From: "Matthias Paul" Organization: IBH, RWTH-Aachen To: opendos-support AT delorie DOT com Date: Thu, 3 Apr 1997 13:03:42 GMT+0100 Subject: Re: OpenDOS Ctrl-Alt-Del confusing IDE controller Reply-to: Matthias DOT Paul AT post DOT rwth-aachen DOT de Message-ID: 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 ++ 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: ++ for a normal warmboot (POST 1234h) +++ or for a coldboot (POST 0000h) +++ (due to a small bug in Novell's/ Caldera's this will be translated to a warmboot) ++++ 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 ! D-50321 BRUEHL ! will be forwarded to the new address. ! eMail: WWW : URL: http://www.rhrz.uni-bonn.de/~uzs180/mpdokeng.html ------------------------------------------------------------------