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.

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.

There might be several ways, including disconnecting all drives to the
MB. Since no drive is detected and therefore no operating system, an
error message should appear. Another way is to hold down any key on the
keyboard and many will give an error message regarding the keyboard
having failed due to a stuck key. The message generally allows you
access to CMOS setup at that time.

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

On 1 Feb 2007 14:58:45 -0800, "
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.


Did you remove the MFM controller? If there's a conflict, it may be
preventing BIOS from working properly. You should disable the IDE
before reinstalling the MFM controller.

Try leaving the battery out all night.
Andy Cuffe

" 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

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

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

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.

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.

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

" 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

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

"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

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

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

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

"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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.



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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

" 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

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

" 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.

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?

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?



I have run into problems like that before, it's been years since I've
messed with MFM though so I'm a bit hazy.

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 ...

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

" 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

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

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

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

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

In article ,
says...
On Sun, 25 Mar 2007 21:26:19 +0100, 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 ?

A guy called Steve Gibson wrote it in the '80s. He's online these
days: http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm
If you actually need one of the older versions that worked on MFM &
RLL controllers, it'd probably be worth dropping him a line.



I have the printed text file instructions for a WD1003-WA2 Controller if
that's useful. A 486 with an old MFM or RLL drive in it? Not really
common unless it was an upgrade from an older system. The drive does
have 2 separate cables on it right? If you post the drive model I may
have the specs on it. Your original post doesn't show up in my news
reader.

I remember the low level format command used debug on the DOS boot disk
to start up a drive from scratch. You ran debug then entered G=C800:5
and the controller's ROM would start a low level format routine. I also
have Spinrite kicking around here somewhere. We used that to "square
up" drives that had been used for while, and were having data issues.

I grew up on that old technology....

- Tim -

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

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