I have a Compaq Presario 5185 and it _almost_ works.
The HD from my erst-while working computer had 4 partitions: DOS FAT16
(with Win98SE), extended (DOS partitions E: and F, DOS FAT16, and NTFS
(Win2K).
Worked fine before the move which appears to have destroyed the
motherboard.

Booting with PCDOS 7 floppy, FDISK does not recognize D: system type
and will not show E: or F:.
Booting with MSDOS 6.22 floppy, FDISK recognizes D: system type
(FAT16) but will not show E: or F:.
Both fail to do a DIR D: (invalid drive).
*BUT*
That hard drive works perfectly OK in another computer!

Any idea as to how this can be fixed (for the Presario)?

On Fri, 02 Dec 2011 22:32:25 -0800, Robert Baer wrote:

I have a Compaq Presario 5185 and it _almost_ works.
The HD from my erst-while working computer had 4 partitions: DOS FAT16
(with Win98SE), extended (DOS partitions E: and F, DOS FAT16, and NTFS
(Win2K).
Worked fine before the move which appears to have destroyed the
motherboard.

Booting with PCDOS 7 floppy, FDISK does not recognize D: system type
and will not show E: or F:.
Booting with MSDOS 6.22 floppy, FDISK recognizes D: system type
(FAT16) but will not show E: or F:.
Both fail to do a DIR D: (invalid drive). *BUT*
That hard drive works perfectly OK in another computer!

Any idea as to how this can be fixed (for the Presario)?

If the drive cannot be used to boot, I would inspect the drive in
another computer, checking the finer details of config.sys and
autoexec.bat) in the bootable partition.
You may find specific drivers or actions that are likely not present
on a generic boot floppy (eg. disk compression).
Then you could customize such boot floppy and pray.
Steer clear of any lethal action, such as "fdisk /MBR" ;-)

Cheers!

Hi Robert,

Robert Baer Inscribed thus:

I have a Compaq Presario 5185 and it _almost_ works.
The HD from my erst-while working computer had 4 partitions: DOS
FAT16 (with Win98SE), extended (DOS partitions E: and F, DOS
FAT16, and NTFS (Win2K).
Worked fine before the move which appears to have destroyed the
motherboard.

How on earth have you come to that conclusion

Booting with PCDOS 7 floppy, FDISK does not recognize D: system type
and will not show E: or F:.

Fdisk issue !

Booting with MSDOS 6.22 floppy, FDISK recognizes D: system type
(FAT16) but will not show E: or F:.

There was an update to MS Dos 6+ if I recall, something to do with with
not recognising FAT16 containers. In addition MSDOS 6+ doesn't
understand NTFS.

Both fail to do a DIR D: (invalid drive).
*BUT*
That hard drive works perfectly OK in another computer!

Any idea as to how this can be fixed (for the Presario)?


It might be worth checking the bios HDD size value. Some bios don't
recognise HDD above 137Mb. Also some versions of Fdisk won't see NTFS
or partitions written to by W2K,XP,Vista etc.

--
Best Regards:
Baron.

c4urs11 wrote:
On Fri, 02 Dec 2011 22:32:25 -0800, Robert Baer wrote:

I have a Compaq Presario 5185 and it _almost_ works.
The HD from my erst-while working computer had 4 partitions: DOS FAT16
(with Win98SE), extended (DOS partitions E: and F, DOS FAT16, and NTFS
(Win2K).
Worked fine before the move which appears to have destroyed the
motherboard.

Booting with PCDOS 7 floppy, FDISK does not recognize D: system type
and will not show E: or F:.
Booting with MSDOS 6.22 floppy, FDISK recognizes D: system type
(FAT16) but will not show E: or F:.
Both fail to do a DIR D: (invalid drive). *BUT*
That hard drive works perfectly OK in another computer!

Any idea as to how this can be fixed (for the Presario)?

If the drive cannot be used to boot, I would inspect the drive in
another computer, checking the finer details of config.sys and
autoexec.bat) in the bootable partition.
You may find specific drivers or actions that are likely not present
on a generic boot floppy (eg. disk compression).
Then you could customize such boot floppy and pray.
Steer clear of any lethal action, such as "fdisk /MBR" ;-)

Cheers!
The HD boots, but ONLY the first partition / drive is usable with the
Presario; ANY other computer _all_ four partitions are usable.
Using a floppy to boot and then try the HD shows the same problem.

Baron wrote:
Hi Robert,

Robert Baer Inscribed thus:

I have a Compaq Presario 5185 and it _almost_ works.
The HD from my erst-while working computer had 4 partitions: DOS
FAT16 (with Win98SE), extended (DOS partitions E: and F, DOS
FAT16, and NTFS (Win2K).
Worked fine before the move which appears to have destroyed the
motherboard.

How on earth have you come to that conclusion
* Simple; NOTHING happens; no video, no beeps, zilch.
Seen this before so i know of which i speak.


Booting with PCDOS 7 floppy, FDISK does not recognize D: system type
and will not show E: or F:.

Fdisk issue !
* Read further concerning what FDISK shows, Presario VS any other computer.


Booting with MSDOS 6.22 floppy, FDISK recognizes D: system type
(FAT16) but will not show E: or F:.

There was an update to MS Dos 6+ if I recall, something to do with with
not recognising FAT16 containers. In addition MSDOS 6+ doesn't
understand NTFS.
* Maybe, but MSDOS6.22 _and_ PCDOS7 both recognize the existence of an
HPFS partition.


Both fail to do a DIR D: (invalid drive).
*BUT*
That hard drive works perfectly OK in another computer!

Any idea as to how this can be fixed (for the Presario)?


It might be worth checking the bios HDD size value. Some bios don't
recognise HDD above 137Mb. Also some versions of Fdisk won't see NTFS
or partitions written to by W2K,XP,Vista etc.

* See previous response.
BTW, i got ****ed at this and started with a scratch (30GB) HD,
formatted, FDISK with _only_ one partition, copied relevant
subdirectories from previous good (working) HD, hacked Config.sys and
Autoexec.bat to conform, and i am now in business.
That 30G HD is larger than the original 20G HD..

Still, how to fix the Presario so it will recognize other partitions?

flipper wrote:
On Fri, 02 Dec 2011 22:32:25 -0800, Robert Baer
wrote:

I have a Compaq Presario 5185 and it _almost_ works.
The HD from my erst-while working computer had 4 partitions: DOS FAT16
(with Win98SE), extended (DOS partitions E: and F, DOS FAT16, and NTFS
(Win2K).
Worked fine before the move which appears to have destroyed the
motherboard.

Booting with PCDOS 7 floppy, FDISK does not recognize D: system type
and will not show E: or F:.
Booting with MSDOS 6.22 floppy, FDISK recognizes D: system type
(FAT16) but will not show E: or F:.
Both fail to do a DIR D: (invalid drive).
*BUT*
That hard drive works perfectly OK in another computer!

Any idea as to how this can be fixed (for the Presario)?

While it's possible, if things were banged around hard enough, a bad
motherboard would be my last guess. Two likely things a move might do
is 1. loosen cables and/or cards and 2. with a computer that old the
CMOS battery might be weak/dead, which could cause it to loose BIOS
settings.

Since you've obviously been inside I'm guessing you probably checked
cable and card seating so BIOS settings is my bet.

Check BIOS to make sure it detected the drive correctly and then see
if it has an option for LBA vs LARGE (and I think there was a third
but I forget what). If those are different than what it was FDISK with
then it'll scramble the cylinder/head geometry and the partitions
won't look right, which sounds a lot like your symptom.

Compaq often did things 'their way' so those settings might be called
something different, like "IDE Translation = Enable/Disable" or some
such thing.

A weak battery can also scramble 'hidden' things in CMOS so try
pulling the battery and resetting CMOS if a settings check doesn't
resolve the problem.

On old non-working computer, nothing happens; pulling the video board
did not result in the typical "no video" beep "message".
Both computers have decent battery voltage, and all connections (both
computers) were OK.
Yes; there was something like IDE Translation but that made ZERO
difference.
A HD with only one partition works.

flipper wrote:
On Sat, 03 Dec 2011 21:56:47 -0800, Robert Baer
wrote:

flipper wrote:
On Fri, 02 Dec 2011 22:32:25 -0800, Robert Baer
wrote:

I have a Compaq Presario 5185 and it _almost_ works.
The HD from my erst-while working computer had 4 partitions: DOS FAT16
(with Win98SE), extended (DOS partitions E: and F, DOS FAT16, and NTFS
(Win2K).
Worked fine before the move which appears to have destroyed the
motherboard.

Booting with PCDOS 7 floppy, FDISK does not recognize D: system type
and will not show E: or F:.
Booting with MSDOS 6.22 floppy, FDISK recognizes D: system type
(FAT16) but will not show E: or F:.
Both fail to do a DIR D: (invalid drive).
*BUT*
That hard drive works perfectly OK in another computer!

Any idea as to how this can be fixed (for the Presario)?
While it's possible, if things were banged around hard enough, a bad
motherboard would be my last guess. Two likely things a move might do
is 1. loosen cables and/or cards and 2. with a computer that old the
CMOS battery might be weak/dead, which could cause it to loose BIOS
settings.

Since you've obviously been inside I'm guessing you probably checked
cable and card seating so BIOS settings is my bet.

Check BIOS to make sure it detected the drive correctly and then see
if it has an option for LBA vs LARGE (and I think there was a third
but I forget what). If those are different than what it was FDISK with
then it'll scramble the cylinder/head geometry and the partitions
won't look right, which sounds a lot like your symptom.

Compaq often did things 'their way' so those settings might be called
something different, like "IDE Translation = Enable/Disable" or some
such thing.

A weak battery can also scramble 'hidden' things in CMOS so try
pulling the battery and resetting CMOS if a settings check doesn't
resolve the problem.

On old non-working computer, nothing happens; pulling the video board
did not result in the typical "no video" beep "message".
Both computers have decent battery voltage, and all connections (both
computers) were OK.
Yes; there was something like IDE Translation but that made ZERO
difference.
A HD with only one partition works.

I have difficulty decoding your symptoms of "nothing happens" yet one
partition works. Anyway, presuming you mean a disk with one partition
does work on the 'non working' computer, that still indicates a BIOS
configuration problem because partitions are simply data written to a
partition table on the disk so if the IDE controller were bad the 'one
partition' disk wouldn't work properly either.
* Allow me to clarify: the old, dead computer does nothing but draw
power, typical "pull video board, floppy and HD for error beep code
test" results in NO beeps.
The Presario when booted from a DOS floppy shows only the OS in
partition #1, FDISK display differs slightly PCDOS7 vs MSDOS6.33.
Nvermind the installed HD may have more than one partition with data
and *work correctly* on any other computer.


What I mean is, the IDE controller either read/writes data or it
doesn't. And if it does, which the 'working disk' indicates, then it's
a matter of where it's being told to read/write the data. And that
would be either a mismatched BIOS setting or the disk itself
corrupted.
* The HD is obviously NOT corrupted in any way,provable by moving it to
another computer and seeing it work and seeing all the other partitions
work.


Actually, you may not know whether the 'one partition' disk is working
properly or not until you try using the whole thing. Maybe only the
first 5 gig, or whatever, is 'working' (if BIOS is mistranslating the
head/cylinders).


* Should i try a bootable extended primary partition then to test this
hypothesis?
How big can such a partition be?

flipper wrote:
On Sun, 04 Dec 2011 20:08:04 -0800, Robert Baer
wrote:

flipper wrote:
On Sat, 03 Dec 2011 21:56:47 -0800, Robert Baer
wrote:

flipper wrote:
On Fri, 02 Dec 2011 22:32:25 -0800, Robert Baer
wrote:

I have a Compaq Presario 5185 and it _almost_ works.
The HD from my erst-while working computer had 4 partitions: DOS FAT16
(with Win98SE), extended (DOS partitions E: and F, DOS FAT16, and NTFS
(Win2K).
Worked fine before the move which appears to have destroyed the
motherboard.

Booting with PCDOS 7 floppy, FDISK does not recognize D: system type
and will not show E: or F:.
Booting with MSDOS 6.22 floppy, FDISK recognizes D: system type
(FAT16) but will not show E: or F:.
Both fail to do a DIR D: (invalid drive).
*BUT*
That hard drive works perfectly OK in another computer!

Any idea as to how this can be fixed (for the Presario)?
While it's possible, if things were banged around hard enough, a bad
motherboard would be my last guess. Two likely things a move might do
is 1. loosen cables and/or cards and 2. with a computer that old the
CMOS battery might be weak/dead, which could cause it to loose BIOS
settings.

Since you've obviously been inside I'm guessing you probably checked
cable and card seating so BIOS settings is my bet.

Check BIOS to make sure it detected the drive correctly and then see
if it has an option for LBA vs LARGE (and I think there was a third
but I forget what). If those are different than what it was FDISK with
then it'll scramble the cylinder/head geometry and the partitions
won't look right, which sounds a lot like your symptom.

Compaq often did things 'their way' so those settings might be called
something different, like "IDE Translation = Enable/Disable" or some
such thing.

A weak battery can also scramble 'hidden' things in CMOS so try
pulling the battery and resetting CMOS if a settings check doesn't
resolve the problem.

On old non-working computer, nothing happens; pulling the video board
did not result in the typical "no video" beep "message".
Both computers have decent battery voltage, and all connections (both
computers) were OK.
Yes; there was something like IDE Translation but that made ZERO
difference.
A HD with only one partition works.
I have difficulty decoding your symptoms of "nothing happens" yet one
partition works. Anyway, presuming you mean a disk with one partition
does work on the 'non working' computer, that still indicates a BIOS
configuration problem because partitions are simply data written to a
partition table on the disk so if the IDE controller were bad the 'one
partition' disk wouldn't work properly either.

* Allow me to clarify: the old, dead computer does nothing but draw
power, typical "pull video board, floppy and HD for error beep code
test" results in NO beeps.
The Presario when booted from a DOS floppy shows only the OS in
partition #1, FDISK display differs slightly PCDOS7 vs MSDOS6.33.
Nvermind the installed HD may have more than one partition with data
and *work correctly* on any other computer.

Are you saying the 'old dead' computer is not the Presario? And that
what you've done is pull the hard drive from the 'old dead' computer
and out it *in* the Presario, which won't read it properly?
* Check; old dead computer was a scratch built using a Gigabyte GA-AA
motherboard (2 ISA slots; used one for programmable A/D and DIO).
The Presario refuses to correctly read ANY HD that has more than one
partition.


If that's the case it sounds like the Presario just doesn't like the
fdisk done on that hard drive. Could be it's BIOS can't do the same
translation, or you have to swap translation options.


What I mean is, the IDE controller either read/writes data or it
doesn't. And if it does, which the 'working disk' indicates, then it's
a matter of where it's being told to read/write the data. And that
would be either a mismatched BIOS setting or the disk itself
corrupted.
* The HD is obviously NOT corrupted in any way,provable by moving it to
another computer and seeing it work and seeing all the other partitions
work.

Actually, you may not know whether the 'one partition' disk is working
properly or not until you try using the whole thing. Maybe only the
first 5 gig, or whatever, is 'working' (if BIOS is mistranslating the
head/cylinders).

* Should i try a bootable extended primary partition then to test this
hypothesis?
How big can such a partition be?

If you fdisk'd it on the Presario then it's ok. I didn't understand
which computer was which.
The "new" HD was wiped, Fdisked, formatted and folders put on it via
a totally different computer and the result works fine (ONE partition,
all needed programs etc on "drive C:". on all computers.
Exception..cannot test the home-made programs (on non-Presario
computers) that are for the A/D board as only computers that have an ISA
slot (Presario only one for the nonce) allows that.
**
So, i ask again, can a large (greater than 2Gbyte) Primary bootable
partition be made (say via Partition Magic) to test your hypothesis?

flipper wrote:
On Mon, 05 Dec 2011 21:51:17 -0800, Robert Baer
wrote:

flipper wrote:
On Sun, 04 Dec 2011 20:08:04 -0800, Robert Baer
wrote:

* Allow me to clarify: the old, dead computer does nothing but draw
power, typical "pull video board, floppy and HD for error beep code
test" results in NO beeps.
The Presario when booted from a DOS floppy shows only the OS in
partition #1, FDISK display differs slightly PCDOS7 vs MSDOS6.33.
Nvermind the installed HD may have more than one partition with data
and *work correctly* on any other computer.
Are you saying the 'old dead' computer is not the Presario? And that
what you've done is pull the hard drive from the 'old dead' computer
and out it *in* the Presario, which won't read it properly?
* Check; old dead computer was a scratch built using a Gigabyte GA-AA
motherboard (2 ISA slots; used one for programmable A/D and DIO).
The Presario refuses to correctly read ANY HD that has more than one
partition.

Okay. I was confused before but I think I've got it now.

If that's the case it sounds like the Presario just doesn't like the
fdisk done on that hard drive. Could be it's BIOS can't do the same
translation, or you have to swap translation options.


If you fdisk'd it on the Presario then it's ok. I didn't understand
which computer was which.
The "new" HD was wiped, Fdisked, formatted and folders put on it via
a totally different computer

Why are you using a different computer to fdisk the hard drive? Just
convenience so you can then copy things over?
* Yes; used the "source" computer to build the newer HD and copy the
folders from the "old" HD; those folders were scattered over a number of
drives (old C, D, E and F).


and the result works fine (ONE partition,
all needed programs etc on "drive C:". on all computers.
Exception..cannot test the home-made programs (on non-Presario
computers) that are for the A/D board as only computers that have an ISA
slot (Presario only one for the nonce) allows that.
**
So, i ask again, can a large (greater than 2Gbyte) Primary bootable
partition be made (say via Partition Magic) to test your hypothesis?

Well, first, my hypothesis was based on a faulty premise so I need to
start over.

I did check and, unfortunately, HP has *zero* information on that
Compaq Presario 5185. I *was* able to find a service manual, though.

http://www.dectrader.com/docs/set5/c00000832.pdf

Now, for a real joke, once I saw the picture I realized I've *got
one*! LOL. Well, close. I have a 5100C. I had forgotten about it
because the plan had been to give it to a friend but she decided they
didn't have room for it.

Anyway, I've got an old Quantum 12Gig bigfoot in there and that
indicates it doesn't have the 8 gig limit, so I'd think your drives
'should' work. At least as one partition, which is what mine is. That
service manual also refers to 'standard' drive options up to 19Gig,
with a Quantum anyway.

Btw, as a side note, when you get it running don't install any Flash
version past 8.42 as that's the last one that works without SSE, which
the K6-2 processor doesn't have.

As for your problem, it might be using the extended partition but you
can have 4 primaries so try that. For test purposes I'd make 4 FAT32
partitions so your Win98 can see them and verify they all show up as
drives. Then, if that works, you can redo it with the format types
needed for the various OS.

Okay, something else. I just tried putting a spare (blank) 40Gig
Maxtor in it, to see if it would at least properly detect the drive
size, and got a disturbing result. I presume your BIOS works like mine
does and 'autodetects' the configuration. I.E. If a drive is
added/removed you get a 'configuration update' text notice, shortly
after the Compaq Logo screen, listing what drives are 'configured. It
holds there for a few seconds, so you can read it, and then reboots
with the new, now saved, configuration.
* Yes, if one changes the HDs, i get that update notice but there seems
to be no reboot..it just merrily continues with the new configuration.


Now for the 'problem'. I simply swapped cables over from the Quantum
to the Maxtor and got NO configuration update message. So I don't know
if it detected the new, different, drive and just, for some strange
reason, didn't mention it or if it simply saw 'a hard drive' and
presumed it was the same as previously configured.

I then removed the drive and booted. Got an 'updated configuration'
with no hard drive. Re-installed Maxtor and got an 'updated
configuration' with the 40Gig properly detected. Which, again,
indicates your drives should work.

As I said, though, I don't really know what it did on the 'no
configuration change' boot (and the stupid BIOS doesn't say what it
thinks the hard drive is, or even if there is one) but if it's
presuming a hard drive is whatever the last thing it configured was
then that could be your whole problem if you've never booted it sans a
hard drive. I.E. If it's presuming the 'new' ones you're putting in
are the same as whatever it once had, which would not be the right
configuration, then it isn't going to work right.
* Oh, i did try removing (any given HD),booting, seeing message, then
installing (any given HD) and the new HD was recognized, but the
verdammt multi-partition business always gave the same problems.


Doesn't seem likely to me but, then, Compaq often did weird things in
their BIOS (like not even bothering to tell you if ANY hard drive is
installed, let alone what kind). Regardless, it wouldn't hurt to do a
'no drive' boot cycle and then a 'with drive' boot cycle just to make
sure it's detected right. It would remove the doubt, no matter how
unlikely.
* Thanks for the idea; see above.