• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

IBM 5170 Error 162

Since the battery lost power, the system will have lost it's setup and returned to factory default state. This means that it is looking for a 1.2Mb drive to boot from. You'll need to go in and switch the cables, jumpers, etc to make the 5.25" drive the A: drive before it will boot, since it doesn't know about the 3.5". If you don't know how, someone here can advise you, else take it to a shop and ask them to do it, mebbe they'll get that much right (print a copy of this thread and show it to 'em).

--T
 
Terry Yager said:
Since the battery lost power, the system will have lost it's setup and returned to factory default state. This means that it is looking for a 1.2Mb drive to boot from. You'll need to go in and switch the cables, jumpers, etc to make the 5.25" drive the A: drive before it will boot, since it doesn't know about the 3.5". If you don't know how, someone here can advise you, else take it to a shop and ask them to do it, mebbe they'll get that much right (print a copy of this thread and show it to 'em).

--T
Click to expand...

Why not just prepare a 3.5" diskette and a 5.25" diskette with bootable DOS and a CMOS editing utility, and sidestep the entire issue of cables, jumpers, etc?
 
mbbrutman said:
Why not just prepare a 3.5" diskette and a 5.25" diskette with bootable DOS and a CMOS editing utility, and sidestep the entire issue of cables, jumpers, etc?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure. I don't recall whether the AT will boot from the 3.5" if it isn't identified in the BIOS, will it? (Others have said it won't). AFAIK, by default, it's looking for the original 1.2Mb as the boot device, isn't it? Temporarily restoring the factory configuration is an option, perhaps the only one.

--T
 
The machine will boot from whatever drive is set by the jumpers to be the A drive. It is not software controlled.

The risk is that somebody made the 3.5" drive the A drive. In the event of a CMOS memory loss, the machine might revert to doing something dumb like thinking the drive is a 360KB 5.25" drive. But it will try to boot from the drive just the same.

Later versions of DOS don't care what the CMOS setting is. They'll look at the boot sector to figure out how the drive was formatted, and treat the drive based on what they find in the boot sector, not what is in the CMOS.

So like I said, prepare a 5.25" diskette and a 3.5" diskette with plain DOS and a CMOS editing utility. Then try to boot. Just to be on the safe side, use DOS 5+ ... DOS 3 might work, but I know that DOS 5 will definitely work. (It has the little feature described above.)
 
mbbrutman said:
The risk is that somebody made the 3.5" drive the A drive.
Click to expand...

Right! I'm laboring under the impression that someone has done just that.

In the event of a CMOS memory loss, the machine might revert to doing something dumb like thinking the drive is a 360KB 5.25" drive.
Click to expand...

Right again! If it sees the 3.5" drive as A:, but thinks it's a 5.25, it won't be able to read (or boot) from it. In order to get it booted to run the setup prog, the hardware will have to be changed to match what the CMOS setup is looking for. If this is the case, it will be necessary to change the floppy cables so it will boot from the 5.25", at least long enough to get the CMOS set up to match the actual configuration.

--T
 
I think what Mike is saying is that, under DOS 5, the boot sector Type ID over rules the CMOS setting and the system will boot from whatever the hell drive A: is.

Therefore, a 720K bootable disk should boot and allow a copy of an AT setup program to run from it, IINM.
 
Correct.

DOS 3 may even have this ability .. but I know that DOS 5 does for sure. (If I had time I'd do the experiment to find out.)
 
OK, dat's weird...I didn't know that. So how is it that DOS can read from a floppy (enough to fetch the ID byte), when it's trying to read a different format (as defined in the BIOS)? Are all DOS boot sectors in the same format, regardless of the formatting of the rest of the disk, as with some CP/M disks?

--T
 
The boot sector is in the same place, no matter what the drive type is.
 
I'm thinking of bytes/sector...does DOS ever recognize anything other than 512? (I don't recall the disk layout of early versions just now). (Really, I used to know this stuff (at least, I think I did)).

--T
 
I again did some experiments with my first generation 5170 (all original parts) of which the BIOS is dated 01/10/84 (the first).
Unit powered off, battery disconnected for 15 minutes, then powered on to see to a "161" error.

I tried combinations of DOS 3.3 and DOS 6.2
No matter what the DOS version, the following was consistently seen:

360K diskette in 1.2M drive: Boots from diskette
1.2M diskette in 1.2M drive: Boots from diskette
720K diskette in 1.44M drive: Goes to BASIC after accessing A: drive
1.44M diskette in 1.44M drive: Goes to BASIC after accessing A: drive

Interesting that the BIOS had the smarts to try both a 500Kbps data rate (500 used when 1.2M diskette in 1.2M drive) and a 300Kbps data rate (300 used when 360K diskette in 1.2M drive).
And it probably tried a 250Kbps rate as well in case a 360K drive was fitted.

And so I expected that a DOS 6.2 bootable 1.44M diskette in a 1.44M drive should haved worked on my 5170, with the boot sequence being:
1. BIOS attempts to get boot sector from A: - trys 250Kbps/300Kbps/500Kbps data rates.
2. At 500Kbps, BIOS successfully reads DOS 6.2 boot sector from A: then executes it.
3. Boot sector code reads Media Descriptor byte (in boot sector) to determine A: parameters.
4. Boot sector code loads then runs DOS.

My 5170's BIOS doesn't support 1.44M drives. I'm guessing that DOS is having a problem with that.
 
I expected the same thing that you did - the DOS 6.2 bootable 1.44M diskette should have been bootable. The BIOS doesn't support 1.44MB drives, but the controller supports the data rate. If DOS overrides the floppy parameter table in BIOS, then the machine effectively has 1.44MB support.

I know that the later versions of DOS behave like this because I can attach a 720KB drive (or a 1.44MB drive using 720KB media) to a PCjr and boot using DOS, and have all 80 tracks recognized automatically.

Scratching my head ...
 
I still think a 1.44M floppy SHOULD work, though it could be dependant on the controller installed in the machine. I have an IBM XT, which never has, or ever will support 1.44M Floppies in the BIOS, heck, it won't even boot any version of MS-DOS or PC-DOS off a 1.44M Diskette, but I can "trick" the controller into working using DR-DOS 6.0, which is how I got my networking software on the XT. Maybe something similar could be done on your IBM AT.

Of course, this was only because I did not have an 8-bit controller card for floppy drives, and decided to use a somewhat-more modern 16-bit (AT) card to drive the 1.44M Drives in the XT (with the 16-bit extension hanging off the end of the card, not connected to anything).

Also, after reading the post starting off this page, it sounds to me your 3.5" floppy (720K drive) is set as Drive B:, you could probably reverse the cable connections to boot from that drive with a 720K, or, if you are lucky enough, a 1.44 MB diskette, this is also assuming you don't have the ancient style of floppy cable that does not have a twist in the center wires before the connector for the A: drive.
 
I have been reading and appreciate all of your responses and I am very willing to do any of the following whichever is deemed the best course of action:

1. Download all appropriate data (as instructed by you) onto a 3.5 in floppy and use it to attempt a boot of the IBM
2. If that is not likely to work I would like to obtain a floppy disk containing the necessary data from one of you and I will pay any related expenses.
3. Send the hard drive to one of you to recover the files and have them placed onto a 3.5 in floppy disk and I will pay all related expenses.

Thanks,

Doug
 
Dougout said:
I have been reading and appreciate all of your responses and I am very willing to do any of the following whichever is deemed the best course of action:

1. Download all appropriate data (as instructed by you) onto a 3.5 in floppy and use it to attempt a boot of the IBM
2. If that is not likely to work I would like to obtain a floppy disk containing the necessary data from one of you and I will pay any related expenses.
3. Send the hard drive to one of you to recover the files and have them placed onto a 3.5 in floppy disk and I will pay all related expenses.

Thanks,

Doug
Click to expand...

The first thing is to determine if your hard drive is savable. I'm assuming the repair shop techs may be unfamiliar with equipment this old, but there's still a (slim?) chance that they might be right, and the drive may be bad.

You should be able to d/l a bootdisk image from www.bootdisk.com but be sure to install the image to your floppy using winimage, available on the same page. Try to find one for a 720K disk and mebbe it'll work for ya.

I'll try to locate my Diag disk, but can't promise. Someone else may have the image handy for you. A google for generic setup programs like gsetup.exe might also help absent the AT disk. Early ATs only had about (16?) drive types recognized by the BIOS, so trial & error isn't out of the question, else open the case and make a note of any info on the drive's labeling (brand name, model number, etc), and someone can help with the ID.

--T
 
Doh! Discovered that my 'working' 1.44M drive (sits on the shelf and used for the odd project) can't be booted from. But it works in all other respects. Must have a problem reading track 0.

Okay, so the [limited] 'boot' results now are:

IBM-DOS 3.3 on 1.44M diskette: Yes
MS-DOS 5.00 on 720K diskette: Yes
MS-DOS 6.00 on 720K diskette: Yes
MS-DOS 6.21 on a 720K diskette: Yes
MS-DOS 6.21 on a 1.44M: No
MS-DOS 6.22 on a 1.44M: No
Windows 98 boot disk (1.44M): No
Windows ME boot disk (1.44M): No
"MS-DOS startup disk" created in XP (1.44M): No

Note that the DOS 6.x versions that I tried on 1.44M disks failed to boot. I discovered that upgrading the BIOS to the third version (changing nothing else) fixed the problem. Restoring the first BIOS brought the problem back.

And so if Dougout has an early revision 5170, expect problems with 1.44M boot disks.
 
Dougout,

There were three BIOS revisions in the 5170. It looks like only the final one will allow you to boot from a 1.44M diskette.
So let's get you to create a bootable 1.44M diskette - you'll have a 1 in 3 chance of success.

CREATE BOOT DISKETTE
--------------------

1. Fetch the DOUGOUT.IMZ file from http://members.dodo.com.au/~slappanel555/misc/Dougout.imz

[ that image file is a 1.44M one, MS-DOS 6.21 bootable, containing GSETUP.EXE ]

2. Obtain Winimage (www.winimage.com)

3. Use Winimage and DOUGOUT.IMG to create a your 1.44M boot disk.

4. See if the disk will boot in your 5170. Proceed if successful.


DETERMINE HARD DRIVE TYPE NUMBER
----------------------------------

5.

If your hard drive model number appears in the list I provided in an earlier post, then you know what the drive type number is.
If your drive model number doesn't appear there, then per Terry's post, supply us with the model number and we'll tell you what the drive type number is.
Note that IBM supplied drives have the drive type number on an approx. 2" x 2" white sticker stuck to the drive. The number is in large font.

Proceed when you have the drive type number.


SET UP CMOS
------------

6. Boot from the diskette.

7. At the DOS prompt, run GSETUP

8. Press [ENTER] key

9. Press [1] key

10. Set up the options in the screen. The drive type number you obtained earlier goes against "Hard Disk 1 (C:)". When finished with the screen, press [ESC] key.

11. Press [4] key

12. Remove diskette.

13. Press any key to reboot.


Hopefully your 5170 is now booting from the hard drive.
 
Modem 7s last post and earlier replies would serve as a good basis for a sticky and like all FAQs eliminate many unnecessary questions on 5170s. My kudos to him.

See my further postulations on this in the General section.

Lawrence
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top