Windows 98SE and Serial ATA

[andreainside]

@RLoew: I hadn't paid attention to that critical detail. You're right, for sure.

I see from the pic that the present 6241 SATA BIOS is v. 4.31

I suggest a BIOS downgrade: either to v. 2.31 (for the 6420, so not 100% guaranteed to work); it is available in the same package that I offered a link to in an earlier post, and the right file to use would be 6420R230.rom... or, an even better choice is here (for BIOS downgrade only, see NOTE, below), the relevant file being 6421Vxxx.rom, which is 6241 SATA BIOS v. 1.20. Of course, it's highly recommendable to backup the present BIOS, before downgrading, just in case. Another option would be upgrading, after backup, to the latest existing BIOS version.

@andreainside: Both options may work. Both are somewhat risky. Don't do anything because I said so. If you decide do it, go ahead it if, and only if, you yourself consider it's an idea worthy trying. YMMV. Explore your card manufacturer's site and see whether they offer BIOS upgrades/downgrades and get their BIOS flasher... it's safer to use the card manufacturer's bios than VIA's reference BIOSes for add-on cards.

=======

NOTE: In fact the SATA driver it contains is too new, because it only contains VIAMRAID.SYS, which you do not want... what you want instead is VIASRAID.MPD, which exists in the other download I pointed to earlier.

the older driver you posted made no effect: while the system can read and write w/o problems the data on the sata disk, it can't boot from it. it freezes when (i think) it should load the bootloader

I don't think that messing with the bios is a viable option in this case. This card isn't well made, for example it is not bootable on its own, you had to edit the motherboard bios and insert its option rom for making your computer boot from it.

after all this, installing 98 on a ide disk and keep win2k and suse on the sata disk is probably both easier and more reliable than trying to put a 11 years old OS based upon 28 years old technology on a "new" thing like is SATA

[jaclaz]

I am not sure to have understood WHEN exactly the freezing happens.

Can you try to beeter describe what hapens when booting the Win9x?

I mean if it's some kind of "initial stage" of booting, it may be possible to work aound booting an image through grub4dos or similar.

Also something you may want to try (HIGLY experimental) is the 9x version of UNIATA:

http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=2384

jaclaz

[Guest wsxedcrfv]

after all this, installing 98 on a ide disk and keep win2k and suse on the sata disk is probably both easier and more reliable than trying to put a 11 years old OS based upon 28 years old technology on a "new" thing like is SATA

You are completely wrong about that.

Like I said, if you simply tried to perform a virgin install of win-98 on your SATA drive, you'd be fine. You're messing around with trying to transplant a win-98 image from one drive to another and thinking it will work. Usually it won't. Not even with 2k or XP.

I've installed win-98 on SATA drives several times. It works great.

If you think XP or Vista or Seven is so new, think again. They can all trace their designs back to NT, which is technically older than win-9x. Even XP didn't have native SATA support when it first came out (SP-0) and it also didn't support drives larger than 128 gb until SP1.

[andreainside]

I am not sure to have understood WHEN exactly the freezing happens.

Can you try to beeter describe what hapens when booting the Win9x?

I mean if it's some kind of "initial stage" of booting, it may be possible to work aound booting an image through grub4dos or similar.

Also something you may want to try (HIGLY experimental) is the 9x version of UNIATA:

http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=2384

jaclaz

allora, premo il tasto per accenderlo, si accende, memory test, elenca le unità connesse alle porte ide della motherboard, poi carica il bios del controller (e mostra le periferiche connesse al controller) e poi mi mostra la tabella con gli irq

e si "blocca" qui (non so se si possa definire bloccato dato che premendo i rispettivi tasti le luci numlock, caps e scroll rispondono)

Well, I press the button on the case to turn it on, on it turns, then it duly does the memory test, it lists the units connected to the motherboard's IDE ports, then it loads the add-on SATA controller BIOS (and lists the peripherals connected to the controller), then it shows me the IRQ assignments table and it freezes (I don't know whether frozen is a good description here, because on pressing the appropriate keys, the scroll, caps and numlock lights turn on and off as they should)

and then it "freezes" here (i'm not sure if it is a proper freeze, since the status light on the keyboard (num, caps, scroll) turns on/off when you press their keys)

Like I said, if you simply tried to perform a virgin install of win-98 on your SATA drive, you'd be fine. You're messing around with trying to transplant a win-98 image from one drive to another and thinking it will work. Usually it won't. Not even with 2k or XP.

i've installed many times various nt systems (nt4, 2000, xp and 2k3) on a disk on the onboard controller, then installed the drivers for the addon controller and then cloned the installs without problems)

I've installed win-98 on SATA drives several times. It works great.

were connected on onboard controllers or pci addons ones?

If you think XP or Vista or Seven is so new, think again. They can all trace their designs back to NT, which is technically older than win-9x. Even XP didn't have native SATA support when it first came out (SP-0) and it also didn't support drives larger than 128 gb until SP1.

i was talking that while on nt you can make it load the proper drivers during setup, on 9x you can't

Edited July 23, 2010 by dencorso
Added translation of the italian text

[jaclaz]

NT, which is technically older than win-9x.

"technically" older?

I guess that's the reason why it was called New Technology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT

Although various Microsoft publications, including a 1998 question-and-answer session with Bill Gates, reveal that the letters 'NT' were expanded to 'New Technology'[2] for marketing purposes, they originally stood for "N-Ten," the codename of the Intel i860 XR processor for which NT was initially developed.

"Chronologically" (release dates), yes:

Windows 3.1 xx April 1992

NT 3.1 27 July 1993

Windows 3.11 31 December 1993

NT 3.5 21 September 1994

NT 3.51 30 May 1995

Win95 24 August 1995

NT 4.00 31 July 1996

...

But technically?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_95

Architecturally, Windows 95 can be considered an evolution of Windows for Workgroups' 386 enhanced mode.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_3.1x#Windows_3.11

Thus, Windows 3.11 is not a standalone version of Windows, but rather a software update from Windows 3.1, much like modern Windows service packs.

Be warned, if we go on the chian of things past we may also encounter BOB

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Bob

jaclaz

[jaclaz]

@andreainside

What you describe/depict in the picture is a PC that doesn't load the MBR of the hard disk at all (or has a largely incorrect MBR).

Do the following:

1. Partition/Format the SATA drive under a win2K or XP with a single FAT16 Primary Active partition around 1 Gbyte or a larger FAT32 one
   
2. copy to it:
   
   • NTLDR
     
   • NTDETECT.COM
     
   • BOOT.INI (any will do, as long as there are at least two entries in it)
     

Try booting from the disk on that PC and see if you get past this initial screen and see the choices in boot.ini.

Or did I get it wrong and the SATA board/whatever is NOT bootable? And you are using another hard disk as "primary" boot media?

jaclaz

[dencorso]

@andreainside: Don't post in Italian! jaclaz and I can read it, of course, but most everybody else cannot, and it is against Rule # 2.d

That said, attach a dump of the first 256 sectors of your sata HDD. jaclaz may be right. Have you ever succeded at booting the SATA HDD or you've always booted solely from HDDs connected to the motherboard's IDE controller?

[jaclaz]

Hmm, you'll have to provide background for both these:

That said, attach a dump of the first 256 sectors of your sata HDD.

256?

@andreainside

I can make a great discount offer , I would only ask you, at the most, 64, or, more likely, just the MBR and the bootsector dumped with HDhacker:

(respectively first sector of \\.\PhysicalDrive and first sector of \\.\LogicalDrive)

http://www.dimio.altervista.org/eng/

1 or at the most 2 sectors vs. 256, you save FF or FE sectors!

jaclaz may be right.

may?

I would have worded it more cautiously...

jaclaz

[andreainside]

@andreainside: Don't post in Italian! jaclaz and I can read it, of course, but most everybody else cannot, and it is against Rule # 2.d

That said, attach a dump of the first 256 sectors of your sata HDD. jaclaz may be right. Have you ever succeded at booting the SATA HDD or you've always booted solely from HDDs connected to the motherboard's IDE controller?

was posting in italian because my english skills are almost sub-zero, the poster who asked me that was italian. i didn't want to broke rule #2

i was saying that the card is not bootable ON ITS OWN, but if you _mod the motherboard bios_ to add its option rom then the system WILL boot from it.

that said, every "modern" system (or should i say designed AFTER WW2? ) like any version of NT (4.0 thru 6.1 - yep, i've ever tried win7 on that box) or any linux with a kernel >= 2.6.26 (like opensuse 11 or centOS) will boot flawlessly.

[jaclaz]

i was saying that the card is not bootable ON ITS OWN, but if you _mod the motherboard bios_ to add its option rom then the system WILL boot from it.

that said, every "modern" system (or should i say designed AFTER WW2? ) like any version of NT (4.0 thru 6.1 - yep, i've ever tried win7 on that box) or any linux with a kernel >= 2.6.26 (like opensuse 11 or centOS) will boot flawlessly.

NO.

It's binary, ON/OFF, 1/0, EITHER:

1. no matter how much hacked the BIOS needs to be it is capable of reading the MBR of the SATA device at boot
   OR
   
2. it is NOT.
   

IF #1 you should try doing the suggested test with NTLDR/NTDETECT.COM/BOOT.INI.

IF #2 there is nothing that can be done but initiate the booting from another device.

Translation (not in Italian ):

in order to boot from a hard disk ANY operating system goes through this steps with BIOS support ONLY:

BIOS->MBR->PBR->System kernel (or system loader->System kernel)

or AT LEAST:

BIOS->MBR->bootloader->whatever else in the middle->System kernel (or system loader->System kernel)

Once the kernel is loaded it may use a specific OS driver, not before.

Now I want you to make that test because if it works we can from those files - directly or indirectly - load the DOS kernel - and once you are in DOS you are nearer than you may think to Windows 9x.

Or in other words, it is possible that the DOS MBR CODE (if currently used) or the DOS PBR CODE are incompatible with the BIOS or the BIOS hack and that the 2K/XP MBR and PBR CODE are not.

jaclaz

[andreainside]

It's binary, ON/OFF, 1/0, EITHER:

1. no matter how much hacked the BIOS needs to be it is capable of reading the MBR of the SATA device at boot
   OR
   
2. it is NOT.
   

IF #1 you should try doing the suggested test with NTLDR/NTDETECT.COM/BOOT.INI.

NR. 1: NTLDR works

Translation (not in Italian ):

in order to boot from a hard disk ANY operating system goes through this steps with BIOS support ONLY:

BIOS->MBR->PBR->System kernel (or system loader->System kernel)

or AT LEAST:

BIOS->MBR->bootloader->whatever else in the middle->System kernel (or system loader->System kernel)

Once the kernel is loaded it may use a specific OS driver, not before.

Now I want you to make that test because if it works we can from those files - directly or indirectly - load the DOS kernel - and once you are in DOS you are nearer than you may think to Windows 9x.

Or in other words, it is possible that the DOS MBR CODE (if currently used) or the DOS PBR CODE are incompatible with the BIOS or the BIOS hack and that the 2K/XP MBR and PBR CODE are not.

jaclaz

ok. since ntldr works, what if i

1) try to install 98 on that disk (maybe on another machine with onboard sata with legacy support and install the via driver (just to be sure). when the driver setup asks me to reboot, i just shut the machine down and then i

2) connect the drive to the PIII, then boot from win2000 cd and install it on another partition. this _should_ install a working NTLDR with a working boot.ini and a working ntdetect.

[jaclaz]

I would rather go in steps, like understandings if that is the problem.

Now get grub4dos from here:

http://nufans.net/grub4dos/current_release/

http://nufans.net/grub4dos/current_release/grub4dos-0.4.4-2009-10-16.zip

Copy to the root of the SATA drive:

(from the Win9x DOS)

• IO.SYS
  
• MSDOS.SYS
  
• COMMAND.COM
  

(from the grub4dos package)

• grldr
  
• grub.exe
  

Add to boot.ini an entry:

C:\grldr="Grub4Dos"

Then try booting and choosing the "Grub4Dos" entry?

jaclaz

[andreainside]

I would rather go in steps, like understandings if that is the problem.

Now get grub4dos from here:

http://nufans.net/grub4dos/current_release/

http://nufans.net/grub4dos/current_release/grub4dos-0.4.4-2009-10-16.zip

Copy to the root of the SATA drive:

(from the Win9x DOS)

• IO.SYS
  
• MSDOS.SYS
  
• COMMAND.COM
  

(from the grub4dos package)

• grldr
  
• grub.exe
  

Add to boot.ini an entry:

C:\grldr="Grub4Dos"

Then try booting and choosing the "Grub4Dos" entry?

jaclaz

now it looks like i can't even format a drive.

win98's format fails (Not ready. Format terminated)

and if i use gparted, scandisk says something about the LBA and the end of the disk

##UPDATE##

i think i've found why i had all that problems with format, scandisk and the mbr:

the first ~500MBs are damaged.

so i think this "war" has ended:

i need to buy a new drive (NEVER EVER trust a drive with damaged sectors. i had an ibm 60GXP years ago. one day chkdsk found ONE damaged sector. the following day the drive was making beautiful clicking noises and the computer greeted me with a nice "Primary Master Hard Disk Fail"), so i'll just look for a IDE model

Edited July 23, 2010 by andreainside

[dencorso]

was posting in italian because my english skills are almost sub-zero, the poster who asked me that was italian. i didn't want to broke rule #2

You're being modest... Rest assured your English is quite good, and very understandable. If you remain actively participating of MSFN, as I sure hope you will, you'll have numerous opportunities of encountering real difficult examples of badly broken English around (most due to Babel Fish, the Google translator or the Bing translator, it's true: before those wonderful programs they wouldn't even try to post in English, now they *think* they can! ), scattered all around MSFN.

Now, if the drive is bad, you're right: you need another one. It can be SATA, though, but make sure it *is* SATA I or that it has the jumper to set it to SATA I, because the 6421 don't know what to do with SATA II, and be sure not to buy anything bigger than 500 GiB, also due to the limitations of the 6421.

I can make a great discount offer , I would only ask you, at the most, 64, or, more likely, just the MBR and the bootsector dumped with HDhacker:

(respectively first sector of \\.\PhysicalDrive and first sector of \\.\LogicalDrive)

http://www.dimio.altervista.org/eng/

1 or at the most 2 sectors vs. 256, you save FF or FE sectors!

[andreainside]

You're being modest... Rest assured your English is quite good, and very understandable. If you remain actively participating of MSFN, as I sure hope you will, you'll have numerous opportunities of encountering real difficult examples of badly broken English around (most due to Babel Fish, the Google translator or the Bing translator, it's true: before those wonderful programs they wouldn't even try to post in English, now they *think* they can! ), scattered all around MSFN.

thank you! I'm pretty sure i'll remain active here. Even better, I hope I'll post answers too, and not only questions.

btw, I'll always thought that rule #2 was: You DO NOT talk about the Fight Club.

Now, if the drive is bad, you're right: you need another one. It can be SATA, though, but make sure it *is* SATA I or that it has the jumper to set it to SATA I, because the 6421 don't know what to do with SATA II, and be sure not to buy anything bigger than 500 GiB, also due to the limitations of the 6421.

I may try to use another SATA drive, but why? I mean, i started this thread because i wanted to use a drive that was sitting unused on a shielf. But since i need to buy a brand new disk and i don't need scary performances* nor i need many space**, I'll take the easy way and buy an IDE one.

* I remember seeing a Raid 0 array of 15k rpm ultra320 scasi drives on a pentium 200 MMX. That thing was fast.

** carmageddon and half-life aren't hungry of GBs