On Fri, 16 Jan 1998, Mike Long wrote:

> Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 01:47:34 -0500 (EST)
> From: Mike Long <mikel@shore.net>
> To: bgrayson@ece.utexas.edu
> Cc: current-users@NetBSD.ORG
> Subject: Re: wdc* at sb?
> 
> >Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 22:47:58 -0600 (CST)
> >From: bgrayson@ece.utexas.edu (Brian C. Grayson)
> 
> >  A recent CD-ROM came with an ISA IDE interface card.  I used
> >it as an IDE controller for hard disk drives under NetBSD with no
> >problems.  I set wdc1 to 0x170 irq 15.  So the sound-card one
> >will probably work fine.
> >
Some sound cards don't automatically enable the CD controllers, be they
IDE or whatever. They often require some piece of software to run which enables
them, so without the appropriate software the controller won't be found by
the probe. Some people have gotten around this by booting dos/windows,
allowing it to enable the controller, then soft booting into unix, kind of
painfull but it can work. Much the same trick has been used in the past to
enable SB emulation on some cards as well.

> >  Looking at the card, it contains only 4 chips -- 3 74LS
> >series 50-cent chips, and a simple PAL to generate enable
> >signals.  Is this all that is really needed for a `real' IDE
> >controller, or at least one that works with the PIO modes?
> 
> Yep.  All of the smarts for IDE are in the drives.
> -- 
> Mike Long <mikel@shore.net>                http://www.shore.net/~mikel
> "Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands,
> hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -- H.L. Mencken
>