Toshiba Satellite phoenix bios v1.07AROM > lost hard driv

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savtipton
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System:
Toshiba Satellite 1675CDS
(original win98 package system cds long gone)
Fujitsu MHK3060AT 6.+GB 2.5' 9.5mm hard drive,
sharp 12' DSTN LCD screen,
Toshiba XM-7002BC CD-Rom,
with latest Toshiba bios update.

**boot screen appears:

PhoenixBIOS 4.0 Release 6.0
copyright 1985-2000 phoenix tech
88W1 BIOS Version 1.07A.ROm
....
system BIOS shadowed
Video BIOS shadowed
UMB upperlimit segment address: EB9B
Mouse initialized
...
Entering SETUP

Somehow, during loading bios and attempting install of OEM version of Me on the system, it quit identifying the hard drive. The BIOS does not have anything that searches for the drive, and I am sure it isnt damaged. Just says "none" in space for harddrive.

I believe when loading the bios update, it lost the address of the harddrive in ROM. Expect related to not being able to disable the system shadowing or video shadowing...again not an option in BIOS.

Toshiba dont support the drives as they are Fujitsu, which doesnt have software to install the drive. They have taken down all install software and refer you to Ontrack.com to BUY a copy of their disk install program. Even if I bought this program, I am not sure it would solve my problem.

Without buying a new bios chip or harddrive, and paying to have them installed on a second hand, 4 year old dstn screen laptop, I would like to get this system to find the harddrive again.

I read something about writing hard drive addresses into ROM, to recognize drive, but dont know where to start. Where would you find the install specs for a Fujitsu drive addy on this laptop?

>>>Realizes its time to stop and get directions. Your thoughts please.
NickS
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The addresses for hard drives are standard and you don't need to put them into ROM. You may be confusing this with putting the parameters which describe the drive's number of heads, cylinders and sectors per track into the nonvolatile memory (CMOS). Usually you can get into a CMOS setup (sometimes loosely called the BIOS setup) menu to enter these parameters, but these days it is more usual for there to be a setting of "Auto" available for Drive Type. With this setting the BIOS will interrogate the drive and determine the parameters automatically. If you have cleared the CMOS memory, possibly as part of a BIOS update, the "Auto" setting may have been changed to "None". You need to get into the setup menu and change the drive type to "Auto.
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savtipton
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uhhh...i agree with EVERTHING you said except the last sentence. "You need to get into the setup menu and change the drive type to "Auto."

As this laptop is 4 years old, it does NOT allow you to change the settings in the setup menu, even with the latest BIOS version running.

From what I have read since posting, the best I can determine is that "Ontrack Disk Manager" software will identify the Fujitsu hard drive to the BIOS, of this Toshiba Satellite.

Just dont want to PAY for software to do this.

I do need to get into the BIOS, but as I said in original post, it doesnt give you that option in setup. Apparently it is the install software that will set the drive up to BIOS.

Is there a freeware version of this software available?
NickS
BIOS Bodhisattva
Posts: 3145
Joined: Fri May 03, 2002 10:34 am
Location: Thames Valley, UK

savtipton wrote:uhhh...i agree with EVERTHING you said except the last sentence. "You need to get into the setup menu and change the drive type to "Auto."

As this laptop is 4 years old, it does NOT allow you to change the settings in the setup menu, even with the latest BIOS version running.

From what I have read since posting, the best I can determine is that "Ontrack Disk Manager" software will identify the Fujitsu hard drive to the BIOS, of this Toshiba Satellite.

Just dont want to PAY for software to do this.

I do need to get into the BIOS, but as I said in original post, it doesnt give you that option in setup. Apparently it is the install software that will set the drive up to BIOS.

Is there a freeware version of this software available?
No, there isn't a freeware version. I think I'll just take a look at my wife's Toshiba.
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NickS
BIOS Bodhisattva
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Joined: Fri May 03, 2002 10:34 am
Location: Thames Valley, UK

My wife's Satellite Pro 4020 uses TSETUP.EXE but that utility doesn't appear to be relevant to the Satellite 1675. It's a DOS mode program which brings you the setup screen. In that, the Hard Drive can be set to Primary IDE (1F0-1F7)

I suggest your best bet at present isCompuserve Toshiba Computing Forum
I notice theres a 1.07 BIOS around, and that the Support Bulletins can be accessed at the Canadian Toshiba support site.
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savtipton
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Of the three sites I have posted on, you seem to be understanding what I am saying better than others.

If you look at my original post you will see that I have the latest Toshiba bios 1.07a, and can also see the details on "boot screen" description.

I believe what has happened is that the system is configured only to reinstall the original restore disks. When the Open Architecture OEM Windows system loaded, and went to reboot, because the system was looking for the restore disks, but encountered a nonproprietary OS, that did not conform with what was in system and video shadowing, the drive locked up.

I expect it could be repaired by hooking to an existing system, jumperd as a slave, and maybe not. So maybe it is time for a new hard drive considering I found an IBM one with the same features but half the space, for $22.

Even after getting another hard drive, not sure how to resolve the shadowing problem, other than just clearing cmos. This seems it would be a common problem, and someone other than Toshiba Service Techs, should have a fix for this.

Time to stop and ask your thoughts again.

Regards,
savtipton
NickS
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Joined: Fri May 03, 2002 10:34 am
Location: Thames Valley, UK

The system and video shadowing settings refer to the ability to copy those parts of the BIOS into RAM for faster execution, and shouldn't affect the ability to install the operating system.

For some reason 1.04 stuck in my brain, I noticed this morning you mentioned that you had 1.07.

Was the Compuserve forum no use ? I thought from their introduction to the forum that they had a reasonable level of expertise; maybe their experts are on holiday !

The real problem seems to be to get the BIOS/CMOS to accept a setting for the HDD; as other people supply disks for the 1675 (one tells you all about dismantling the machine to put it in) it must be possible.

When you go into setup does it allow you to do anything at all ? Change the time, etc ?
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savtipton
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I was always taught to turn all caching and shadowing off in setup, before reloading a system, so it dont get confused in memory of the old one, but you may be right. No such option in this bios.

In the beginning,....
...After updating to the latest bios 1.09a (worked) and then attempting install of OEM version of 98 on the system, it quit identifying the hard drive.

The setup does not have anything that searches for the drive, and I am sure it isnt damaged. Just says "none" (info only, no change of parameters in setup) in description field for hard drive. Ontrack.com Fujitsu hard disk install software cant install the drive, if it doesnt see it.

The rest of the setup works as before, whatever little there is of it. Before it showed the Fujitsu drive in that info box, but it was then, and still is, informational only. I can change things like boot order, password, but hard drive (auto, lba, or track), is NOT an option.

Yes, I did find some related topics at Compuserve, but when I went to read them, they told me its restricted to Compuserve customers only. I dont care to support AOL with a monthly $24 ISP subscription to get into their column. Didnt anyone tell you that AOL is evil? :-)

Yes, I already have the system dismantled, (special care on popping the corner is a must), and have no problem with that. I am just hoping that it isnt so proprietary, that an ibm diskmanager wont work installing an IBM disk.

There must be some Freeware software that will find that drive. I found this on ebay, and it looks like it might, but then again maybe not. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 2046117975

I hope I answered your questions that seem to keep coming up. This is going to either take a dos or at least standalone program to wake the drive up, or another manufacturer hard drive that will install. Just not sure how to find it.

Regards,
savtipton
savtipton
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check this out. http://hdd.fujitsu.com/global/drive/mobile.html

it shows me the settings to put in cmos, but doesnt tell me how.
savtipton
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Hey Nick... I found a link concerning video shadowing that you may find interesting...(note: WPMcNamaras thoughts in bold half way down page),
http://www.adriansrojakpot.com/Speed_De ... de_01e.htm

*****

Found the free copies of the Fujitsu Disk Install Programs that ontrack.com now charges for. Disk Mgr, Diskgo!, Disk Diags, ZeroDisk program, specs for the HD ( UDMA 66, cyl=12,416 , hds=15, sect=63 and HDD type = either 46or47 ), and the clear cmos program.

Ran GoDisk! Loaded cmos type=46, it found drive, and showed me data from it. Before able to put in anymore info, it rebooted, but lost HD coming back up. So I know the drive is there, working and accessible. saw hdd light flash when it pulled up data. {wondering if it would have helped to have win98 install CD in on reboot}

Ran several of the tools to see the options, but no others recognized the HD. Careful to just see how they ran, and options open, but dont believe I damaged anything.

OK..now we have the toys n tools but dont have the sequence to use them. Can we walk thru the sequence to recover the HDD (nothing needs saved), long enough to load Windows 98(oem) full install?
[/b]
NickS
BIOS Bodhisattva
Posts: 3145
Joined: Fri May 03, 2002 10:34 am
Location: Thames Valley, UK

Well done, I won't ask you where you found the utility. Disk Manager can be downloaded free in versions tailored for a specific manufacturer (e.g. on IBM's website), that normally won't touch another manufacturer's drive.

The shadowing article is interesting; the business about not shadowing while flashing is very important. You can have trouble if you try to shadow old devices which use memory-mapped I/O as well, something they don't mention, e.g Future Domain TMC-845/850 SCSI. The business of a modern video BIOS >32Kb potentially not working when shadowed is worth bearing in mind for some "help!" calls.
Did you say you can't change anythingin your setup ? including shadowing ?

Re. the other utilities not seeing the drive, try finding a copy of "IDEID.EXE" and see whether that can find it.

What was the drive that was previously in the machine ?

It's been a long time since I used Disk Manager, so I don't know how it has changed. It used to ask for the drive model (and make, on the retail version) and then knowing the Cylinders/Heads/Sectors-per-track (CHS) would search for the best match in the BIOS ROM drive type table. It would then recommend a drive type with the same number of heads and sectors per track and the same or fewer cylinders. It would put this drive type into the CMOS RAM for the BIOS to find. If there were more tracks on the drive than in the type selected, it would allow you to partition the drive and write the Master Boot Record (MBR) with a little utility (or a loader for a bigger utility) which replaced the BIOS drive table parameters with the accurate ones on booting from hard disc. The drawback was that this utility was not on your Microsoft setup diskette, so I always preferred to create one partition which sat within the area known about by the BIOS so that any boot diskette could see it, and not use the Disk Manager version of the MBR.

The adoption of type 47 and somtimes 46 as "user defined" with the parameters held in an extended (beyond 128 bytes) part of CMOS RAM reduced the need for this until manufacturers started producing IDE drives of higher capacities. Concepts such as "Large" or "Logical block addressing" (LBA) modes came in to cope - see Jan Steunebrink's site for an exposition. EIDE/ATA drives, like SCSI, allowed manufacturers to interrogate the drive to discover its parameters (Auto mode) and this is the standard today - except where the drive is too big and auto-detect hangs. I'm surprised that the 1670/1675 appears not to support Auto mode. The trouble with types 46 and 47 is that different BIOSes may put the drive information in different locations in the extended CMOS and potentially in different formats, so any external program which tries to do this needs to know precisely what it's dealing with.

When the BIOS can't cope, one option is the Dynamic Disk Overlay (DDO) approach which replaces the BIOS ROM hard disk handling code with loadable code which is invoked from the MBR on the hard disc when you boot it, to allow the use of bigger drives or different geometries to those the BIOS can support. I know that Disk Manager these days includes a Dynamic Disc Overlay program. A boot diskette (or a bootable CD) which does not invoke the DDO may not recognise the HDD. Disk Manager usually has an option to create a special boot diskette for this which you would need to boot from before running setup from CD.

One of the things that the IBM version of DiskGo! will also do for you is downgrade the transfer rate from UDMA66 or UDMA 100 to UDMA33 if you need to, although IBM also provide a stand-alone utility. You may need to do that once you get around to installing W98 and trying to use UDMA - you can find the link to the Fujitsu utility in the post "links to ATA mode setting utilities" in "Collected Wisdom".

As regards installation sequence; as I haven't had to install with Disk Manager recently I would recommend you go with whatever it recommends. Remember, if you use the DDO then you'll need a diskette which invokes it as well as having the CD-ROM driver to start setup.
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