Xref: utzoo comp.sys.atari.st:25758 comp.os.minix:9377
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!dptg!lzsc!hcj
From: hcj@lzsc.ATT.COM (HC Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st,comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: How do I set up MINIX on my Supra drive?
Keywords: SUPRA MINIX ATARI ST
Message-ID: <1330@lzsc.ATT.COM>
Date: 26 Feb 90 14:49:33 GMT
References: <22392@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Organization: AT&T BL Middletown/Lincroft NJ USA
Lines: 45

In article <22392@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>, anton@sting.Berkeley.EDU (Jeff Anton) writes:
> I have a new 40Mbyte Supra hard disk drive for my Atari ST 1040.
> The machine is a few years old with TOS in ROM.
> MINIX ST 1.1 doesn't recognize the drive.  I've tried several
> approaches includeing running MINIX from GEMDOS with MINIX.PRG
> and MINIX.IMG generated from the boot disk.

1. It is not clear if its you or Supra that has a problem.
2. If you;  Minix 1.1, as shipped expects to find a minix root partition
   at partition 2. 
"
  /* Get size of RAM disk by reading root file system's super block.
   * First read block 0 from the floppy.  If this is a valid file system, use
   * it as the root image, otherwise try the hard disk (RAM_IMAGE).  
   */
#ifdef ATARI_ST
  printf("Booting MINIX-ST 1.1.  Copyright 1988 Prentice-Hall, Inc.\n");
  printf("Insert ROOT diskette and hit RETURN (or specify bootdev) %c", 0);
  root_device = (dev_nr)getdev();
  if (root_device == 0)
#endif
"
So, It is assumed that you first boot MINIX from a floppy.  At this point
you can prepare a partion, 2 being preferred for minix.

3. You can test if you have basic communication with the HD, from MINIX,
by reading section 0, which is the boot sector, and partition 1, which is
(I assume) TOS.
	dd if=/dev/rhd0 > /tmp/hd0  should not fail.
	tos -d /dev/hd1 should print familiar information on TOS c:.
If either or both FAIL, then you have INTERRUPT problems.

4. Remember TOS is polled IO, not INTERRUPT.  You would never no if disk 
interrupts failed under TOS.  MINIX only uses INTERRUPTS.  Assuming that
the 1040 is  not bad (Try someone elses HD); its a Supra problem.

5. Supra had three vintages of Atari interfaces.  OLD (Never would run MINIX), 
    Medium (could run minix with a Supra supplied software change), and NEW
   (as in with fan, and DMA OUT connector) that did work.

Howard C. Johnson
ATT Bell Labs
=====NEW address====
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