Calling all old school tech guys

[nineball9]

I was thinking along the lines of Paperdoc - in older systems, one often had to enter the tracks/cylinders/sectors information in to the BIOS. An earlier poster remembered some of the pseudo-standand types that were developed to get around this problem.

But for your case, just try a DOS boot disk. From the photographs you posted, the PC has a 3.5" and a 5.25" floppy drive. Someone you know may have an old DOS boot disk, or you can mak one with a Windows PC. I don't know if the command.com in DOS 9 (or whatever XP & Vista call it) will work in a 286 machine however.

 

[BehindEnemyLines]

How were these computers designed back then? Just curious...

 

[heyheybooboo]

I think you need to boot from the floppy.

1) Find a 3 1/2 disk
2) Format the disk at the lowest density (360k - you might get away with 720k)
3) Google DOS boot disk. IIRC you essentially need 3 files: Command.com, Config.sys and Autoexec.bat

Now is when it gets interesting. Google will take you to a download in the range 1Mb+ (but you won't be able to fit all those files on your floppy). A little research will explain what each of the ol' MS-DOS commands will accomplish ....

Mscdex will launch CD driver (if applicable).

Once you boot from the floppy you should see the ""A>"" prompt. At the prompt type in ""CD C:\"" and hit enter. The prompt should change to ""C>"".

At the ""C>"" prompt type in ""dir /p"" and hit enter. The directories and files on your hard drive will scroll one screen at a time with each strike of enter. To seek the files in a sub-directory at the prompt type "" CD C:\sub-directory name\ "". To return to the 'root' type in "" CD c:\"".

Look for interesting files that end in '.exe'. To launch the programs you simply need to type in the .exe filename at the prompt. Example: "" C> Nukularbomb.exe "" (IIRC you may not need to type in the '.exe')

Fer fun check out some of the DOS functions. 'Mode colormap' was always one of my favs (you could set the screen and text colors).

You had all of 16 color choices - and that was some high 1980's tech

 

[nakedfrog]

Originally posted by: TangoJuliet
The only problem is that I don't own a PC anymore. I currently have a iMac and a notebook so I cannot just swap out the 5¼" into another computer. Say the games are on the 5¼"s....and I am able to get the computer running again. Is there a way to copy from the 5¼" to a 3½"?

Yep, shouldn't be any problems with that. It's only going the other way that you might run into difficulty since a 3.5" can hold more.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: nakedfrog

Originally posted by: TangoJuliet
The only problem is that I don't own a PC anymore. I currently have a iMac and a notebook so I cannot just swap out the 5¼" into another computer. Say the games are on the 5¼"s....and I am able to get the computer running again. Is there a way to copy from the 5¼" to a 3½"?

Yep, shouldn't be any problems with that. It's only going the other way that you might run into difficulty since a 3.5" can hold more.

Yup.

CD B:

From the 'B' prompt ...

copy 'filename' a:

or to copy all files from the 5 1/4 floppy to the 3 1/2 floppy ...

copy *.* a:

star dot star ... that's a good one ... LOL

 

[KGB]

Originally posted by: TangoJuliet

Originally posted by: Paperdoc
TangoJuliet, you said,

"Also, I failed to mention that after booting the computer I get this error message. If I press F1 to resume then I get another error message saying error loading OS - OS not found. I am guessing that the CMOS battery is dead but the HDD is probably dead as well which is why I am getting that 2nd message.

If I replace the battery then I will still be left with a dead HDD so in all actuality if I wanted to get this thing running I would just have to replace the HDD. I would continue to get the CMOS error message but I could bypass it by pressing F1. Is this correct?"

HDD is NOT necessarily dead. Machines this old did not automatically detect and install the correct parameters to access the HDD. Those had to be set manually in the BIOS setup screens. Without them, the BIOS cannot read the HDD, so it believes there is none. So it is possible that, once the battery and BIOS problem is fixed, you can find and enter the HDD parameters and get it to work!

By the way, some have suggested you could replace the HDD with a newer one and copy everything over. Be very careful about the size of a replacement. 286-chip-based machines often could not handle larger HDD's. Over the years the size "barrier" changed from 500 MB to 2 GB, then 8 GB, then 20 GB, then 32 GB, then 127 GB with 28-bit LBA, now up into ??PB with 48-bit LBA. Our first unit built in 1993 with a 66 MHz 486 DX2 chip had a Western Digital 320 MB drive. I later installed a newer multi-I/O card that could handle up to 8 GB HDD's. A second companion unit with only a 200 MB drive and a slower CPU ran our store's Point of Sale software (under DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1) for nearly 15 years until I replaced it a year ago. I was getting worried about slight noises coming from that WD drive - it had been running for most of that time!

Is there a way to correct the parameters in the CMOS while the computer is plugged into the wall? Where would I be able to find the information the enter the correct parameters?

TJ, Yes, you can.
Write down the CHS (cylinders, heads, sectors) info from the HD label and enter them into the BIOS. You should then be able to boot to the HD as long as you DO NOT power the system off. If you do power down, you will have to re-enter the info into the BIOS again.

Additionally, regarding HD capacity and compatability with older PCs, I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the old Drive Overlay programs. Now I feel OLD!

 

[Paperdoc]

Yeah, drive overlay software was one of the ways to beat the limitations of BIOS designs. The Cylinder / Head / Sector values set the limit on how many individual disk sectors (at 512 Bytes each) could be addressed, and hence the disk size. A drive overlay could circumvent that limit in this way. It had to be installed on the hard drive and the installation modified the Master Boot Record so that it loaded and ran the software patch BEFORE trying to load and run IO.SYS and COMMAND.COM. It replaced the portion of BIOS that controlled disk access so it could handle more sectors. You still need to manually enter CHS data for the first access of the disk, but once that is read in from the MBR on the disk at boot-up, the overlay took over access control.

Because these systems were proprietary and operated at the very basic level of the I/O systems, there was a small risk of trouble if anything went wrong. So many people opted not to get into that and just lived with the disk size limit until hardware and software from M$ improved. However, you just might find that an overlay was in use on this machine. After all, you seem to have a rather large HDD (44 GB) for an old 286-based computer. Or, maybe the machine was upgraded with an I/O card able to handle this large hard drive without an overlay.

Oh, the Seagate site says the parameters for this ST157A drive are:
Cylinders 733
Heads 7
Sectors 17

 

[nakedfrog]

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo

Originally posted by: nakedfrog

Originally posted by: TangoJuliet
The only problem is that I don't own a PC anymore. I currently have a iMac and a notebook so I cannot just swap out the 5¼" into another computer. Say the games are on the 5¼"s....and I am able to get the computer running again. Is there a way to copy from the 5¼" to a 3½"?

Yep, shouldn't be any problems with that. It's only going the other way that you might run into difficulty since a 3.5" can hold more.

Yup.

CD B:

From the 'B' prompt ...

copy 'filename' a:

or to copy all files from the 5 1/4 floppy to the 3 1/2 floppy ...

copy *.* a:

star dot star ... that's a good one ... LOL

Hm, I wonder what was the first version of DOS to have xcopy

 

[heyheybooboo]

sheesh ... I just realized I **failed** on my last explanation - I forgot my backslash!

""cd b:\ ""

xcopy was DOS 3.2> (I had to look it up ). He should be good there ...

xcopy b: a:

 

[TangoJuliet]

Alright. I am trying to get this thing to boot up by setting the drive's parameters and can't seem to find the right settings

http://i186.photobucket.com/al...ik24/ATOT/IMG_0013.jpg

Under the Hard Disk 1 there are something like 30 "Types"

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: TangoJuliet
Under the Hard Disk 1 there are something like 30 "Types"

Keep going until you find one that reports the correct size, which is either 57MB (unformatted) or 44MB (formatted). According to Seagate, the correct (IBM AT) Drive Type is 36, but possible alternative types may be 14, 17, or 21. Depending on the BIOS, Type 36 may or may not be available, and there is no guarantee it will be correct even if available. This BIOS may or may not offer User Defined or Custom options as well.

The drive type you select should match up to one of the following translations:

733 cylinders, 7 heads, 17 sectors = 44,660,224 <--- preferred
1024 cylinders, 5 heads, 17 sectors = 44,564,480 <--- compatible alternative

If you can find a match for the preferred parameters, don't worry about the values for Precomp or Landing Zone.

Having fun, yet? Wait till we start configuring ISA cards. Woot!

 

[tynopik]

just find someone that has a system with an ide connector and plug it in

 

[TangoJuliet]

Originally posted by: tcsenter

Originally posted by: TangoJuliet
Under the Hard Disk 1 there are something like 30 "Types"

Keep going until you find one that reports the correct size, which is either 57MB (unformatted) or 44MB (formatted). According to Seagate, the correct (IBM AT) Drive Type is 36, but possible alternative types may be 14, 17, or 21. Depending on the BIOS, Type 36 may or may not be available, and there is no guarantee it will be correct even if available. This BIOS may or may not offer User Defined or Custom options as well.

The drive type you select should match up to one of the following translations:

733 cylinders, 7 heads, 17 sectors = 44,660,224 <--- preferred
1024 cylinders, 5 heads, 17 sectors = 44,564,480 <--- compatible alternative

If you can find a match for the preferred parameters, don't worry about the values for Precomp or Landing Zone.

Having fun, yet? Wait till we start configuring ISA cards. Woot!

I wasn't able to get the computer running on any of those types. There is no type 36....30 is the highest it goes to. Type 13 actually matches the best with those translations but after I press F1 it just says OS not found.

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: TangoJuliet
I wasn't able to get the computer running on any of those types. There is no type 36....30 is the highest it goes to. Type 13 actually matches the best with those translations but after I press F1 it just says OS not found.

How about Custom or User Defined type? The problem is that you need to set exactly the same parameters that were used to format the drive before, or 100% compatible alternative translation, else you won't be able to access anything on it and will need to format it again based on the new/different translation. Its also possible that this is not going to work without replacing the RTC, which also is not guaranteed to work.

 

[Nocturnal]

What OS does that thing run and how long does it take to boot into said OS? Playing games on that thing? What does he play, Pong?

 

[tcsenter]

In addition to my last post, it used to be common or strongly recommended practice to make a note of the CMOS parameters used to setup a drive and guard it like your teenage daughter's virginity, for this very reason.

If you did not know the same parameters used to format and write data to the drive, it was a royal PITA to access the data. In some systems, the first time you attempted to boot the drive using parameters that were not compatible, the BIOS or boot loader could potentially write to the drive. If that happened, you were really screwed, because the user data is accessible using one geometry, which no longer matches the geometry of your MBR.

Those were fun days, indeed. All you kids should be forced to diagnose and repair a 286 before you can use any modern equipment.

TangoJuliet,

Spend 30 minutes or so going through the HDD and BIOS section at PCGuide.com:

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/index.htm

A lot of the information there is very relevant to these dated computers.

 

[TangoJuliet]

Originally posted by: tcsenter
In addition to my last post, it used to be common or strongly recommended practice to make a note of the CMOS parameters used to setup a drive and guard it like your teenage daughter's virginity, for this very reason.

If you did not know the same parameters used to format and write data to the drive, it was a royal PITA to access the data. In some systems, the first time you attempted to boot the drive using parameters that were not compatible, the BIOS or boot loader could potentially write to the drive. If that happened, you were really screwed, because the user data is accessible using one geometry, which no longer matches the geometry of your MBR.

Those were fun days, indeed. All you kids should be forced to diagnose and repair a 286 before you can use any modern equipment.

TangoJuliet,

Spend 30 minutes or so going through the HDD and BIOS section at PCGuide.com:

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/index.htm

A lot of the information there is very relevant to these dated computers.

I didn't see a user defined option. I'll read over that information and see what I can come up with. Thanks!

 

[GFORCE100]

Originally posted by: TangoJuliet

Originally posted by: JLee
Shoot it FTW?

What does he want to do with it?

He said he has a bunch of really old games that he wants to play. I told him to search around the internet because theyre probably flash based now. Anyways, he just asked to see if I could get it running again.

I'm looking now for the battery - I got to remove the PSU to see the rest of the board.

If he wants to play some old vintage games then get him to take a look at ScrumVM and DosBox, lets you play pld games on new hardware via an emulator. Old games can be downloaded free these days.

 

[VirtualLarry]

At least that box has an IDE drive. I still have an old 8086 in a box somewhere with a 20MB MFM drive. And I don't think I still have a copy of spinrite on 5.25" anymore.

 

[KGB]

Originally posted by: TangoJuliet

Originally posted by: tcsenter
In addition to my last post, it used to be common or strongly recommended practice to make a note of the CMOS parameters used to setup a drive and guard it like your teenage daughter's virginity, for this very reason.

If you did not know the same parameters used to format and write data to the drive, it was a royal PITA to access the data. In some systems, the first time you attempted to boot the drive using parameters that were not compatible, the BIOS or boot loader could potentially write to the drive. If that happened, you were really screwed, because the user data is accessible using one geometry, which no longer matches the geometry of your MBR.

Those were fun days, indeed. All you kids should be forced to diagnose and repair a 286 before you can use any modern equipment.

TangoJuliet,

Spend 30 minutes or so going through the HDD and BIOS section at PCGuide.com:

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/index.htm

A lot of the information there is very relevant to these dated computers.

I didn't see a user defined option. I'll read over that information and see what I can come up with. Thanks!

Okay TJ, what did you find? They all had a "User Defined" option in there.

Don't just run away. It's not every day us old geezers get to chime in on one of these.