Mail Archives: opendos/1997/04/04/07:49:24
On Thu, 3 Apr 1997, Dave 'Gizmo' Gymer wrote:
> I discovered that OD does some rather odd things to my
> second IDE controller when I use Ctrl-Alt-Del to reboot from OpenDOS.
...
> Ctrl-Alt-Del to reboot causes the IDE controllers to get confused, and
> stops the CD-ROM from being detected. (Interestingly, the hard disk
> busy light also stays on, although the hard disk works fine; this light
> does NOT normally come on when the CD-ROM is busy.) Rebooting with
> either the reset button or the 4DOS "reboot" command works fine.
>
Some weeks ago, we've already discussed a related <Ctrl>+<Alt>+<Del>
problem in the 'official' OpenDOS mailing list from Caldera. You may
have a look in their archives for further information.
Since the 4DOS "reboot" command works ok, this appears to be a
problem depending on the boot method used. To better locate the
problem:
- Have you installed EMM386 and is it active? If so, EMM386 traps
some of the boot methods, which might interfere with your hardware.
However this is unlikely, and I have experienced boot-problems only
with MS-DOS EMM386, never with Novell's. Currently, I'm still
running Novell DOS for every-day-use, so I have not made in-deep
experiences with Caldera's EMM386. Might they have introduced
*new* bugs? Well, you could try the Novell DOS 7 update 15/2,
just to check this out.
- Do you have a cache loaded? NWCACHE should be ok, but current
versions of SMARTDRV do some odd things in the process of rebooting.
You should try to change your cache or temporary deinstall it.
- Are there any other IDE-drivers, like hard disk accelerators,
mainboard/chipset dependent drivers for the new burst modes,
optional drivers for your CD-ROM, or drivers like DISKMANAGER
(which is very unlikely on such a state-of-the-art machine ;-)
You should try to deinstall them (for testage).
- Any other TSRs (usually pop-up TSRs) installed that intercept
INT09h, INT15/4Fh, or INT16h? For testage, deinstall them,
since they often interfere in the boot process. (see below)
- CMOS setup offers a variety of options to play with, try to slow
down and set 'old' keyboard controller options (if you have an
USB-port, this should be disabled). You should also fiddle with
the IDE support options, and disable advanced features.
- What's your keyboard driver (if any)? If you use MS-DOS KEYB,
I strongly recommend to switch over to OpenDOS/NWDOS KEYB, since
MS-DOS KEYB actually does very odd things, not only when rebooting.
If you don't have a keyboard driver loaded, temporary install one,
since your BIOS might be buggy. Since the OpenDOS/NWDOS driver
partially uses the BIOS, for this test, I would recommend to use a
3rd party driver, that fully replaces all of the BIOS keyboard
code. Well, of course, I would recommend using my K3PLUS for this
test (available free of charge from my web-page and other sites),
and if you can't live with the German layout for this test,
just send me a mail, and I will provide you the current
multinational/multilingual alpha release.
- If you cannot locate the problem with these options, you should
also temporary load K3PLUS. Although this old publically available
version (6.21p6, current alpha is 6.52) supported German keyboard
layouts only, you should install this driver, and play with it's
reboot options. Press:
<Ctrl>+<Alt>+<Del> for a normal warmboot (POST 1234h)
<LShift>+<Ctrl>+<Alt>+<Del> or for a coldboot (POST 0000h)
<RShift>+<Ctrl>+<Alt>+<Del> (due to a small bug in Novell's/
Caldera's this will be translated
to a warmboot)
<LShift>+<RShift>+<Ctrl>+<Alt>+<Del> for a hardboot, bypassing
EMM386, etc.
- If you cannot determine, what TSRs are intercepting INT15h/4Fh
(for example SMARTDRV does), you can also use K3PLUS, since it comes
with a small tool to disable support for this call. If your problem
disappears after this, we'd know what's going on on your system.
If one of these works, we've located your problem, and a workaround
or fix is easy. So, since boot problems under OpenDOS on new
machines appear not to be a single case, please, tell us your
results of these tests, so that we all can learn from it and provide
a permanent fix.
Bye,
Matthias
------------------------------------------------------------------
Matthias Paul ! My eMail address has changed. For some time !
Ubierstrasse 28 ! mails to former <MPaul AT ibh DOT rwth-aachen DOT de> !
D-50321 BRUEHL ! will be forwarded to the new address. !
eMail: <Matthias DOT Paul AT post DOT rwth-aachen DOT de>
WWW : URL: http://www.rhrz.uni-bonn.de/~uzs180/mpdokeng.html
------------------------------------------------------------------
- Raw text -