Windows NT 4 - WORKING on ao486!

[alexoughton]

OK, I found and fixed the problem. For some reason fdisk was choosing a different partition type with a 1GB disk versus what I see with either 2GB or 400MB. Very strange. The script has been updated to enforce the correct type. Here is the updated version: https://github.com/alexoughton/misternt ... gs/1.1.zip

Thanks again for testing and reporting the bug!

[NML32]

Sound Blaster seems to be working well. I installed using the drivers on my Windows NT4 WS SP1 iso.
No issues dialing a BBS with Kermit Terminal.

https://youtu.be/AiBfUi0NC5w

Thank you alexoughton for the easy-to-follow instructions.

[alexoughton]

Thanks for the video! Fun to see it working with the BBS.

Side note... I've since learned that the lack of FPU is not the reason Windows 2000 isn't working. There's a video out there of 2000 booting successfully on a 25 MHz 486SX. Experimentation continues...

[ToothbrushThreepwood]

Thanks for the video! Fun to see it working with the BBS.

Side note... I've since learned that the lack of FPU is not the reason Windows 2000 isn't working. There's a video out there of 2000 booting successfully on a 25 MHz 486SX. Experimentation continues...

Cliffhanger alert!

[alexoughton]

Cliffhanger alert!

Ha! Don't get too excited. Ruling-out an FPU issue just means I have even less of an idea of what the problem is.

[alexoughton]

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Possible progress. Need to call it a night now though. There may be enough fixed in the core and in the IDE/floppy implementation that Windows 2000 SP4 can work. My previous crashes were with SP1.

[NML32]

You're making excellent progress.

[friendly.joe]

This is great. Thank you so much making it happen!

[alexoughton]

I've made it all the way through Windows 2000 setup using SP4. The main setup procedure takes 2-3 hours to complete (I didn't time it precisely). After setup completes it will then boot to a blank screen unless Safe Mode is used. My hope is that this is due to Windows trying to use the broken Tseng ET4000 video driver.

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[alexoughton]

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It's alive. Disk and video drivers working. Still needs some clean-up as my original registry settings didn't take and actually corrupted the system. Also need to see if it performs best with native disk drivers (which do work) or with uniata.

[cursedverses]

How... fast is it?

Edit: I know this is more about functionality, but it'd be interesting to know!

[alexoughton]

So far it's very slow. Not as bad as it is during setup though.

[NML32]

I did a quick HyperTerminal test and was able to call a BBS.

That's good to hear. I haven't tried connecting to a BBS yet, but I made some unsuccessful attempts to get PPP working.

Did you by chance try Trumpet Winsock 5.0 (Win32) (Win95, Win98, WinNT 4.0)?
So far I've been unsuccessful in getting it to work.

[alexoughton]

Sound doesn't seem to be working under Windows 2000, with an error related to kmixer being unable to start. I did some experimentation with switching to different resource settings for the SB16 and trying older drivers, but nothing worked. Other than this sound issue, Windows 2000 setup is mostly similar to NT4, with the same video driver (and specific frame buffer registry settings) getting things into a useable state.

Did you by chance try Trumpet Winsock 5.0 (Win32) (Win95, Win98, WinNT 4.0)?
So far I've been unsuccessful in getting it to work.

I just took a quick look at it without success. I will try looking again another time.

Once the floppy fix has been fully released, I will write-up the full guides for both NT4 and 2000.

[NML32]

OK, I found and fixed the problem. For some reason fdisk was choosing a different partition type with a 1GB disk versus what I see with either 2GB or 400MB. Very strange. The script has been updated to enforce the correct type. Here is the updated version: https://github.com/alexoughton/misternt ... gs/1.1.zip

Thanks again for testing and reporting the bug!

Tonight I tried the updated installer and I get an error. This happens after all the files are copied and removed the floppy and reboot.
1Gig VHD.
.

Error installing NT4 WS.png (50.97 KiB) Viewed 6451 times

[alexoughton]

Can you do the following please?

1. Boot from the “Boot first” floppy
2. Press CTRL+C as soon as the first screen appears, and press Y to cancel batch execution.
3. Run

Code: Select all

fdisk /info /tech

4. Send screenshot of the output there
5. Run

Code: Select all

c:

6. Run

Code: Select all

dir

7. Send screenshot of the output there

Thanks

[NML32]

I need to run the setup process again. I deleted the VHD that was crashing.

[NML32]

Can you do the following please?

1. Boot from the “Boot first” floppy
2. Press CTRL+C as soon as the first screen appears, and press Y to cancel batch execution.
3. Run

Code: Select all

fdisk /info /tech

4. Send screenshot of the output there
5. Run

Code: Select all

c:

6. Run

Code: Select all

dir

7. Send screenshot of the output there

Thanks

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[alexoughton]

That all looks exactly as I'd expect it to. Was this installation starting again with a completely blank disk? Or was this a re-use of the vhd after a previous attempt?

I'll try again to reproduce this error on my end. I'm asking myself the same questions to see if there was something wrong with my testing strategy the other day.

[NML32]

That all looks exactly as I'd expect it to. Was this installation starting again with a completely blank disk? Or was this a re-use of the vhd after a previous attempt?

I'll try again to reproduce this error on my end. I'm asking myself the same questions to see if there was something wrong with my testing strategy the other day.

I used a new VHD

[alexoughton]

Thanks. I actually have my testing running in the background right now, and I've just seen something I didn't encounter before. There must have been something wrong with my testing when I last looked at this.

Did setup give you the "Setup has determined that one or more of your hard disks has more than 1024 cylinders" screen? I've never seen that before, and it would explain why there's something different going on.

Update:

Yes, that message does lead to the error you're seeing. I'm taking a look at what MS-DOS setup does in this situation. In this case it just doesn't partition into anything above the 1024th cylinder (so space is wasted). The question here is why does MiSTer emulate a disk with more than 1024 cylinders for a 1GB disk, but doesn't do so for a 2GB disk? Since this is causing disk waste in DOS and boot failure in NT, I feel like it might be best to adjust this in MiSTer rather than in my boot disk. Will take a look.

[alexoughton]

OK, so it's not anything in MiSTer or ao486 setting the geometry values we're seeing. It's the way LBA translation is working in the BIOS. The behavior we're seeing is likely matching original hardware and BIOS behavior, so I will work to adjust for it in my boot disk instead.

[bbond007]

That all looks exactly as I'd expect it to. Was this installation starting again with a completely blank disk? Or was this a re-use of the vhd after a previous attempt?

I'll try again to reproduce this error on my end. I'm asking myself the same questions to see if there was something wrong with my testing strategy the other day.

I ended up getting that same error with NTDETECT after the initial install.

This is the method I used to create a blank VHD 512MB.

Code: Select all

dd if=/dev/zero of=NT4.VHD bs=1MB count=512

NT_FDISK.JPG (73.03 KiB) Viewed 6265 times

[alexoughton]

Yes, this is the same issue as you have more than 1024 cylinders on that disk.

Here is an updated version which should fully solve the problem, although I am still completing testing: https://github.com/alexoughton/misternt ... gs/1.2.zip

This version forces fdisk to keep the partitions within the first 1024 cylinders. A few MB of space is lost on disks where this is required. Note you will still see the setup warning about having more than 1024 cylinders, but it won't cause a problem because of the new partition layout.

Update:

I successfully tested this new version with a 1GB disk with both FAT and NTFS format. Looks like this fix has been successful, although semi-looking-forward to finding out what I missed in the next bug report...!

[dmckean]

Great to read and was (is) an interesting thread to read, too. Personally I'm not interested in running NT4 on MiSTer - but doesn't this also mean that OS/2 would become possible now?

I just wanted to point out it looks like some progress has been made with OS/2.

The mouse doesn't work at this point though.

viewtopic.php?p=45942#p45942

[alexoughton]

Awesome!

[NML32]

Yes, this is the same issue as you have more than 1024 cylinders on that disk.

Here is an updated version which should fully solve the problem, although I am still completing testing: https://github.com/alexoughton/misternt ... gs/1.2.zip

This version forces fdisk to keep the partitions within the first 1024 cylinders. A few MB of space is lost on disks where this is required. Note you will still see the setup warning about having more than 1024 cylinders, but it won't cause a problem because of the new partition layout.

Update:

I successfully tested this new version with a 1GB disk with both FAT and NTFS format. Looks like this fix has been successful, although semi-looking-forward to finding out what I missed in the next bug report...!

Thank you for the quick fix. I finished installing on my 1Gig VHD without any issues.

[alexoughton]

Great, thanks for confirming!

[alexoughton]

The floppy fix has now been released, so I've written the full installation guide. Now available here: viewtopic.php?t=4400

Note for anyone who downloaded a previous version of the setup images:

A new version has been released due to required changes to misterfs.exe. The following link can be used to always download the latest version: https://github.com/alexoughton/misternt ... s/main.zip

[thera34]

I made successful PPP connection

*Sry, in the heat of the moment, posted it in guides and Videos thread, and this is just a rapid how-to, some steps (not important) i may skipped in the description below. After some refinement, I guess it can be merged with the proper install how-to thread

How:
After all finished to install as per @alexoughton's instructions, open My Computer and click on the Dial-Up Networking.
When asking for a suitable modem, mount the floppy containing modem9x.inf file (or copy it before to a location on your NT install VHD) and use that driver (same procedure as you did for installing SoundBlaster drivers).
Obtainable here: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/ao486_M ... odem9x.inf

Important: Open OSD and at UART mode PPP, change Baud setting from Turbo115200 to plain 115200)

The New Phonebook Entry Wizard will appear after, name your connection to your liking and Check "I know all about phonebook...." box to jump to finish.
You can use any number (I used 555-1234). As for other settings, click on More / Edit entry and modem properties:

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Basic tab should look like this:

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In the Server tab, uncheck everything unless TCP/IP, Dial up server type should be "PPP: WinNT, 98 Plus, Internet"

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Other than that, you can set manually your core's IP address, DNS servers to match your network on TCP/IP Settings

You should have PPP connection working

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