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Compaq Deskpro 386/20

There's a couple of caches and virtual/ram disks loading. You can just put "rem" plus space in font of the line to stop them loading in either file. For example- rem device=c:\xtgold\vdisk.sys 360 128 64 /e:8

You might find this usefull:- http://www.computerhope.com/ac.htm
 
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Yup, it was my control key that wasn't working. I seem to have fixed it by pulling the cap off and putting it back on.

As for the CD-ROM driver, it tries to load the driver but "aborts" when no drive is found. What should I do?

Kyle
 
The hard drive requires its own controller, since it's an MFM drive. The IDE and floppy controller is a separate card. I have the CD-ROM jumpered to master.

Kyle
 
antiquekid3 said:
The hard drive requires its own controller, since it's an MFM drive. The IDE and floppy controller is a separate card. I have the CD-ROM jumpered to master.

Kyle
Click to expand...

Can you set the IDE controller to be a secondary controller using a different interrupt and different address from the MFM controller? I vaguely remember at least a few systems used the same values so that the IDE would look just like MFM to the BIOS and that conflict prevents the IDE drives from being seen if the MFM controller is also installed.
 
How can I go about setting the IDE controller interrupts and addresses? What do I set them to? Thanks for the suggestion!

Kyle
 
antiquekid3 said:
How can I go about setting the IDE controller interrupts and addresses? What do I set them to? Thanks for the suggestion!

Kyle
Click to expand...
Firstly does the ide controller have jumpers for both? Some don't. Others only have the ability to select addresses.
 
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See? I told you that you had an MFM drive. :wink:

If you must use the MFM and an IDE CDROM drive together and you have a 2-port IDE controller and it allows you to disable the primary port, you can hook your IDE drive to the secondary port.

Or... if you have single-channel controller with configurable I/O and IRQ settings, set the I/O port to 17x (hex) and the IRQ to 15 and give it a shot.

But honestly, I wouldn't bother trying to set up a secondary IDE controller--it's a crap shoot at best and fruitless agony at worst, Just get an IDE drive, get an IDE/floppy controller and set up your hard disk as an IDE with an IDE CD-ROM.

Alternatively, get a SCSI controller and a SCSI CD-ROM. They'll pretty much work with any other drive combination. But they're not as easy to come by as the IDE versions. But you could get lucky.
 
Yeah, I guess those MFM drives don't get along too well with IDE drives...where would I go to change the IRQ and I/O settings? I can view them using Norton Utilities, but I can't change them from there (I don't think...).

I would like to use this hard drive since it still works great and has Norton 5.0 and XTreePro Gold on it, as well as other programs that I've yet to play around with much.

However, if I were to remove my MFM controller and put an IDE drive attached to the floppy/IDE controller that's already in place, would I have to configure anything for it to boot to that?

Kyle
 
IDE controller ports and IRQs are usually determined by jumpers on the IDE controller itself. For example, consider this one from Boca. You can set the single IDE channel to secondary, disable the floppy and set the IRQ to 15, all with jumpers.

If you haven't guessed it already, the issue here is that the primary IDE channel uses the same IRQ and I/O port addresses as a standard MFM controller.

The nice part about DOS is that you can simply copy all of the files over, except for the system files to an IDE drive partition that you've done a "FORMAT /S" on and you're good to go. None of this stupid Windows "we don't want you changing the hardware too much" stuff. You do have a tape drive, for what it's worth, although I don't know if you have any tapes for it.

Alternatively, you can use Norton and a laplink cable to back your hard rive up a another system or you can back your hard drive up to floppies. You could run a parallel-port Zip drive as a backup medium. Lots of options.
 
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I own a Deskpro 386 /25. The two beeps and message 162 mean system options are not set->the message on the screen I have a SPO 316.exe on a 3.5" floppy that I have used. A 163 code means invalid time; which you will probably see until the battery is replaced and system reset. I bought a battery replacement in 1998 from PC Service Source (pcsource@pcservice.net) $13.50 + shippng.
I just checked the site and it still exists-don't know if they still carry the old parts... It's also worth getting a "Maintenance and Service Guide" I believe I got it from them. Good luck..
 
Another option would be using SCSI? You need a single controller card which drives your HDD(s) and a CD-Rom(s) drive(s) and on the external SCSI port you can use a Zip drive or external CD-Rom...

I have heard that this is a very popular solution for old machines...
 
It's been suggested. If I'm desperate, I'll sometimes take a parallel-to-SCSI adapter and a SCSI CD-ROM drive and hook it to a machine. This is useful for old laptops without expansion slots.
 
An explaination of the history

An explaination of the history

antiquekid3 said:
Here are some pictures of the Deskpro. It looks pretty good, doesn't it? :) Too bad the monitor's now gone kaput...I'm hoping I can get it up and running soon.
http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/6207/img5215o.jpg
http://img688.imageshack.us/img688/9011/img5225f.jpg
http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/3162/img5221w.jpg
http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/1517/img5217s.jpg
http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/4202/img5213v.jpg

Kyle
Click to expand...
Can you get a picture of the IDE controller you are using? Maybe I can figure out the jumpers. On the MFM/IDE controller conflict, you see, the original PC/AT used a WD1003 as the MFM controller. As hard drive technology moved away from MFM, the later RLL/ESDI/IDE controllers remained compatible with the WD1003 used in the IBM PC/AT, which is why they have to take the same resources. When ATAPI CD-ROMs became popular, a secondary IDE channel was added with another standard set of resources. Motherboards from 1994 on typically integrated an IDE controller with both channels into the motherboard. Even today's SATA controllers still have a compatibility mode to emulate a WD1003-compatible, either with the same fixed standard set of resources that as I mentioned above dates back to the PC/AT or dynamically relocatable PCI resources that was used later in the life of PCI IDE.
 
antiquekid3 said:
Here's a (bad) picture of the IDE/floppy controller. It's standard Compaq issue, I believe.
http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/1616/img0560y.jpg

I sure would love to get it to work alongside the MFM hard drive!

Kyle
Click to expand...

Unless that card has a software setup, I doubt you can. My 16-bit IDE card with I/O ports has 24 jumpers to set various things. 4 switches just won't provide enough options to find one that works.
 
Very interesting really!!!!Nice job my friend!

Can you take us a photo from the backside of the card?
 
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