Second... that would be a waste indeed since noone uses dialup anymore. The network card WORKS even if you use the option ROM socket with it. I use the ROM and in DOS I use the network with mTCP stack. So you loose nothing actually. If you would use this ROM the only thing you could potentially loose is... Novell Netware diskless booting using the ipx network ROM, but I am sure that's almost impossible for someone to need in 2020...

[@Zankuho]

How about using MSDOS version that supports FAT32 (so you don't have to split large volume into 2047Mb partitions)? Is it compatible with 80286?

[@jussapitka6041]

Adrian Black What about ms-dos 7.1?

[@matthehat]

That's just Windows 95 with its clothes off

[@intel386DX]

I was trying to boot DOS 7.1 on my 8088 , I did not know that it will not run even on 286 , but why ?

[@matthehat]

It is written to use the 386's protected mode, which is incompatible with the 286's protected mode. Basically it can't use protected mmeory, so it won't boot.

[@intel386DX]

so it is like windows 3.0 wich can run in real mode (8086) and windows 3.1 wich runs only in protected mode (286) :)

[@Starcat128]

Cool I always wonder why there's was a empty chip slot on network cards

[@cpopte]

Actually back in the days the Option ROM from the network cards were used for disk-less booting from the network. Novel Netware 3.1 was AWESOME. That's how schools and enterprise networks run :)

[@kcinplatinumgaming2598]

i think you can cheat dos by using a partition manager and merging all partitions i think i got an old system with a complete partition of 6 GB on a 486 and it worked perfectly only that dos restricts you too FAT16 if i remember converting the partition to 32 bit works on older versions of dos 6.22 had this feature if i remember but then again i done it in early 90s lol

[@cpopte]

All Microsoft versions of DOS use fat 12 / 16. The max partition size is 2GB. Even for DOS 6.22. The modern clones (FreeDOS) supports FAT32 - but you couldn't use that in early 90... because it didn't exist.

[@xmaniac99]

Hmmm, wouldn’t a DDO software BIOS also have been a possibility?

[@Flamelily-IT]

I know this is quite an old video, but I cannot find anywhere on the internet how to get this to work in a 286 Laptop. Obvs can't install an ISA card with BIOS in a laptop. Is it possible to flash XT IDE onto an EPROM and replace BIOS in 286 laptop? Thanks to anyone who might reply👍

[@AlphaFox78]

Just use a windows 95 B boot disk for fat 32 support?

[@andygozzo72]

will that work on a 286?

[@ChrisNova777]

i have 2 ISA based systems.. one is a 386dx40 with Tseng ET4000 Graphics (from Cardinal VGA732A VGA card) and a 16bit ISA IO Controller (Winbond W83787F / W83758F) - my other box is an Asus VLI-SV2GX4 VLB motherboard with a VLB Cirrus Logic VGA adapter aswell as a VLB IO Controller from winbond (UN1082/W83758P/W83757F) i have a dlink de250 in the 486, and a dlink de220 on the 386, i think both of them have Eeprom boot rom sockets -- would this bios upgrade my existing i/o? will this make it support ATAPI Devices like CD-ROM + ZIp100 Internal Drive? can anyone make me a bios chip? i think both my systems are AT based ISA systems, 7 slots on the 486, 8 on the 386 - i really just want to get my stupid CDROM + ZIP100 drive working!!!! for compatibility purposes (i also have a performa 5200CD with a zip100 drive/CD/Floppy) these are my oldest computers!

[@sgkonfetti]

If you want more harddisk capacity, you can use Scsi-Controllers like the Adaptec-1542. You can attach Scanner, Harddisk, CD-Rom/Writer Drives and Streamer.

[@intel386DX]

HI so I got FLASH EEPROM AT28C64B-15PU and put it in BOOT ROM socket on one NIC Intel 8/16 LAN, and try to flash the universal XT IDE BIOS, but I aways got an error, what to do?

[@andygozzo72]

may have to enable the rom socket first using the setup software for the network card.. or there may be jumper on it for it,, also enable option rom in pcs bios setup if it has that setting... it may also not be possible to program it 'in situ' but have to do it 'externally' in a separate programmer, the 'write' signal of the eeprom may not be connected on the network card, personally, i think it wouldnt, to prevent accidental corruption

[@intel386DX]

@@andygozzo72 thanks for the reply! I already have the XT-IDE 8bit ISA controllers (the PCBs and parts) so not need the variant with the LAN card. But I tried before this with PCI LAN card and preprogrammed ROM by a friend with external prgramer and it worked, as you mentioned I had to enable ROM boot in the BIOS :)

[@mikeveith5592]

Why is not working with all cards with ISA and eprom Socket?

[@andygozzo72]

you may have to enable the option rom using setup software for the card, first

[@ChrisNova777]

dude is there anyway u could sell me a chip? i have a dlink 220 ISA card installed in my 386dx40 and id love to try this to fix my problems.. or at least get my SD-IDE adapter working on this machine! my network card has the eeprom slot but i dont have a eeprom burner!

[@codebeat4192]

May I ask what you do with these old computers, just nostalgia or is it of any use today?

[@brostenen]

Or.... Set BIOS to max standard drive type. And install a drive overlay before Dos.

[@symol30872]

DDO's use up precious conventional memory, not ideal for a DOS gaming machine

[@REALSlutHunter]

Still better as to lose speed. My 486 has a VLB Controller, and this dumb XT-IDE Chip need a 32Bit VLB Card, if you cant find one (those things are expensive and rare) you must use a 16Bit Card, and then your 32Bit controller will work like a slow 16Bit ISA Controller. You can get back most from the conventional memory with DOSMAX www.pcorner.com/list/UTILITY/DOSMAX21.ZIP/DOSMAX.DOC/ Ontrack use 16KB of Conventional Memory, EZ Drive 6-8

[@user-yv2cz8oj1k]

As once said by the IT Manager for a large engineering company 'It's my job to buy bigger and faster machines!' Nive to keep this stuff going but it will soon belong in a museum or in a fireproof container. ;)

[@andygozzo72]

easiest way to fill an 8k image to all 32k is get command line up and use the copy command with /B switch as COPY /B 8K.BIN + 8K.BIN + 8K.BIN + 8K.BIN 32K.BIN previously having the 8k.bin files in a directory on your desktop and telling the command prompt to work from there first , this creates a 32k.bin file from repeated 8k.bin , easier and quicker than doing it through the programmer software! as for fitting a 12k image to 32k, maybe have to move it to the upper 12k of the 32k?

[@xCaptainApathyx]

it's Eprom (epp) not EEprom (eep). they are 2 radically different memory types.

[@VintageTechFan]

I wouldn't call it radically. They are very related in fact, the only difference is that EEPROMs can also DIScharge the floating gate electrically.

[@CrystalMcNair]

Super curious about the game at the end, there! I've heard that music before, but I can't place the game. Oof!

[@rwittmeier1]

Silpheed by Sierra On-Line!

[@CrystalMcNair]

@@rwittmeier1 Thanks!!! :D

[@succuvamp_anna]

Does the network card still work? I like setting my old systems up with a ftp server and moving files to and from.

[@megan_alnico]

I would think so. The boot rom on network cards are optional and there to facilitate booting a machine off a network, historically using something like tftp (tiny ftp) to pull down the os image. I'm pretty sure it will have no side effects on the card itself.

[@succuvamp_anna]

@@megan_alnico considering doing something like this because my Gateway 2000 486SX machine can't use any decently large drives like I can't manually specify the clusters and cylinders. So I'm still using its stock drive right now.

[@cpopte]

The network card WORKS perfectly. I use it with mTCP in DOS, and has this option ROM installed.

[@zwz.zdenek]

Wouldn't it be better to implement the large drive support as a bootloader? It wouldn't require the extra hardware you had to throw at this. Even then, it's still an impressive achievement.

[@captainchaos3667]

One problem with that is that then you couldn't boot off it.

[@JarrodCoombes]

www.xtideuniversalbios.org/binaries/

[@northhankspin]

Google for it ? K bud your too cool

[@dangnabbit1379]

that is a gigantic tower

[@mikegravgaard340]

Why not a 386? Atleast you'd have 32 bit support then

[@AlejandroRodolfoMendez]

Can but he had that pc for demo

[@herilianeria3735]

the audio is out of sync