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Wargods CF and Boot Rom

SummittArcade said:
If anyone wants to buy 1 I’ll start taking names
Price will be 108.00 shipped US. The cards and adapters aren’t as cheap as I wanted , but cheap isn’t always the way to go.
Does not come with ribbon cable card and adapter only, you will need ribbon cable.
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I'd like to buy 1 kit for War Gods. Can pre-pay if needed.
 
Got my package today. Made me very happy since USPS recently lost another package of mine from the states.
Thank you Mr. Summitt.
 

Thanks @Apocalypse I got your friend's solution to work with a little bit of effort. Here are the details if anyone wants to DIY. Before I begin though I will say that getting HDAT2 running and finding the requisite parts make this SSD replacement solution more effort than some are going to want to do. Just outright buying the CF solution above is recommended by me for most people, due to the complexity, cost of parts, and headache here. I pieced this together over a few months do I don't recall some of the detailed steps perfectly, especially setting up the HDAT2 Boot usb.

I was able to run an SSD replacement with two different Disc-On-Module units, as well as a generic SATA drive. I was unable to get any of my CF cards to work and have no doubt that only particular CF cards would support the requirements here. In testing I found MANY old CF and DOM drives of all types that do not support SETMAX, and so will not work for this.

Requirements:
Drive or module that supports SETMAX command (very hard to find DOM or CF that support this)
Computer that can boot HDAT2
Cables to connect the drive or module using SATA (<---- as in, you can't use a usb adapter with hdat2 and have this work)
Cables to connect the drive to the wargods board

Step 1: Find a computer that can boot/run HDAT2, with SATA mode set to IDE. For me, some of my modern computers would not allow that mode, and others forbid me to boot off a USB device unless many of the bios protection settings for booting were disabled. It was a mess. I didn't want to goof up any of my configurations so I used my old gutted circa 2007 laptop was able to get it running properly.
Step 2: Connect your target drive to the computer with a SATA cable.
Step 3: Boot from your USB drive using FreeDOS or similar, and have HDAT2.exe on it.
Step 4: Run HDAT2. You should see the target drive on the drives list, and if you're using one I'm listing here you will see that SETMAX can be accessed. Go into that SETMAX submenu. You will need to adjust the LBA size to 822016 which results in 420.87MB. The rest will be hidden in a HPA sector. You could undo this if you needed. Be careful you’re selecting the correct drive :). Save.
Step 5: boot normally and use chdman to write the wargods CHD to that drive, this time using USB/SATA whatever connectors is OK.
Step 6: connect the drive using the original cables, or if you want to place a DOM directly on the board you will have to cut out a new key and probably the sides to make the DOM fit. Yes it's backwards from how most DOMs are keyed. You could alternatively use the original cable and a male/male adapter too.

SATA drive + IDE Adapter (this adapter plus the original cable)
For the SATA drive, I assume basically any modern drive would work. Be sure to remove the jumper on the adapter.

Photos of various DOM's that WILL work, as they do support SETMAX. Also the SATA Adapter for a SATA drive: https://imgur.com/a/RAFHjxK

new Transcend DOM drives also should work, I tried the 1gb version, but they are expensive: TS512MPTM720, TS1GPTM720, TS2GPTM720, TS4GPTM720

I am also 95% confident this solution (using SETMAX) would work for building KI or KI2 drives as well, but we have a bootrom for that and I'm not interested in checking myself.
 
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nem said:
I haven't found any CF cards that support SETMAX.
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if I was a gambling man id try some of the newest ones from transcend, like: https://www.transcend-info.com/Embedded/Products/No-985

but I spent my research funds on this project hunting DOM instead. It’s an optional command added in ATA/ATAPI-4 in 1998 and doesn’t seem to be listed in any spec sheets that I’ve found. The closest analog is that if the card supports any “Ultra-DMA” version then it at least uses that command set or later. But SETMAX is optional so it’s still hit or miss. If the spec lists HPA (host protected area) support then you’re good.
 
I have some older Transcend Industrial cards. Those certainly didn't work. I would be surprised if the newer ones did.
 
nem said:
I have some older Transcend Industrial cards. Those certainly didn't work. I would be surprised if the newer ones did.
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The newer transcend DOM did, at least! And did you check them while they were connected to a SATA port?
 
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I used an older computer with IDE connectors and a IDE to CF adapter.
 
nem said:
I used an older computer with IDE connectors and a IDE to CF adapter.
Click to expand...
Does IDE work, like did you see SETMAX on other HDDs?

Hdat2 only sees the SETMAX stuff through a sata connection for me. I saw this in some documentation iirc but can’t find it, but also in my experience. Just checked it again to be sure. The drive 100% has to be connected via sata for hdat2 to see the hpa stuff (if it’s there). Usb won’t work. I haven’t check IDE directly but am skeptical.

But that’s a big reason why this was such a pain
 
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the old Quantum Fireball drives may support size-spoofing.
i have seen 8gig drives from megatouch that only report 4.7gig for XT compatability.
 
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