Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!husc6!rice!titan!bro
From: bro@titan.rice.edu (Douglas Monk)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: HARD DISK: HELP OFFERED AND WANTED
Summary: fixmap.prg for Atari host adaptor
Keywords: ICD-formatter, SECOND DRIVE, 1410 CONTROLLER
Message-ID: <1893@kalliope.rice.edu>
Date: 18 Sep 88 20:28:10 GMT
References: <821@tnoibbc.UUCP> <382@bdt.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@rice.edu
Reply-To: bro@titan.rice.edu (Douglas Monk)
Organization: Rice University, Houston
Lines: 34

In article <382@bdt.UUCP> bms@bdt.UUCP writes:
>
> ...  Atari host adapters do not pass back SCSI/SASI status(error) codes 
> properly.  This causes hard disk boot software to install "phantom" drives
> on the system. ...
>
>Vance Chin                 Berkeley Microsystems
>                           P.O. Box 20119
>                           Oakland, CA  94620                           


As a result of this "phantom drive" phenomenon, you can't install ram
disks since all the drive letters are spuriously taken. For this reason
I wrote a little program that goes in the AUTO folder (after your hard
disk driver) that reads a file to determine what YOU want the active drive
mask set to. Thus, you set the active drives before running the ram disk
program which can then install itself correctly. The only trouble with this
scheme is that I have trouble with reset-surviving ram disks, though I am
not sure why. Does a warm reset leave the drive bits alone, including the
surviving ram disk? If that is the case, all I need to add is a check to see
if the program is being run after a cold or a warm reset. The way I currently
use it is to set the drive bits every time and use a non-surviving ram disk,
so I haven't been motivated to fix it up any more. If there is an interest
in the program (which can either be run from desktop, shell, or auto folder,
and uses command-line arguments or a file if no arguments are found to
LIST current active drives, SET the desired active drives, CLEAR the undesired
active drives, print a MESSAGE, and HOLD the resulting printout until a key
is pressed) I can post it to the sources and binary lists. If someone can
make suggestions on how to deal better with reset-surviving ram disks, I will
incorporate those changes first.

Suggestions welcome.
Thanks,
Doug Monk (bro@rice.edu)