the search for sata-os9 bootable firmware+card combination

[supernova777]

ok.. as was figured out by others in these threads:
https://68kmla.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=21488
https://68kmla.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=14645&hilit=sil3112
http://forums.macrumors.com/archive/index.php/t-1650568.html
the firmware used by seritek cards essentially does a check on the manufacturer type of bios chip
making the firmware driver software only work with cards that use specific type bios chips
that means that only certain cards that use certain bios chips can be FLASHED to be os9 bootable with the firmtek firmware!

in this thread we will try to find other generic cheap cards that already come with the proper bios chips on the card
with compatible manufacturer  + capacity size..
because some of us are unwilling to try to solder small tiny components;)

also i will be trying to look into reducing the firmware in size as to make it fit on these other smaller chips..
as i understand it these bios chips containt drivers that get slipstream injected into the os
which is what makes the cards compatible, the firmware is a bit bigger then the 128k size as it is right now
so if theres a way to reduce the firmware size down to fit onto a 128k chip or even a 64k chip this would
greatly increase the amount of cards that could be converted to be mac os 9 bootable.
as it is the firmware contains drivers fro both mac os x + mac os 9 thus creating the large size of the firmware..
my theory is that if either opposing os's drivers were removed from the rom somehow
it could make the rom small enough to fit on the smaller sized chips thus enabling us to create mac os 9 bootable sata cards
quickly + easily from readily avaiilable cheap sil3112 cards on ebay etc
its been proven that these cards work with the bios chips swapped out for larger chips i own a few of these personally painstakingly modified cards


http://www.rosewill.com/products/432/ProductDetail_Overview.htm#/Mgnt/Uploads/ImagesForProduct/ImgPrd-432-Cm[138e11845afc4f5aab5aa6c36fa918ce].jpg

this card appears to have the same bios chip as the sonnet tempo card i have (which is a basically a seritek 1s2 clone)[/s]
my purple sonnet pcb has the same "pmc" logo on it;s chip ---> but this chip i found out later is only 64k
ok.. the manufacturer is the same but hte model numbers dont match.. the model number of the pmc chip on my sonnet tempo card is
"Pm39LV040-70JCE" -> which means its a 4mbit chip this one above is half an mbit? i think im right?

this one is slightly different.


hMM was just looking for a pic to illustrate and i realized that my card is slightly different then the one pictured here:




FIRMTEK FIRMWARES:
Legacy Macintosh Drivers (Pre-Snow Leopard)
The following firmware and drivers are compatible with Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5 systems.
http://www.firmtek.com/download/

v5.1.3 firmware is for os 7-10.4
v5.3.x firmware is for osx leopard 10.5
--source: http://forum.hardmac.com/index.php?showtopic=2688

[supernova777]

ok
basically the reason why alot of the cards dont work to simply flash the firmtek bios is that the firmtek bios for these cards
contains KEXT's for mac os x which allow it to boot in X ..
as well as other driver files for mac os 9.. so the combination of having both driver files inside the chip
makes the chip require a larger size in its current format

if we could somehow find someone capable of extracting + removing the kext files size, from the firmtek firmware
we would then end up with a rom file that would be big enough (or small enough rather)
to fit on any bios chip present on the pci sata cards

digging into the data sheet info for the pmc-sierra bios chip that is featured on my sonnet tempo (firmtek clone) card:

http://www.alldatasheet.com/datasheet-pdf/pdf/102566/PMC/PM39LV010-70JCE.html

• Memory Organization for PMC chips (manufacturer PMC-SIERRA)
- Pm39LV512: 64K x 8 (512 Kbit)
- Pm39LV010: 128K x 8 (1 Mbit)
- Pm39LV020: 256K x 8 (2 Mbit)
- Pm39LV040: 512K x 8 (4 Mbit)

the approximate size of the working firmware i think is between 128k + 200k
like i said, i beleive that if we were able to somehow remove the osx driver files we coudl end up with an os9 bootable firmware that would work to flash on
other cards that have these other smaller chips on them, that is, the Pm39LV010 and Pm39LV512 bios chips..
as far as i know noone has tried the Pm39LV020 on a card yet.. them all having opted to get the largest size available probably as long as they were
going thru the trouble of resoldering the chip to the sil3112 card..

if anyone has any technical information or knowhow on how we could move ahead in an attempt to match the kexts extracted from the bios when the card is installed on an X system
we could then somehow match the bits + bytes + possibly remove with some type of rpogram that would be used to edit the rom?

i mean these guys made their cards work by changing the chip which is labourous.
if we could just fix the firmware instead of the chip.. this would be an amazing thing to accomplish for these old macs to be able to boot os9 with a cheap $10 sata card

u can read more about all these guys discovery to get a firmtek booting card here:
https://68kmla.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=14645

[supernova777]

this must be what the Seritek 1v4 is based off.. the Sil3124 Chipset..




puzzling tho because the 1s2 was alla bout the firmware but the 1v4 appears to not even have a firmware bios chip on the card!
must be the picture.. maybe its on the other side of the card?

apparently not?? wierd

[supernova777]

http://www.applefritter.com/content/big-ide-and-sata-chipset-info-thread-thing
some additional info here from a canadian who goes by the naem of Oelmuvun
trying to organize the same thing i am trying to by making this thread
finding cards that will be compatible for reflashing to mac os 9 boot

And now, here is a quick little list of SATA chipsets you might keep your eyes open for:
VITESSE VSC-7174 (found on SeriTek1V4)
4 port and Mac OS 8+, seems to be uncommon in the PC world.
PCI-X

Sil3112 (found on SeriTek/1S2 & Sonnet TSATA)
Mac OS X bootable if crossflashed to Sil3512.
Potential for OS 7+ bootability if the 1S2/sonnet firmware can be flashed. In that case this would be a very nice card since it is only lacking two extra ports of the harder to find VSC-7174.
PCI

Sil3512 (found on wiebetech TCS1-1)
So far Mac OS X bootable only unless you have a card with a bigger EEPROM or can reduce some firmware or find a small one to begin with.
Potential to be crossflashed to Sil3112!
PCI

Sil3124 (found on SeriTek2SE4)
Mac OS X only, I cannot remember more about it off the top of my head. I might say it is the least interesting aside from it supporting 4 ports.
PCI-X

heres a press article i found
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20040315005799/en/Vitesse-Expands-Serial-Storage-Product-Line-Enterprise#.Uy0h3_ldXuM
https://www.vitesse.com
seems this is the company who made the chipset that firmtek used for their 1v4 card

data on the chip itself:
http://www.digchip.com/data/514/514-616-0-VSC7174.pdf

Code: [Select]

Four Serial ATA Channels at 1.5 Gb/s
Serial ATA 1.0 Compliant
Serial ATA II Queuing Specification Compliant
PCI-X 1.0a Compliant (64 bits wide at 66, 100 and 133 MHz)
PCI 2.2 Compliant (64 bits wide at 33 and 66 MHz)
Software-Compatible Master/Slave Mode
Parallel ATA Compatibility
Performance-Oriented Master/Master Mode
Plug-n-Play Support
Hot Swappable
Activity LED Drivers
Wide Swing Mode for Driving Backplanes
Spread-Spectrum Clock Generation
Integrated Link/Transport Layer From APT Technology, Inc.
i wonder if this means that a card such as:

would be hiding this same chip under the sticker
http://www.syba.com/index.php?controller=Product&action=Info&Id=716
the product page says its compatible with X + G5's.. maybe then its possible it works with a g4?

[supernova777]

another post re flashing sil3512 based cards by the same guy can be found here:
http://www.applefritter.com/content/sil3512-flashing

I have a Syba SD-SATA-150R in my Digital Audio G4. It is a card that uses the Sil3512 chipset and like other Sil3512 cards with suitable eeprom, can be flashed with the wiebetech TCS1-1 firmware.
I know it can be flashed because there is a forum thread in another language based in another country that google translates very badly. It has a link to the firmware, a screenshot of System profiler with the card being used in OS X but as far as I recall I never read anything about booting off the card.(at least nothing translated into english)

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=33440&vpn=SD-SATA150R&manufacture=Syba

Sil3512 = we have usable Mac compatible firmware. (but OS X only)
Sil3112 = we only have firmware that /appears/ to be too big at this time. (OS 7 to OS X, if it can be made to work via bigger EEPROM or firmware reduction)

3512 firmware can go on 3112, at least in any cases I have heard of.
3112 firmware *should* be able to go on 3512, if EEPROM is small enough or we get a smaller dump from some other card.

Keep in mind that if you have a 3112 based Mac card it would be nice to know how big the EEPROM actually is so we can see if the flasher strips certain things from it before flashing or anything like that. But also, if you come across a 3112 card (non-SeriTek/1s2 and non-sonnet TSATA) with a really small firmware it would be nice to have a dump of that to use.

Interestingly perhaps, the PC 3512&3112 firmwares are not so crazy when it comes to size difference as far as I recall, it is just the firmtek 1s2 firmware.

[supernova777]

http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/sata.html#intel-vitesse

found this list of linux compatible sata cards... which may have some info relevant to the search!

[Jakl]

Oelmuvun said;
Sil3124 (found on SeriTek2SE4)
Mac OS X only, I cannot remember more about it off the top of my head. I might say it is the least interesting aside from it supporting 4 ports. PCI-X


Chris I have this card in a QS 867mhz it only works in macosx. Supports sataII
It has a Sil3124ACBHU chip check photos.
If it can be flashed to work in macos9 I would be very happy.

[supernova777]

hey jakl
interesting which brand name is this card? or do u even know?


im trying to find one that uses this same chipset and is mac os 9 compatible
http://tinyurl.com/qybderw this board already has a socket for the bios which means if bios chip size was a problem the chip could be somewhat easily swapped out for an appropriate sized chip if we could find a mac os 9 bootable sil3124 powered card from which to take the firmware

its kind of annoying that these companies cant update their prices
135$ for a card to run 4 hard drives.. i dunno i think this price is about 50$ to steep.. it should be around 80$ to buy such a thing
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Firmtek/SATA1EVE22/

i might aswell just save my time + buy one and stop trying to figure out a way to get 4 ports mac os9 bootable..
apparently there is no other 64bit cards that can do this?

i should just be happy i have my sil3112 based hacked 32bit cards that allow me to dual boot os9 + osx from seperate partitions on the same drive

[supernova777]

the sil3112 cards that i have that work 100% for both mac os X + 9 are these:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/2-Port-Serial-ATA-SATA-to-RAID-PCI-Card-Adapter-SIL3112-/181171525866?pt=US_Drive_Cables_dapters&hash=item2a2eaa18ea

but they've had their bios chips replaced with a "MX" bios chip i think its called "macronix"
the codes on the chip read:

Code: [Select]

"MX" B124115
29LV040CQI-706
3L08550082
TAIWAN
and they've been reflashed with UPDFLASH.EXE with the firmtek firmwares
http://www.firmtek.com/download/
specifically: http://www.firmtek.com/download/SeriTek1S2_513.zip



the only reason being i believe that they have to be 4mbit bios chip to fit the size of the firmware onto the chip, it was theorized that there was some code checking vendor id of the chip itself in the firmware but im not sure if this turned out to be factual or not.

[supernova777]

the vitesse vcs7174 is supposedly the chipset driving the seritek 1v4 card
everything that references the vitesse vcs7174 also references the intel 31244 as if they were both either exact or similar to each other using the same drivers etc

http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/GD31244SL786/856145-ND/666910


we can see here that the visual style of the chip is similar to the sil3124

ive archived teh seritek firmwares here: http://www.macos9lives.com/downloads/public/seritek/

[supernova777]

i just came across this bios "Top hat" socket and im wondering.. if this can be used to save a motherboard with a bad flash can this be used to just stick a bigger flash chip onto the existing one on a 3112 sata card to allow it to be the right size/manufacturer to accept the 1s2 seritek firmware? to save the time + effort of the soldering + swapping of the chip?

[Jakl]

Chris I don't know what chip has but it looks like the card I have
the innards of the card are placed differently but if it is a 3124 chip
maybe flashed it may work - I don't know?

Maybe the sticker on the chip covers the name of the chip.

[max1zzz]

I'll interject with a little bit of experience here (with sil3112 cards)

You won't be able to do it solderlesly (well, you could use the webietech fw but that is osx only afaik) this is as the supported chips run at a different voltage to what all the pc cards use (3.3v vs 5v) there is a jumper on most cards to set it, but it is a small 0ohm resistor. Besides this you'll just confuse the card if it is seeing two differen't flash chips

shrinking the firmware won't help either, as it will still fail the flash id cheacks, if your looking to hacking the firmware look to hack the flash id cheacks to work with a more common chip, there are plenty of cheap 2/4mbit chips avalible (although i guess if you could both hack the flash id cheack and shrink the fw to 1mbit we'd be pretty much set)

If you have access to proper hot air rework equipment it is pretty trivial to swap the chip (or cut the chip off and solder it by hand, i don't do that personally but it should work fine)

[supernova777]

that transistor for changing the voltage is so freaking small ...

theres gotta be away to shrink the firmware. If anyone knew about this stuff.. to remove the osx related stuff would probably put it in the under 64k range i would guess.. at least into the under 128k range..
the ROMFILE.1S2 is found in the flasher.dmg package by browsing inide via "show package contents".. i checked it out and it seems it was written by someone named "kimchi nguyen" and another person i forgert the other name, i wonder what they would code a firmware in... and how one would go about decompiling.. if its possible at all..

would there be any way to simply.. examine the kexts that get installed on X (i wanted to look for them last nite but i forgot where to look for them)
and cross reference the kext files with the rom itself to remove..?
i saw a post by dougg3 saying that the contents of the file used some LZSS compression algorithm?
can this algorithm be used to further reduce a rom file?

what is the language that this firmware is coded in? does this have anything to do with it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Firmware

[supernova777]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Silicon-Image-SataLink-PCI-RAID-SATA-Controller-Card-Sil3112ACTG144-Ser523-Rev-B-/190979296009?pt=US_Computer_Disk_Controllers_RAID_Cards&hash=item2c7740cb09

this card looks interesting in that its 4 ports with the same chipset as the seritek 1s2 cards which are 2 port
but its also 64bit instead of 32bit

would love to have the chance to test to see if it might work in 9 or X in a power mac..
but i dont think im willing to risk the purchase:D

[supernova777]

i found this pdf document about the
http://www.sybausa.com/productInfo.php?iid=523
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124012


http://www.sybausa.com/resource/SY-SA1622-2R/SY-SA1622-2R.pdf
if u look in this pdf file it mentions compatibility with 8.6/9.0

Driver Installation The chapter contains the procedures for installing the Windows* 98,ME,2000,XP,2003 and Vista, Red Hat* Linux7.0,8.0,9.0 and Mac* OS 8.6x,9.1x,9.2x,10.1x,10.2x,10.3x,10.4 operating systems.

so it mentions 8.6 + 9.1 +9.2... but then.. it says:

Macintosh OS 10.2x/10.3x/10.4x support is built into the Macintosh BIOS on the SATA board.

did they just forget to say 8.6/9.x? this is a gamble probably.. but im curious if it would proove to be compatible..i think its safe to say it would work for storage.. but booting?? it might work.. it might not..

http://www.amazon.com/Syba-SY-SA1622-2R-2-Port-SATA-Controller/dp/B002KX4K6K
these are on amazon for 9.99 with 18 left in stock

looking further into this the amazone page lists the chip as: Initio INIC-1622TA2 chipset with 32-bit interlacing
http://www.initio.com/Html/inic-1620.html

Other Features

    Disk RAID 0/1 support (only for inic-1622TA2/1623TA2).
    SATA hot plug/unplug hardware support
    Implements Power Management
    Full driver support for all Major Operating Systems
    BIOS supports for DOS, Windows and MAC OS(only for inic-1623TA2) applications without driver involvement.
    Supports Plug and Play allowing users to change configurations without the use of jumpers

     
can see a 512 on the chip which means this rom chip is very small. 62k size.. which is great if it has firmware that can boot mac os 9....!!! but does it??


its impossible to read these codes on these chips to see if its "inic-1623TA2" or "inic-1622TA2"

[supernova777]

these 32bit cards :http://www.mathey.jp/SerialATA.html
user protocol7 had said these cards are said to be mac os bootable with smaller firmware (64k) which would mean they use a smaller rom chip for storing drivers in flash ram



MSATA-P02MAC

MSATA-02MAC

MSATA-11MAC


if one of us could find . could be tremendously helpful because the biggest reason for problems flashing cards to os9 bootable is that the seritek/sonnet firmware is too large for most chips that are already soldered onto the pcbs.. requiring the chip to be removed + replaced

these cards are discontinued and were mostly sold in the japanese market
if only we could have some japanese speaking users to help find one of these cards
im sure there are some for sale, cheap + used, on japanese sites that i cannot read...

pmc rom chip codes/sizes:
pm39LV512 512Kbit = 62.5Kbyte
pm39LV010 1Mbit = 125Kbyte
pm39LV020 2Mbit = 250Kbyte
PM39LV040 4Mbit = 500Kbyte

if the rom chip on a mac os 9 bootable sata pci card is a PMC chip ending in 010 or 512 then THATS WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR!!! THATS THE KEY to us making very low cost bootable cards for os9!!!
the seritek firmware is too big.. and is stored on a 4Mbit chip.. and it also has extra code in the firmware to verify the card has this 4MBit chip... or else it wont work.. so we cant copy that firmware without using a similar size chip.. which cheap cards dont have. so we need a smaller firmware that works.. a non-seritek firmware that is still mac os 9 bootable.

[supernova777]

Mathey Msata-13UMAC

wondering if theres a similarity between these two cards?
the 'via' chip looks to be a similar size.. althought the layout on the pcb is different


ACARD AEC-6293

[supernova777]

http://www.hptmac.com/categories.php?compatibility=1

i almost forgot this page
select from the left menu .. mac compatible "powermac g4" and u get these 8 cards listed as being compatible:



RocketRAID 1522A
PCI
2 eSATA connectors
Support up to 2 SATA Hard Drives


RocketRaid 1720
PCI
2 internal SATA connectors
Support up to 2 SATA Hard Drives


RocketRAID 1740
PCI
4 internal SATA connectors
Support up to 4 SATA Hard Drives

The RocketRAID 1740 delivers optimized performance and features through the use of HighPoint's industry-leading RAID technology. The RocketRAID 1740 is the latest product in storage technology, leveraging the storage performance in SATA II and supporting the fastest available throughput 300MB/s while supporting enterprise level features such as Native Command Queuing (NCQ), staggered drive spin-up.

RocketRAID 1742
PCI
2 eSATA and 2 internal SATA connectors
Support up to 4 SATA Hard Drives


RocketRAID 2210
PCI-X
4 internal SATA connectors
Support up to 4 SATA Hard Drives

The RocketRAID 2210 delivers optimum performance with speeds of up to 300MB/sec per port and offers advance RAID levels 0,1,5,10 and JBOD and support arrays greater than 2TB. The right choice for your video editing environment.

RocketRAID 2220
PCI-X
8 internal SATA connectors
Support up to 8 SATA Hard Drives

The RocketRAID 2220 delivers optimum performance with speeds of up to 300MB/sec per port and offers advance RAID levels 0,1,5,10 and JBOD and support arrays greater than 2TB. The right choice for your video editing environment.

RocketRAID 2224
PCI-X
1 Infiniband and 4 internal SATA connectors
Support up to 8 SATA Hard Drives

The RocketRAID 2224 is a unique hybrid storage solution with an external Infiniband connector that supports up to 4 devices. (4) internal SATA ports storage can be combined with the external storage to support RAID arrays greater than 2TB.

RocketRAID 2240
PCI-X
4 Infiniband connectors
Support up to 16 SATA Hard Drives

The RocketRAID 2240 is a high performance SATA II RAID controller with up 875MB/s of sustained READ/WRITE transfer rates. The RocketRAID 2240 will support up to up 16TB of storage in a single RAID array.

[supernova777]

these highpoint cards - i wonder which , if any, are mac os 9 bootable..
it would be particularly interesting to have this 1742 card provide port multiplier support aswell as mac os 9 booting
but its most likely these are able to boot X only 

even tho these boxes dont say mac support most of the time they have been listed on the "highpoint mac site" http://www.hptmac.com so they must be compatible
note that they all use marvell i/o chips

i have read that the highpoint ATA controllers worked to boot mac os..
so maybe the same for these?