Incognito help - error 139

[unixdude]

Hi, all.

 

I recently installed an Incognito board into my 800, and I'm having some issues with it, specifically error 139 in the loader, while accessing the FAT16 partition.

 

From the docs, I see that error 139 means "Device NAK: The device failed to respond. This error may be caused by an attempt to read a Compact Flash card which has been removed or is failing."

 

Here's the storage I'm using:

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073K14CVB/

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B019RAY92I/

 

I'm wondering if the issue is the SD chip or the CF adapter, or both.  Maybe I need to buy both from Lotharek directly, instead of from Amazon.  The products I bought do look identical to the pictures posted on Lotharek's site, but maybe there's some difference.  His CF adapter does say that it is "Lotharek's customized."

 

I am able to run FDISK to partition the SD card.  I am able to format the partitions I make.  I have not been able to access the FAT partition from SpartaDOS X yet, but that's mostly because several keys on my 800 do not work: >+XVBN

 

Since the "N" key does not work, I cannot "EDIT CONFIG.SYS" -- meaning I cannot add the FAT driver.  I'll get that sorted soon enough, though: I have confirmed, and the problem is only that the switches need to be resoldered.

 

I do have two other (and super old) CF cards, a 512MB and a 128MB.  I'm using the 128MB card successfully right now, but only with the loader, again because I haven't fixed the keyboard yet.

 

Anybody have experience with error 139 on the Incognito?

 

Thanks.

Edited December 2, 2019 by unixdude

[flashjazzcat]

17 minutes ago, unixdude said:

Anybody have experience with error 139 on the Incognito?

Which firmware are you using? The loader calls the SIO only for the purpose of mounting and unmounting partitions and disk images (and the newer loader issues additional SIO calls for drive mapping and other purposes). I don't think the original loader issued SIO calls at all while simply cataloguing a FAT partition, so the inference is that the newer firmware (i.e. mine) is being used, since the most recent loader attempts to map mount points immediately after reading the disk directory.

 

The most common cause of the 'NAK' error is when the PBI BIOS has completely failed to identify the media on the ATA bus. The Micro-SD adapter and Micro-SD card you're using do not appear to be 'known working', and if a 128MB CF card does work in circumstances where the SD adapter doesn't, then you can probably safely conclude that the choice of media/adapter is at fault.

 

With regard to the SD/CF adapter on Lotharek's site: yours looks identical, but I have no idea what 'Lothark's customized' is supposed to mean. The only SD/CF adapters of which I have experience are the same brand but using full-sized SD cards.

 

If might be worth formatting an APT partition and running RWCRC to see if you get any IO errors. The PBI BIOS (responsible for all SIO-based communication with the hard disk) is a little more forgiving than the loader when it comes to IO errors; the SIO driver will retry any sector transfers if the DRQ (data ready) bit in the ATA status register is prematurely low prior to the last byte of the sector being transferred, or remains high after the last byte is transferred. Either situation implies one of more bytes in the controller's sector buffer were transferred twice or completely skipped, and this is caused by incompatible media or stability issues elsewhere on the system. The checks are not really a reliable defence against instability, however: they are mainly there to provide a better chance of IO errors being generated when proper transmission is not possible. A system which encounters transmission errors 0.01 per cent of the time may appear fully functional thanks to the retry logic in the PBI BIOS. The loader performs no such checks, meanwhile, so it's really the loader which offers a less flattering picture of system reliability.

 

[unixdude]

Hey, thanks, I am using your firmware.  This morning I learned that CF cards are still sold, and yes, I suspect the adapter as well, so I'm looking at purchasing a 16GB SanDisk CF card.  When I started this project, I did not have access to a CF USB adapter, but my iMac does have an SD slot, so that is why I went the CF/SD route.  Maybe that was a bad choice; either way, I'll buy a real CF card now.

 

Thanks for the lead on RWCRC - I'll run that and see what it reports.