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Zenith Z-100 trying to get a ST-225 to boot.

framer

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I am using the zenith controller card and data separator. The drive was JP7 closed at 3-4 and 15-16. Straight through cables, no twist. Ran PREP /Q enter the data for the HD in HEX 4 HEADS 267 CYL rwc 12C WPC 268 STEP CODE 1 LZ 29E

PAGE 61 of the Zenith Winchester supplement show a step code for a ST-412 as 1

PREP goes through all tests and disk initializing and complete normally not showing any errors, I got no LED light showing during any disk activity but could hear the drive working.

I then removed the FORMAT jumper on the controller card.

When I ran PART and verified the partitions and active boot partition set to Z-DOS everything seems perfect.

Now I reboot to the floppy drive to load the OS that I want to add to the HD. I type FORMAT E: /S/V and run it and get a response drive not found.

Stumped. What am I missing.

framer
 
I know nothing about a Z-100. But wasn't it fairly standard that the (first) HD was C:? You may have other devices I don't know about. From your format command it appears you are trying to format device "E:"?
 
I just tried a WD-12 set to drive 1 and it PREP ok and FORMATED and system transferred to e: Works fine can copy and write to it; however, it will not boot from the drive. I even tried manual BOOT F3 and it just hangs?
 
I have a Z100 but not a winchester. I'm looking thru the winchester manual. By default, PREP creates 2 equal partitions, ZDOS and CPM. BTW an ST225 has 4 heads and 615 cylinders.
What does MAP show for drive letters? What does PART show for partitions? Which one is set bootable? You can run PART to the point it shows the partition table and names. BOOT F3 would attempt to boot the partition named F3. I don't see a /Q option for PREP either.

Larry G
 
PART show 1st partition as the boot partition and is listed for Z-DOS. The drive numbers are entered in HEX value. I've also tried a WD-12 10meg HD and I could format it and transfer the system but it won't boot either automatically or manually using the BOOT F3, as set with the DIP switch S101 on the motherboard.

The ST-225 completes the PREP show correctly with the PART utility but fails to find the drive running FORMAT E:

There a supplement document I have that has additional info on PREP. PREP /Q forces PREP to prompt you for disk characteristics. If the drive was previously formatted PREP may fail without the /Q switch. It also has a /K switch to format 1024 bytes instead of 512 bytes, used for 64MB drives.
 
I pulled a perfect ST-412 I had in an XT and gave it a go. It worked just like the WD-12 everything works up to the point it won't boot the OS from the HD. I can boot from the floppy and select the hard drive and use it. When I try to boot to the HD I get a quick activity light w/slight sound of access then nothing. I chose the ST-412 because is shown in the Zenith docs.
 
Too bad I don't own a gun, I might shoot this thing... I'm stepping away and will explain it tomorrow. I think the controller or the data-separator has weak parts. Something out of sync.
 
I'm writing text files so I can see if they write ok from A: to E: no problem. I can from e:format a: /s/v and create a new system disk in A: ;however, when I copy the files from E: COPY *.* a: 5 of the last 10 files to be copied can't read a sector from E:.

I also took a text file on E: and COPY TEXT.TXT TEXT.XXX to ceate a new second text file. The TYPE TEXT.XXX to see if it was correct. Sometimes it works fine then other times I've gotten can't read sector XXXh. or when I TYPE the file out I get garbage.

Now I've tried using the VERIFY utility and it says no bad sectors found.

It PREP's as normal, PART looks normal, FORMAT's and show system transfer to HD normal w/o errors, COPY files to HD normal. Reading from the drive has issues.

Both the WD-12 and the ST-412 drive have the exact same issue.
 
Well on a positive note you got me to dig out my Z100 and get 2 x 5.25 floppies and an 8" drive running on it. I'm brushing up on how to use it.Yes I forgot boot and a function key launches the drive. I was able to sys and boot off the 8" drive C: with BOOT F2. I had a memory crash and the DIAG.EXE told me which memory chip to replace and I actually had some so it's working good now. Have you tried running the diagnostics on yours? I see it has Winchester diagnostics in the menu.

Larry G
 
Interesting, the one thing I had not thought of. I've put the computer away for a couple of days to regroup. I've LL formatted all three drives on an IBM XT and ran diagnostics be make sure they were ok. The ST-225 and the ST-412 have zero bad sectors as before and checked out perfect. The WD-12 had known bad tacks but they were the same as always about 50000 bytes are flagged as it always been but works perfect and boots the XT without issues.

There is lots of small electrolytic caps on the data separator card I'm thinking it needs to be rebuilt and adjusted after being recapped. I've also seen a modification someone published on the data separator but it does give a reason for the modification. I've also got working copies of Z-DOS v2.xx and 3.xx that run from floppies on the Z-110 fine but will not find the hard drive at all. They don't list any HD utilities on the disks for the newer versions. I don't mind using v1.1 if it the HD would work reliably.

I'll investigate the DIAG.EXE program this week and may install a HD back into the computer to try it.
 
I'll be curious what you find. I've seen Z100 Winchester cards on ebay (there's actually one on there now mis-labeled as IMS. I told the seller that and he still hasn't corrected the listing, maybe he doesn't believe me. Anyway the data separator cards are the holy grail since they vanished with the hard drives. If I ever find one then I would purchase the Winchester card. Good luck.

PS - my 8" DSDD floppy holds 1.2MB of data which is sort of a hard drive in itself :)

Larry G
 
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I've seen that and had not noticed it was a Z-217 card. Really bad shape, I would not give 2cents for it. I have two Z-217 and two data separators. One I recapped but still same issue as before. I really need to find someone that can trouble shoot it with a scope and f-counter. I'm embarrassed to admit how long I've been working on this project but it's into years. The computer came with the Z-217 and DS then I got a 2nd set off eBay 7-8 years ago for $25.00 I really think the issue is with the data separator. I swear I got about every document I can get on that computer.

What really hurt me is w/o the HD I got a single floppy system. I could put two HH floppies in but the face plate it cut for a single FH floppy. I could do an external HD-floppy 5.25" drive in place of the 8" drive I got the drivers to do that.

framer
 
I didn't know they had a faceplate for 1 floppy ? I just got a Qumetrak 542 drive on ebay for $30 which looks brand new. I tried it on a 486 I have and it gave a bios error
so I thought I bought a lemon but then I tried it on the Z100 and it works great !! Maybe its only an 8 spt drive ? Yea I tried to get that seller to put good pix for the Z217 card and he said he would but never did. If I could actually "see" the damn card I might make a low offer. My experience with caps on S100 cards is they are mostly filters for the power rails that usually short. They mainly filter out noise so replacing doesn't actually fix problems except for blown fuses. However, I did have an ADC S6 card recently that one cap that acts as a reset timer was leaky so intermittently wouldn't boot. I don't believe in "recap everything" but that's just me. I have a really good scope and know how to use it after 25 years in the TV repair business in the previous century but for now don't have the time to commit to repair since I'm not retired yet. I do help others online as I can ...

Larry G
 
What type of drive did you use to image it? SS DS DD 5.25 8 ? For some reason I can't write it to a my drive. I've imaged other z-100 disks off the internet with it before and those image files still work. I'm going to retry it this morning. Yesterday was just one of those days.
 
I ran a IMDA.COM on your file and it looks like you imaged it from a 8" disk. It can be written to a 3 1/2 HD 80 track drive, 5.25 HD 80 track drive and a 8" 77 track drive. I can't write it to a DD 360K 5.25 inch drive.
 
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