Re: Sider hard drive problem

[tdiaz@coyote.csusm.edu (Tony Diaz)]

Mike McCormick (mtm4@rsvl.unisys.com) wrote:

> >I just got a used hard drive from a  friend.  He was using it on his IIE
> >and now I am trying to get it to boot into GS/OS.  It's a First Class
> >Peripherals SIDER drive and I can't get it to boot GS/OS.  Is there anything
> >special that has to be done to it?  I can't even format it as one big
> >partition (it's only 10 mb).  The utilities that came with it force a DOS
> >3.3 partition and a bunch of others CPM Pascal etc.  My main problem with
> >it is that is appears to be running it's own operation system that launchs
> >a test based menu systems.  I don't know how to get around this.  I
> >formatted the drive, it is completley blank, and it still finds this menu
> >thingy.  Can anyone offer any advice?  Thanks.

> The menu will always be there, but that's just a minor nuisance.  Set the 
> default entry in the menu to 4 (Boot proDos partition) -- then you just hit 
> Return each time you power up to boot GS/OS.  One thing about the menu that's 
> actually nice -- it reminds you to park the Sider heads (menu entry 7) before 
> you power down.  On the Sider ][, not parking heads before power-off is a 
> recipe for disaster.

The way the Sider boots into ProDOS isn't quite normal. (The type of Sider
being discussed here). It actually contains a copy of ProDOS on the DOS 3.3
boot volume. It BLOADs it at $2000 and then executes it. Since the Sider 
controller card also acts like a standard ProDOS mass storage device and 
ProDOS is allready loaded, the next logical thing happens, ProDOS finds the
drive 1 in the slot it was 'booted' from (a mere poke at a location just
after BLOADing ProDOS) and searches the root directory for the next 
.SYSTEM file.

To make an older Sider boot GS/OS under these conditions you will need to
do one of two things.

Install System 6.0.1 onto the drive with the installer or booting the system
disk and dragging over all it's contents. 

Either:

1)Make sure a copy of BASIC.SYSTEM is the first .SYSTEM file in the root
directory and make a STARTUP BASIC program that will then simply do a
? CHR$(4)"-PRODOS" (The PRODOS it's running is the 4 block 'PRODOS' that
loads Start.GS.OS)

2)Rename the 4 block ProDOS in the Siders root directory to something like
GSOS.SYSTEM and reboot the Sider.

A third alternative... that I've never tried. Copy the 4 block 'ProDOS' to
the DOS 3.3 partition let it BLOAD that. I don't think this would work
though...

In addition, you may have to copy the PRODOS from System 6.0.1 to the DOS
3.3 partition and have it load that. I seem to remember having problems
running the 4 block ProDOS from System 6 using a version of ProDOS 8 less
than 1.9

The ProDOS 8 file can be found on /SYSTEM.DISK in SYSTEM, it's titled P8.
It's path would be /SYSTEM.DISK/SYSTEM/P8

Does this make any sense? 

The reason it has to be this way is because as mentioned before, DOS 3.3
BLOADs ProDOS and then executes it. ProDOS will then look for the first
.SYSTEM file in the root directory, which is usually BASIC.SYSTEM on the
system disk. It will not look for a system file whos name does not end
in .SYSTEM and thats the case with the System 6.0.1 installer, it copies
'PRODOS' into the root directory. This is fine for every other self booting
ProDOS compatible hard disk. FCP did it differently. Later versions of the
Sider have 100% ProDOS options and none of this craziness is needed either.

There is also a ROM for the 10 Meg Sider (9710H) that will eliminate the
CP/M, DOS 3.3 and Apple Pascal partitions and make it a single 9.8 MB 
ProDOS partition. I may have a copy of the ROM someplace still....
But I doubt it's gonna be easy to find right now... you'd need access to
an EPROM programmer.

--
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