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IBM 5170 Restoration

Max IBM5150 said:
But it turns out the computer won't except 3.5" drives at all.
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All models of the IBM 5170 will at the very least boot/read (but not write) a 720K 3.5" diskette when the CMOS/RTC configuration (SETUP) is in a reset/default state.
You can create a fake 720K diskette by covering the density hole on a 1.44M diskette, and them formatting the diskette.
Used in the procedure at http://www.minuszerodegrees.net/5170/setup/5170_gsetup_720.htm

If however your comment was in reference to your Backpack 3.5" drive, that's a different kettle of fish. It requires a driver, and there is no way to boot from it.
 
ChrisCwmbran said:
Don't worry. I'm sure the guys on here will be able to help you get it going again!!!

Just make sure you have a decent soldering iron!! If I can do it you can!
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Thanks!! I will contenue on with the restoration!

There is 1 card that I don't know about that I need some info on. Its an AST Advantage Premium. It is a 16-bit card that has sereal/paralell ports and I am sure what to beleve is RAM DIPs All the RAM DIP slots are occupied. There 3 banks of DIP switches and something that allmost looks like an IDE controller on the card. I need to know What the dip switch settings are ( I assume amount of RAM and Paralell/sereal I/O port number adress and stuff like that). I am going to try that GSETUP 720K floppy disk trick. I actually have 1 720K diskette for something like this. But I need to wait untill I get that new 4 AA battery holder that I am going to use as the replacement CMOS battery comes in.

Thanks for everyone's help,

Max
 
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Early, you indicated that you had a WD 40MB IDE drive, and then later (post #19) that it turned out to be dead. What are you using now?
 
Some additional questions:

1. So no 1700 series (e.g. 1755, 1723, 1751, ...) errors on machine boot?
2. When do you see "Format failure" - immediately on running FORMAT, or part way through the formatting?
3. When running GSETUP, did you set the C drive type up as type 2 ?
4. What is the version of DOS that you are using?
 
No, there are no more POST errors. I get 1 beep on startup now.

The format failure happens immeadiatley after running format.

I set the C drive type to drive 2

I am using MS DOS version 3.3

And I stuck that 40MB IDE drive in another computer and it regestred it as 43MB, (am am sure this is the unformatted capacity) so I assume it works now. And It passes the seek test on startup.
 
Now I have a new problem, The PC speaker is not working right. It seems like the tone generator dosnt work, because it dosnt beep at all, when I run a program with music on it it just makes this noise, that sounds like white noise. I cant get it to produce any of its square tones now.
 
Regarding the 'format failure' issue. If I was in your situation, here is what I would now be doing:

Step 1: Test the drive in your other computer - FDISK/FORMAT it there and verify that it boots.
Step 2: Move drive to the 5170.
Step 3: Boot from the GSETUP (or DOS boot diskette) diskette.
Step 4: Wipe the MBR by performing the ZERO DATA IN FIRST SECTOR part of http://www.minuszerodegrees.net/ibm_xebec/ibm_xebec_llf_debug.htm
Step 5: FDISK - create partition, making it the boot one.
Step 6: FORMAT operation.
 
Max IBM5150 said:
The only problems I have now are the thing with the PC Speaker,
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You haven't indicated as to whether or not you have tried a different speaker.

Max IBM5150 said:
and the fact that I cant get the computer to recognise the RAM of of the megalith plus-s RAM board that I have
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So, confirm that on hard boot, the on-screen RAM count is only going as high as 512KB.
 
Well, the problem is intermitten, sometimes it seems to work fine on bootup, So I dont think its the speaker itself.

And the RAM count goes to 1MB (1024KB)

But that is from another memory board in the machine, (that brings the base memory to 640KB and the Expansion memory to 384K) can you only use 1 board per computer or something to that effect?
 
Max IBM5150 said:
Well, the problem is intermitten, sometimes it seems to work fine on bootup, So I dont think its the speaker itself.
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It could be a bad solder joint on the speaker itself (causing an intermittent connection).

The speaker will plug onto a socket on the motherboard. Worthwhile to unplug/plug that a few times in case a bad connection has developed there over the years.

Max IBM5150 said:
And the RAM count goes to 1MB (1024KB) But that is from another memory board in the machine, (that brings the base memory to 640KB and the Expansion memory to 384K) can you only use 1 board per computer or something to that effect?
Click to expand...
No, you can use additional RAM cards, providing that they are jumpered/switched appropriately - contiguous RAM that doesn't overlap. And so in your case, your second RAM card must be set to provide RAM at a starting address of 1408 KB (1024 + 384).

Just thinking about other possible causes:
* Faulty RAM card.
* SIMMs in wrong sockets.
* Wrong SIMMs used.
* Card jumpered/switched per documentation, but documentation in error.
* User setting switches wrong - setting OFF switches to ON, and ON switches to OFF.
* Card not compatible with computer.
 
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