Boot from PCI IDE controller

I have inherited responsibility for some old testers, that run QNX 4.25. This system boots the file system (/dev/hd0.0) over the Fsys.eide driver. I am wanting to upgrade the PC to something a bit more modern, but on board IDE is harder to come by. I have a PC with a PCI (not PCIe) slot, and I have a PCI IDE controller.

When I plug a drive loaded with my QNX image on it, QNX starts to boot, but fails to mount hd0.0 (no such file or directory).

My question is, is there a driver I can use to boot over PCI instead of using Fsys.eide? Or is there a working SATA driver that would work?

Before I go into your boot problem, there are some bioses what will simulate EIDE with SATA. I haven’t tried this with QNX 4 but it is possible.

Your problem with booting may have to do with a hard coded device name in the boot file. If for example, the driver starts and assigned /dev/hd1.0 to your hard drive, the boot script will fail.

The way to diagnose this is to boot off of a floppy or CD and start the Fsys.eide driver manually to see what it registers. If this is the problem, you will need to reconstitute the boot file correctly.

I believe that there is a QNX 4.25 that you can boot off. I have a lot of experience with QNX 4, and you are welcome to ask questions here or contact me at maschoen@pobox.com.