There seems to be a problem with the 77 kernal and writing to the HD of the Toshiba Laptops.

First of all. The Gridworks RD2HD (the big orange button version) simply
shuts off (board shows no errors) no file is written.

Then I tried the RD2HD written by VT (where you press s ) and it seems to write the file, but when its done it will not boot from that image.
Any ideas? Any other computers out there have this problem?

Wishing

Gridworks RD2HD is not theirs it is ours... you can try our RDtoHD in our distro http://meosfiles.narod.ru/Kolibri.zip

Just a note:

the Russian RD2HD in the GridWorks Distro was from version 5 and worked so good on the machines we tested it on that its what we still use.

If there had been any advantage to changing when .77 came out it would have been done. We ran into the rd2hd and rd2fd problems with OUR hardware. FAT32 support as supplied in the official version only works on 1
of our computers where as the ru version works on ALL machines here very well. The 1 machine here that works with the official version does everything properly with either/all versions. It would be good to solve this compatibility issue and put it to bed.


You are correct. The image file will not boot with the official .77 rd2hd. Using meosload. Don't want to go there. If it changes next version, cool.

Rawrite2 may write out floppies from either version. Try it on your gear.

The VRR which we intended on including this time caused a noise from a monitor here that loosened a filling in my tooth.

Is it ready for primetime? Might be included in future distros. (tutorial?)

The video driver and app are @ the Russian site.



About the Toshiba HD writing. Does it create a filename?

G'day, Matt & Mark

Could you please specify what went wrong with rd2fd?
as in: does the floppy light switch on, do you see the "FDC0 dummy called" messages in debug board ? (two times or more?)

Groenten,
Tolle.

I also have a problem with rd2fd. When I press <s> it doesn't do a thing.

I am thinking that this problem either lies in the kernel or the floppy driver.
Maybe it is not compatible with my hardware (Gateway Solo 9150, 160mb RAM, no HDD, Pheonix BIOS, don't remember what brand of CD or floppy drive, but it might be a Toshiba).

Thanks.

You can write menuet.img to the floppy with Rawrite. When booting from a HD, you need to add a 20*1024 byte blank header to the beginning of the file. Since Menuet expects that the RAM -image is read from an installer.

Hmm.. okay.. I thought that might be one of the differences
ok... So i am going to write a new RD2HD that has the option
to put the 20*1024 block at the begining of the file or not...

Ok... using the 0.77pre2.8 kernal... I ran ville's RD2HD
It created the image file... smaller than the floppy creator executable (m077p28.exe).
I opened it in winhex and added 20480 byes to the begining.
Now it is the same size as m077p28.exe down to the byte.
I run Meosload.com at startup... and it doesnt even find the kernal.
Which is worse than previous!
Without adding the 20480 byes at least Meosload could find the
kernal and start that...
I dont know what is wrong... But im looking into it.
This whole thing between disk images with installers attahed at the begining.. and regular disk images.. and using various converters to transfer to and from floppy... seems to be alil unstanderdized.
Perhaps some improvement in this area will be underway.

Ok... after much deliberation.. and playing around with image files
etc...
Here is my conclusion. There is a bug in the new kernal with how it starts up from either the fd or the hd. There is an irregularity that
is not based on which medium the ram disk is loaded from.

To find that out I did this: I ran version .77 steight from the floppy,
with nothing else. It can run doom perfectly fine. Tinypad works too...

I used the REAL version of rawwrite (the one that linux users use)
and read the flopy into an image file. When booting from
that image on the HD with meosload.com doom will not work,
and niether will tinypad... in fact... the improved tiny pad
from the gridowrks verion even causes a full system lock up
if booted from a HD image... but NOT if that same file is booted
from the floppy.
This may ONLY apply to toshiba laptops... if anyone else has this
problem please post.
Id like to get a HD booting version of MeOS that will run doom.. but
so far I have not been able to.

Hi,

Been there , Done that & pulled out lots of hair.

Good Luck mastering this one. We've gone on.

When booting w/ meosload and an image (some hardware) is just not as stable.

May just be your Toshiba.


Good Luck, Matt