Sidecart EmuTOS unreliable boot

[danboid]

I'm currently trying to play with MiNT & KGMD etc on my STFM with 4MB RAM, sidecart and UltraSatan. To do this I have to boot EmuTOS via my sidecart.

For the first week or so, I could reliably boot EmuTOS and hence MiNT etc this way. Now its become very unreliable. What I want to see on boot is the EmuTOS logo screen that lets you pick a drive etc but most of the time it either goes straight to the EmuCON prompt or it doesn't load EmuTOS at all and I see the TOS Hard Disk driver screen briefly before it boots GEM.

Its worth noting that I've only ever seen the TOS hard disk drive find my UltraSatan once so maybe its my US that is faulty? It has worked fine with EmuTOS whenever the EmuTOS logo screen actually gets displayed but TOS (GEMDOS?) doesn't seem to like it.

What is the main cause of EmuTOS dumping you straight to EmuCON? Is there a command to get to the EmuTOS bootloader screen from EmuCON?

Is there anything I can try that might make booting EmuTOS more reliable via the sidecart? I'd rather not replace my TOS roms with EmuTOS, I'd prefer to boot it from the sidecart.

[DoG]

Clean the cartridge port with isopropanol and the sidecart as well. What driver do you use on the UltraSatan?

[danboid]

No driver. EmuTOS git has an ACSI driver built in.

[BlankVector]

What I want to see on boot is the EmuTOS logo screen that lets you pick a drive etc

Me too.

but most of the time it either goes straight to the EmuCON prompt

It's not a bug, it's a feature. Basically:
- on cold boot, EmuTOS shows its welcome screen with handy boot drive selector
- on reset, the welcome screen is bypassed, and EmuTOS boots straight to the default application (EmuCON)

Solution is to reset using Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Del to simulate a cold boot. Then you will see the EmuTOS welcome screen every time.

[danboid]

Solution is to reset using Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Del to simulate a cold boot. Then you will see the EmuTOS welcome screen every time.

This key combo doesn't work under KGMD.

[DoG]

Well, if you don't have a driver, US won't work under TOS. EmuTOS will however work as pointed out since it got it's own driver.

[danboid]

Well, if you don't have a driver, US won't work under TOS. EmuTOS will however work as pointed out since it got it's own driver.

Yep, and my first post stated I'm only talking about MiNT here.

It seems to boot pretty reliably after I've powered my ST for an hour or so. The more I reboot and the longer its been on for, the less likely EmuTOS is to work it seems.

My PSU has been recapped which should help a bit but something else is going awry clearly.

[Steve]

You'd probably be better off getting a duel-tos switcher installed in your machine (proper, in ROM) to avoid these kinds of problems. Then write TOS and EmuTOS to it.

[BlankVector]

This key combo doesn't work under KGMD.

Apologies, I forgot one thing. This only works with the Right-Shift key.
So the actual key combo to perform a cold reset is : Ctrl+Alt+RightShift+Del