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If you flash Incognito ROM to Ultimate 1MB - How I fixed it


Xebec

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Today I screwed up, but was able to fix it... I just wanted to document in case anyone else makes the same mistake.

 

Mistake:  You have a machine with an Ultimate 1MB installed, and a SIDE 2 cartridge,  but flash the U1MB ROM to Incognito ROM accidentally. 

 

Symptoms:  The system sits at a black screen when powered on (you might see a very fast bios screen/logo appear then disappear), unless you have the SIDE2 cartridge installed.   When you power on with a  SIDE2 cart installed, you see "Incognito" instead of Ultimate 1MB.

 

The challenges: 

When the SIDE2 cartridge is installed, you can't mount .ATR files - regardless of settings in the BIOS in this configuration.  With an older firmware SIDE2, the loader mounting will just fail.  With a newer firmware SIDE2, the .ATR files won't even show in the Loader.  

 

In this config without the loader, the SIDE2 boots to SpartaDOS X regardless of whether it's disabled in the BIOS or not.  The system also refuses to boot off D1: from an external device (i.e. SDRIVE-Max).  If you run UFLASH.XEX from the SIDE 2 Loader, UFLASH will not see the hardware or give other errors on the opening screen.  

 

What I tried/didn't work:   Updated SIDE2 to latest (v3.1 w/SDX as of today) firmware via a fully stock 800XL, various SIO, PBI, HardDisk, SpartaDOS X on/off, etc. 

 

What worked for me (system is 800XL + U1MB + UAV):

- (Probably Optional) - Update the SIDE2 to the latest firmware in another system (See Flashjazzcat's excellent video for this) 

- Download the proper firmware zip for Ultimate 1MB

- Boot into SpartaDOS X

- Attach FIRMWARE.ATR to D2: via an external device -- SDRIVE, SIO2PC, etc. 

- Run UFLASH.XEX from D2:

- Run the standard 'flash full ROM' procedure

- Power OFF - and you're good!

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10 minutes ago, leech said:

I thought FJC had put in some hash checks to prevent that?

One tries; it is not possible to blindly flash the BIOS, etc, for one device to the other using UFLASH, but when flashing the 512K ROM chip as a whole, a small onus of responsibility (to pick the correct disk image or ROM file) still rests on the user's shoulders. I can certainly add checks to the 'whole ROM' update process too, if such catastrophic errors risk becoming an endemic problem. ;)

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5 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

One tries; it is not possible to blindly flash the BIOS, etc, for one device to the other using UFLASH, but when flashing the 512K ROM chip as a whole, a small onus of responsibility (to pick the correct disk image or ROM file) still rests on the user's shoulders. I can certainly add checks to the 'whole ROM' update process too, if such catastrophic errors risk becoming an endemic problem. ;)

Ha, you know you can't trust those pesky Users, you never know what they're going to do!  That reminds me, I did upgrade my U1MB already, today I'm working on my 800, so will also be flashing the new Incognito firmware.

 

Just waiting for the 3D printer to finish...

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2 minutes ago, leech said:

Ha, you know you can't trust those pesky Users, you never know what they're going to do!

Indeed. It is a never-ending game of heightened expectations. Gone are the days of HDD partitioning requiring the typing in of CHS values; now it's all text-mode GUI firmware and Windows-like dialog boxes and menus. But the software is still unable to fetch the correct disk image for you. :D

 

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3 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

Indeed. It is a never-ending game of heightened expectations. Gone are the days of HDD partitioning requiring the typing in of CHS values; now it's all text-mode GUI firmware and Windows-like dialog boxes and menus. But the software is still unable to fetch the correct disk image for you. :D

 

You just sent a shudder up my spine.  Though to be fair, I still see errors in Linux where some automated tools didn't create the partition at the correct block value.  Good ol' fdisk...

Yeah, really don't miss having to type in CHS values :P  Manual disk resizes is fun though!

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6 minutes ago, chevymad said:

This post reminded me, and the fact I just updated 2 U1mb's and ordered a third, to send a few $$ Johnathon's way. It's not alot, but thanks Flashjazzcat for all the work you do on this.

Just want to echo this.  I also sent a donation recently as Jon provides us with wonderful toys :)

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12 minutes ago, Xebec said:

Just want to echo this.  I also sent a donation recently as Jon provides us with wonderful toys :)

Yeah, I plan on tossing some digital cash his way, assuming my SCCC install goes smoothly, if it doesn't, I shall curse his name forever!!!  Kidding, he is the man!

 

So far it is working, just did the test with the provided cable and that works, but getting it working on the original output is my goal.

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