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486 problem
I just installed a 486 board that someone gave me to replace a failed
386 into an old machine. There are programs on this machine that we still use. The 486 board has Phoenix bios. Initially the setup option, (F2) came up during post and allowed me to get into the bios to set the drives up and the date. I did that and exited saving the information. My 386 machine used an MFM controller board and I plugged it into the new 486. The 486 however has an on board IDE controller which it now occurs eto me perhaps should have been disabled. So now when I try to boot it counts the ram and displays a cache message but I get this message that reads : "last boot failed, use default configuration". I assume that the default configuration is part of bios but the problem is that the F2 option on startup is now gone and I can't seem to get back into bios. I tried disconnecting the battery and shorting across the ternminals on the board, and even pulling the bios chip and shorting all the pins on a pad of aluminum foil thinking that this may dump the memory, but nothing will get me back. Does anyone know of a way to get back into bios after the option no longer presents itself. Thanks very much for any assistance, Lenny Stein, Barlen Electronics. |
486 problem
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486 problem
schreef in bericht oups.com... I just installed a 486 board that someone gave me to replace a failed 386 into an old machine. There are programs on this machine that we still use. The 486 board has Phoenix bios. Initially the setup option, (F2) came up during post and allowed me to get into the bios to set the drives up and the date. I did that and exited saving the information. My 386 machine used an MFM controller board and I plugged it into the new 486. The 486 however has an on board IDE controller which it now occurs eto me perhaps should have been disabled. So now when I try to boot it counts the ram and displays a cache message but I get this message that reads : "last boot failed, use default configuration". I assume that the default configuration is part of bios but the problem is that the F2 option on startup is now gone and I can't seem to get back into bios. I tried disconnecting the battery and shorting across the ternminals on the board, and even pulling the bios chip and shorting all the pins on a pad of aluminum foil thinking that this may dump the memory, but nothing will get me back. Does anyone know of a way to get back into bios after the option no longer presents itself. Thanks very much for any assistance, Lenny Stein, Barlen Electronics. Best thing should be the manual of the 486 board. Ever saw a German site with lots of manuals of old boards. Without manual you can at least strip the board to the minimum. Remove all boards (especially the MFM controller but all others as well) so you have only the video and the keyboard left. You should be able to enter the BIOS setup now. Depending on the board you may be able to disable the IDE-controller(s) in the BIOS. Some of the old boards used straps for it, on others you cannot disable the controller at all. That's a real problem as both controllers (IDE and MFM) use the same addresses (most of the times) so you cannot have both enabled. Some controllers has straps to set alternate addresses but most of them do not have these features. Once on air, you can build up the machine again. petrus bitbyter |
486 problem
" wrote: and even pulling the bios chip and shorting all the pins on a pad of aluminum foil thinking that this may dump the memory No it doesn't. Graham |
486 problem
possibly the bios has reset and the "display F2" setting changed causing
it not to appear but the function is still there...push F2 at the right time...or is it Delete??? i may have parts you are welcome to for the shipping if you need anything |
486 problem
wrote in message oups.com... I just installed a 486 board that someone gave me to replace a failed 386 into an old machine. There are programs on this machine that we still use. The 486 board has Phoenix bios. Initially the setup option, (F2) came up during post and allowed me to get into the bios to set the drives up and the date. I did that and exited saving the information. My 386 machine used an MFM controller board and I plugged it into the new 486. The 486 however has an on board IDE controller which it now occurs eto me perhaps should have been disabled. So now when I try to boot it counts the ram and displays a cache message but I get this message that reads : "last boot failed, use default configuration". I assume that the default configuration is part of bios but the problem is that the F2 option on startup is now gone and I can't seem to get back into bios. Just keep quickly hitting F2 while it does its POST, it may get you into the BIOS. I tried disconnecting the battery and shorting across the ternminals on the board, and even pulling the bios chip and shorting all the pins on a pad of aluminum foil thinking that this may dump the memory, The CMOS settings are not generally stored in the BIOS chip. but nothing will get me back. Does anyone know of a way to get back into bios after the option no longer presents itself. Thanks very much for any assistance, Lenny Stein, Barlen Electronics. If hitting F2 repeatedly does not work, disconnect the battery and leave overnight as Andy Cuffe suggested. Morse |
486 problem
Morse wrote:
wrote in message oups.com... I just installed a 486 board that someone gave me to replace a failed 386 into an old machine. There are programs on this machine that we still use. The 486 board has Phoenix bios. Initially the setup option, (F2) came up during post and allowed me to get into the bios to set the drives up and the date. I did that and exited saving the information. My 386 machine used an MFM controller board and I plugged it into the new 486. The 486 however has an on board IDE controller which it now occurs eto me perhaps should have been disabled. So now when I try to boot it counts the ram and displays a cache message but I get this message that reads : "last boot failed, use default configuration". I assume that the default configuration is part of bios but the problem is that the F2 option on startup is now gone and I can't seem to get back into bios. Just keep quickly hitting F2 while it does its POST, it may get you into the BIOS. I tried disconnecting the battery and shorting across the ternminals on the board, and even pulling the bios chip and shorting all the pins on a pad of aluminum foil thinking that this may dump the memory, The CMOS settings are not generally stored in the BIOS chip. but nothing will get me back. Does anyone know of a way to get back into bios after the option no longer presents itself. Thanks very much for any assistance, Lenny Stein, Barlen Electronics. If hitting F2 repeatedly does not work, disconnect the battery and leave overnight as Andy Cuffe suggested. Morse One trick I used to use on obstinate 386es and 486es to get into the CMOS was to insert a 3.5' floppy jacket with no disk inside it! Take a scrap disk, remove the shutter and spring, split the edge you see when its in the drive with a knife and pull out the disk from the jacket. It used to work *most* of the time and usually saved opening the case. Worth a try. You *MUST* disable the onboard IDE if you want to run a standard MFM controller but its possible you wont be able to run the MFM controller on a board with onboard IDE as the BIOS may be expecting a more advanced controller. You may well need to find a board *without* onboard drive controllers. Its als possible it needs to time-out on the IDE controller before you'll get the press F2 message. I remember one machine that would take over 5 minutes to decide it *really* couldn't boot and give me a F1 to continue, F2 to setup message. Once you get it going, I strongly reccomend transferring the programs to a newer technology drive. If they are DOS version dependent, dont forget to make a boot flopy and copy the SYS, FDISK, ATTRIB, EDLIN and FORMAT commands onto it as well. -- Ian Malcolm. London, ENGLAND. (NEWSGROUP REPLY PREFERRED) ianm[at]the[dash]malcolms[dot]freeserve[dot]co[dot]uk [at]=@, [dash]=- & [dot]=. *Warning* SPAM TRAP set in header, Use email address in sig. if you must. |
486 problem
On 1 Feb 2007 14:58:45 -0800, "
put finger to keyboard and composed: I just installed a 486 board that someone gave me to replace a failed 386 into an old machine. There are programs on this machine that we still use. The 486 board has Phoenix bios. Initially the setup option, (F2) ... I thought Ctrl-S or Ctrl-Alt-Esc were the appropriate keys. ... came up during post and allowed me to get into the bios to set the drives up and the date. I did that and exited saving the information. My 386 machine used an MFM controller board and I plugged it into the new 486. The 486 however has an on board IDE controller which it now occurs eto me perhaps should have been disabled. So now when I try to boot it counts the ram and displays a cache message but I get this message that reads : "last boot failed, use default configuration". I assume that the default configuration is part of bios but the problem is that the F2 option on startup is now gone and I can't seem to get back into bios. I tried disconnecting the battery and shorting across the ternminals on the board, and even pulling the bios chip and shorting all the pins on a pad of aluminum foil thinking that this may dump the memory, ... The *nonvolatile* BIOS chip is either an EPROM or flash EEPROM. The *volatile* CMOS RAM is probably in the chipset or in an RTC chip. The latter is battery backed, the former is not. ... but nothing will get me back. Does anyone know of a way to get back into bios after the option no longer presents itself. Thanks very much for any assistance, Lenny Stein, Barlen Electronics. Boot from a floppy, and then trash the CMOS RAM contents using DOS debug.exe, as described he http://groups.google.com/group/aus.e...dc603565850034 - Franc Zabkar -- Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email. |
486 problem
Hi!
'Del' (the Key below 'Insert'), or pressing F10 should do the trick. Immediately after reset or turn-on. F2 appears AFAIK, only when the BIOS CMOS Values (BIOS settings) are dumped, e.g. due to a empty battery, or changed hardware settings. At least with Compaq IBM-PC's and Laptop POST-Messages (POST = First Start, Initialize). Best Regards, Daniel Mandic |
486 problem
" wrote:
I just installed a 486 board that someone gave me to replace a failed 386 into an old machine. There are programs on this machine that we still use. The 486 board has Phoenix bios. Initially the setup option, (F2) came up during post and allowed me to get into the bios to set the drives up and the date. I did that and exited saving the information. My 386 machine used an MFM controller board and I plugged it into the new 486. The 486 however has an on board IDE controller which it now occurs eto me perhaps should have been disabled. So now when I try to boot it counts the ram and displays a cache message but I get this message that reads : "last boot failed, use default configuration". I assume that the default configuration is part of bios but the problem is that the F2 option on startup is now gone and I can't seem to get back into bios. I tried disconnecting the battery and shorting across the ternminals on the board, and even pulling the bios chip and shorting all the pins on a pad of aluminum foil thinking that this may dump the memory, but nothing will get me back. Does anyone know of a way to get back into bios after the option no longer presents itself. Thanks very much for any assistance, Lenny Stein, Barlen Electronics. Lenny, most of the 486 motherboards I've worked with were too fast to support the MFM drive controllers. Some 386 boards were flaky, or didn't work at all when they were new. The 16 bit MFM controllers were made for 286 computers, and IDE was introduced before the 386 became popular. -- Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to prove it. Member of DAV #85. Michael A. Terrell Central Florida |
486 problem
Meat Plow wrote:
On Wed, 07 Feb 2007 15:25:18 +0000, Michael A. Terrell Has Frothed: " wrote: I just installed a 486 board that someone gave me to replace a failed 386 into an old machine. There are programs on this machine that we still use. The 486 board has Phoenix bios. Initially the setup option, (F2) came up during post and allowed me to get into the bios to set the drives up and the date. I did that and exited saving the information. My 386 machine used an MFM controller board and I plugged it into the new 486. The 486 however has an on board IDE controller which it now occurs eto me perhaps should have been disabled. So now when I try to boot it counts the ram and displays a cache message but I get this message that reads : "last boot failed, use default configuration". I assume that the default configuration is part of bios but the problem is that the F2 option on startup is now gone and I can't seem to get back into bios. I tried disconnecting the battery and shorting across the ternminals on the board, and even pulling the bios chip and shorting all the pins on a pad of aluminum foil thinking that this may dump the memory, but nothing will get me back. Does anyone know of a way to get back into bios after the option no longer presents itself. Thanks very much for any assistance, Lenny Stein, Barlen Electronics. Lenny, most of the 486 motherboards I've worked with were too fast to support the MFM drive controllers. Some 386 boards were flaky, or didn't work at all when they were new. The 16 bit MFM controllers were made for 286 computers, and IDE was introduced before the 386 became popular. IIRC you are correct. BTW MFM is stil the recording method for floppies. It was the most popular method, but there were a few other floppy data formats over the years. As a side note, IDE drives are RLL format, with a built in controller. The IDE port is a simple interface to connect the controller to the computer's various busses. -- Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to prove it. Member of DAV #85. Michael A. Terrell Central Florida |
486 problem
"Michael A. Terrell" wrote: Meat Plow wrote: On Wed, 07 Feb 2007 15:25:18 +0000, Michael A. Terrell Has Frothed: " wrote: I just installed a 486 board that someone gave me to replace a failed 386 into an old machine. There are programs on this machine that we still use. The 486 board has Phoenix bios. Initially the setup option, (F2) came up during post and allowed me to get into the bios to set the drives up and the date. I did that and exited saving the information. My 386 machine used an MFM controller board and I plugged it into the new 486. The 486 however has an on board IDE controller which it now occurs eto me perhaps should have been disabled. So now when I try to boot it counts the ram and displays a cache message but I get this message that reads : "last boot failed, use default configuration". I assume that the default configuration is part of bios but the problem is that the F2 option on startup is now gone and I can't seem to get back into bios. I tried disconnecting the battery and shorting across the ternminals on the board, and even pulling the bios chip and shorting all the pins on a pad of aluminum foil thinking that this may dump the memory, but nothing will get me back. Does anyone know of a way to get back into bios after the option no longer presents itself. Thanks very much for any assistance, Lenny Stein, Barlen Electronics. Lenny, most of the 486 motherboards I've worked with were too fast to support the MFM drive controllers. Some 386 boards were flaky, or didn't work at all when they were new. The 16 bit MFM controllers were made for 286 computers, and IDE was introduced before the 386 became popular. IIRC you are correct. BTW MFM is stil the recording method for floppies. It was the most popular method, but there were a few other floppy data formats over the years. As a side note, IDE drives are RLL format Run length limited compression. I recall when the 32 MB HDs came out. That was the first HD I bought on an AT expansion card in fact. Probably the first 3 1/2" drives too. They were actually 20MB MFM drives with an RLL controller. The MFM is just modified frequency modulation IIRC - unrelated to the RLL, so they were MFM RLL drives. , with a built in controller. The IDE port is a simple interface to connect the controller to the computer's various busses. The physical IDE connection wasn't much more than an AT bus expansion connector in the early days AIUI. Graham |
486 problem
Meat Plow wrote: On Thu, 08 Feb 2007 16:11:12 +0000, Michael A. Terrell Has Frothed: Meat Plow wrote: On Wed, 07 Feb 2007 15:25:18 +0000, Michael A. Terrell Has Frothed: " wrote: I just installed a 486 board that someone gave me to replace a failed 386 into an old machine. There are programs on this machine that we still use. The 486 board has Phoenix bios. Initially the setup option, (F2) came up during post and allowed me to get into the bios to set the drives up and the date. I did that and exited saving the information. My 386 machine used an MFM controller board and I plugged it into the new 486. The 486 however has an on board IDE controller which it now occurs eto me perhaps should have been disabled. So now when I try to boot it counts the ram and displays a cache message but I get this message that reads : "last boot failed, use default configuration". I assume that the default configuration is part of bios but the problem is that the F2 option on startup is now gone and I can't seem to get back into bios. I tried disconnecting the battery and shorting across the ternminals on the board, and even pulling the bios chip and shorting all the pins on a pad of aluminum foil thinking that this may dump the memory, but nothing will get me back. Does anyone know of a way to get back into bios after the option no longer presents itself. Thanks very much for any assistance, Lenny Stein, Barlen Electronics. Lenny, most of the 486 motherboards I've worked with were too fast to support the MFM drive controllers. Some 386 boards were flaky, or didn't work at all when they were new. The 16 bit MFM controllers were made for 286 computers, and IDE was introduced before the 386 became popular. IIRC you are correct. BTW MFM is stil the recording method for floppies. It was the most popular method, but there were a few other floppy data formats over the years. As a side note, IDE drives are RLL format, with a built in controller. The IDE port is a simple interface to connect the controller to the computer's various busses. I remember the MFM/RLL drives. Some MFM could be low level formatted using an RLL controller debug enter g = c:8000 enter IIRC Graham |
486 problem
Eeyore wrote:
"Michael A. Terrell" wrote: As a side note, IDE drives are RLL format Run length limited compression. I recall when the 32 MB HDs came out. That was the first HD I bought on an AT expansion card in fact. Probably the first 3 1/2" drives too. They were actually 20MB MFM drives with an RLL controller. The MFM is just modified frequency modulation IIRC - unrelated to the RLL, so they were MFM RLL drives. The difference in the actual drives was that the media was tested and certified for RLL. , with a built in controller. The IDE port is a simple interface to connect the controller to the computer's various busses. The physical IDE connection wasn't much more than an AT bus expansion connector in the early days AIUI. Graham Read what I said, above and tell me I'm saying anything different. -- Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to prove it. Member of DAV #85. Michael A. Terrell Central Florida |
486 problem
Meat Plow wrote:
I remember the MFM/RLL drives. Some MFM could be low level formatted using an RLL controller Yes, but some would format ok, then quickly become unusable because they didn't reliably support the higher data rate. That was why they assigned different model numbers to what was basically the same drive, but tested and certified to the RLL requirements. -- Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to prove it. Member of DAV #85. Michael A. Terrell Central Florida |
486 problem
"Michael A. Terrell" wrote: Eeyore wrote: "Michael A. Terrell" wrote: As a side note, IDE drives are RLL format Run length limited compression. I recall when the 32 MB HDs came out. That was the first HD I bought on an AT expansion card in fact. Probably the first 3 1/2" drives too. They were actually 20MB MFM drives with an RLL controller. The MFM is just modified frequency modulation IIRC - unrelated to the RLL, so they were MFM RLL drives. The difference in the actual drives was that the media was tested and certified for RLL. I didn't know they did that too. It was a neat way to turn their 20MB drives into 32MB for sure. , with a built in controller. The IDE port is a simple interface to connect the controller to the computer's various busses. The physical IDE connection wasn't much more than an AT bus expansion connector in the early days AIUI. Graham Read what I said, above and tell me I'm saying anything different. Not disgareesing with you just brought a few memories back. I'm curious that you said MFM controllers didn't work in 486s though due to speed issues. The speed of the AT expansion bus was still 8MHz as long as you didn't tweak it. Graham |
486 problem
Eeyore wrote:
I remember the MFM/RLL drives. Some MFM could be low level formatted using an RLL controller debug enter g = c:8000 enter IIRC Graham That was one way, but there were programs from several hard drive manufacturers that did the low level format, verified the surface area, followed by the high level format. It put the system files on the drive, asked for the Volume Label, and exited with a bootable C: drive. Then you installed DOS, Drivers and the programs you wanted. it could take eight hours of inserting floppy disks before the job was done. -- Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to prove it. Member of DAV #85. Michael A. Terrell Central Florida |
486 problem
On 1 Feb, 22:58, "
wrote: I just installed a 486 board that someone gave me to replace a failed 386 into an old machine. There are programs on this machine that we still use. The 486 board has Phoenix bios. Initially the setup option, (F2) came up during post and allowed me to get into the bios to set the drives up and the date. I did that and exited saving the information. My 386 machine used an MFM controller board and I plugged it into the new 486. The 486 however has an on board IDE controller which it now occurs eto me perhaps should have been disabled. So now when I try to boot it counts the ram and displays a cache message but I get this message that reads : "last boot failed, use default configuration". I assume that the default configuration is part of bios but the problem is that the F2 option on startup is now gone and I can't seem to get back into bios. I tried disconnecting the battery and shorting across the ternminals on the board, and even pulling the bios chip and shorting all the pins on a pad of aluminum foil thinking that this may dump the memory, but nothing will get me back. Does anyone know of a way to get back into bios after the option no longer presents itself. Thanks very much for any assistance, Lenny Stein, Barlen Electronics. Might be easier just to get a machine designed to run with the mfm card. Some 486s had no onboard IDE so you've got a fair range of obsolete kit to choose from. NT |
486 problem
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486 problem
On Feb 10, 4:29 am, Eeyore
wrote: wrote: On 1 Feb, 22:58, " wrote: I just installed a 486 board that someone gave me to replace a failed 386 into an old machine. There are programs on this machine that we still use. The 486 board has Phoenix bios. Initially the setup option, (F2) came up during post and allowed me to get into the bios to set the drives up and the date. I did that and exited saving the information. My 386 machine used an MFM controller board and I plugged it into the new 486. The 486 however has an on board IDE controller which it now occurs eto me perhaps should have been disabled. So now when I try to boot it counts the ram and displays a cache message but I get this message that reads : "last boot failed, use default configuration". I assume that the default configuration is part of bios but the problem is that the F2 option on startup is now gone and I can't seem to get back into bios. I tried disconnecting the battery and shorting across the ternminals on the board, and even pulling the bios chip and shorting all the pins on a pad of aluminum foil thinking that this may dump the memory, but nothing will get me back. Does anyone know of a way to get back into bios after the option no longer presents itself. Thanks very much for any assistance, Lenny Stein, Barlen Electronics. Might be easier just to get a machine designed to run with the mfm card. Some 486s had no onboard IDE so you've got a fair range of obsolete kit to choose from. Both 486's I had required separate IDE interface cards, the second being a VLB type. Graham- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - Does anyone have a good 16 bit MFM HDD/floppy controller thy would wish to part with? I suspect that mine may be bad and I've called everyone in the local Yellow pages. Thanks. Lenny. |
486 problem
On 16 Feb, 00:39, "
wrote: Does anyone have a good 16 bit MFM HDD/floppy controller thy would wish to part with? I suspect that mine may be bad and I've called everyone in the local Yellow pages. Thanks. Lenny. those are the wrong people, businesses wont have that kind of stuff. Post a wanted notice somewhere to find the enthusiasts that have historic junk sat in the loft. Some newspapers let you do this free. NT |
486 problem
wrote in message ups.com... Does anyone have a good 16 bit MFM HDD/floppy controller thy would wish to part with? I suspect that mine may be bad and I've called everyone in the local Yellow pages. Thanks. Lenny. Typically I would try a computer recycler. You might get one for free since they are not desired nowadays. -- .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. |
486 problem
On 15 Feb 2007 16:39:00 -0800, "
wrote: Does anyone have a good 16 bit MFM HDD/floppy controller thy would wish to part with? I suspect that mine may be bad and I've called everyone in the local Yellow pages. Thanks. Lenny. If you can spend around $20-$25, there are a bunch on ebay. Computer stores aren't likely to have anything that old. You need to find a surplus electronics place. Andy Cuffe |
486 problem
" wrote:
Does anyone have a good 16 bit MFM HDD/floppy controller thy would wish to part with? I suspect that mine may be bad and I've called everyone in the local Yellow pages. Thanks. Lenny. I'll look around. I should have a few. (dozen) -- Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to prove it. Member of DAV #85. Michael A. Terrell Central Florida |
486 problem
Does anyone have a good 16 bit MFM HDD/floppy controller thy would wish to part with? I suspect that mine may be bad and I've called everyone in the local Yellow pages. Thanks. Lenny. You could also try driving around on trash pickup day, if you still have one in your community, and see what folks are putting out on the curb. This can often be an excellent source for parts and repairable items. tomh |
486 problem
" wrote in
oups.com: The 486 however has an on board IDE controller which it now occurs eto me perhaps should have been disabled. So now when I try to boot it counts the ram and displays a cache message but I get this message that reads : "last boot failed, use default configuration" Disable the onbard IDE, the BIOS likely will see the MFM card. |
486 problem
On Mar 21, 3:13 pm, Gary Tait wrote:
" wrote groups.com: The 486 however has an on board IDE controller which it now occurs eto me perhaps should have been disabled. So now when I try to boot it counts the ram and displays a cache message but I get this message that reads : "last boot failed, use default configuration" Disable the onbard IDE, the BIOS likely will see the MFM card. This one guy is telling me that because my original controller was a WD 300 operating my Seagate drives and the drives were possibly set up with that controller, that controller is the only one that I can use to get into my drives. He says that even the Seagate controller which I borrowed from someone and i have been trying to use will not work. Does this sound reasonable? |
486 problem
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486 problem
it is true that sometimes your drive will not work with a different
controller...the only way to know without having unavailable info is to try it...beware as in many cases if you are trying something, do not do anything like chkdsk since then you are not only trying, you are changeing the reason is that the low level format program is on the bios of the controller ... when you set up a disk you use the debug comand to run the controllers "setup" program which low level formats the drive and i guess the partition is set too... then it is ready to do the regular high level format with DOS ... different controllers had slightly different parameters sometimes so you can't just switch and expect to read the drive set up on another type controller the thing is that these drives lose the low level format over time ... that is where spinrite allows you to redo it without saving the data and putting it back WD 300 ... does not ring a bell ... WD1003 does and your drives are double spaced or single spaced, whatever one was the little used format ... that does complicate things ... again info that is in the past as far as my brain goes ... sorry again ... SpinRite is the killer ap ... it low level formats or "renews" the disk without hurting data ... |
486 problem
wrote:
On Mar 21, 3:13 pm, Gary Tait wrote: " wrote groups.com: The 486 however has an on board IDE controller which it now occurs eto me perhaps should have been disabled. So now when I try to boot it counts the ram and displays a cache message but I get this message that reads : "last boot failed, use default configuration" Disable the onbard IDE, the BIOS likely will see the MFM card. This one guy is telling me that because my original controller was a WD 300 operating my Seagate drives and the drives were possibly set up with that controller, that controller is the only one that I can use to get into my drives. He says that even the Seagate controller which I borrowed from someone and i have been trying to use will not work. Does this sound reasonable? that is very possible, i remember years ago having problems like that. you can get a controller with a different bias that was updateable and if you formatted the drive with it, it's possible that would be the only controller that would work on that drive. how ever, I found that most of the time, if you had the same model controller, and set up the same it would work fine. -- "I'm never wrong, once i thought i was, but was mistaken" Real Programmers Do things like this. http://webpages.charter.net/jamie_5 |
486 problem
" wrote:
On Mar 21, 3:13 pm, Gary Tait wrote: " wrote groups.com: The 486 however has an on board IDE controller which it now occurs eto me perhaps should have been disabled. So now when I try to boot it counts the ram and displays a cache message but I get this message that reads : "last boot failed, use default configuration" Disable the onbard IDE, the BIOS likely will see the MFM card. This one guy is telling me that because my original controller was a WD 300 operating my Seagate drives and the drives were possibly set up with that controller, that controller is the only one that I can use to get into my drives. He says that even the Seagate controller which I borrowed from someone and i have been trying to use will not work. Does this sound reasonable? There was no standard for 8 bit HD controllers, even with the same manufacturer. 16 bit HD controllers were more compatible, as long as they were for the same type of drive. You had MFM, RLL, SCSI, and a few other interfaces/formats. The standard MFM or RLL card supported a pair of drives and all you had to do was pair it up with the right class of card. One BIG problem was that some 386 and most 486 motherboards were too fast to support the MFM or RLL controller cards. The fact that the motherboard has an IDE port makes it very likely that it can not support a MFM or RLL drive, unless you set the CPU speed as low as possible. Even then, it may be too fast. I keep a couple old 286 computers around to transfer the data to IDE drives, and can be used in faster computers. The early IDE controller cards gave you a choice of several base addresses so you could add them to older computers without a conflict. There was a great website called "The Ref (tm)" with a lot of mirrored sites, but I can't find any of them that still exist. Another reference is the "Pocket PC Ref" from Sequoia publishing: http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&newwindow=1&rls=GWYA%2CGWYA%3 A2006-31%2CGWYA%3Aen&q=%22Pocket+PC+Ref%22&btnG=Search that has a LOT of data on older drives. You have to know the number of cylinders, heads and sectors to set up a MFM drive. There were a few standard sizes in the BIOS, but most drives required a custom configuration. -- Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to prove it. Member of DAV #85. Michael A. Terrell Central Florida |
486 problem
jonpi wrote: again ... SpinRite is the killer ap ... it low level formats or "renews" the disk without hurting data ... Can you tell me more about that ? Graham |
486 problem
Eeyore wrote:
jonpi wrote: again ... SpinRite is the killer ap ... it low level formats or "renews" the disk without hurting data ... Can you tell me more about that ? Graham Hi Graham.. The emphasis on "low level" format... we haven't done that since back around the time sunshine was invented. Thank goodness :) Take care. Ken |
486 problem
conflict. There was a great website called "The Ref (tm)" with a lot of mirrored sites, but I can't find any of them that still exist. yes .. The Ref was the killer site ... back in the mid 90's |
486 problem
SpinRite by Bob Gibson ... a google search will find his site ... any
old version will work probably ... it runs long and slow and removes some data, checks the drive surface, and refreshes the low level format, then replaces the data .... if a sector of the drive is unusable it marks it bad ... a grown defect it is ... and i believe it "disappears" it just like the factory defects are disappeared i bet you can find it on ebay ... the newest version is $90 dollars but the older versions I'm sure are out there cheap Eeyore wrote: jonpi wrote: again ... SpinRite is the killer ap ... it low level formats or "renews" the disk without hurting data ... Can you tell me more about that ? Graham |
486 problem
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486 problem
jonpi wrote:
conflict. There was a great website called "The Ref (tm)" with a lot of mirrored sites, but I can't find any of them that still exist. yes .. The Ref was the killer site ... back in the mid 90's I found a Simtel mirror at http://ftp.univie.ac.at/mirror/simtelnet/ but I can't remember which directory tree TheRef was in. Don't know how recent their copy will be. Simtel itself doesn't give results for a search on "theref". -- "This, then, is the essence of Gore's complaint: there are too many humans and they are too well off." -- Robert Tracinski |
486 problem
clifto wrote:
jonpi wrote: conflict. There was a great website called "The Ref (tm)" with a lot of mirrored sites, but I can't find any of them that still exist. yes .. The Ref was the killer site ... back in the mid 90's I found a Simtel mirror at http://ftp.univie.ac.at/mirror/simtelnet/ but I can't remember which directory tree TheRef was in. Don't know how recent their copy will be. Simtel itself doesn't give results for a search on "theref". Try this site if its not too late http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/geom/tracks_ZBR.htm |
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