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Acer Acros 486DX2/50

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TY19405

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Jun 5, 2013
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My dad has an old Acer Acros 486DX2/50 computer and whenever i boot it up it says the following:
486DX2 BIOS V1.2R1.9
Copyright (C) Acer Incorporated 1990-1993. All Rights Reserved.


016000 KB Memory Good
000256 KB Shadow RAM


1 Diskette Drive(s)
1 Fixed Disk(s)
1 Parallel Port(s)
1 Serial Port(s)




Memory Cache On
RAM BIOS Enable
Video RAM BIOS
Press F1 key to continue or Ctrl_Alt_Esc to enter setup...

When i press F1 it says:insert system diskette and press <enter key> to continue...
 
It sounds like the system is not detecting any hard drive. Possibly from losing it's memory (bad cmos battery) or perhaps it doesn't have a hard drive or the drive is in a bad state. Your best bet is to check the drive configuration/settings in the bios as it's suggesting. Does it show anything installed or any settings there? Alternatively it may be a wiped drive or bad boot sector (you could find that out with any standard bootable floppy disk). But again that all requires the hard drive to correctly be set up in the BIOS.
 
Ok It used to say CMOS battery bad and after a hassle i installed a new one.I also configured the bios and i know the PC has a hard drive.
When i boot it up it now says the following:

486DX2 BIOS V1.2R1.9
Copyright (C) Acer Incorporated 1990-1993. All Rights Reserved.

50MHz DX2 CPU
016000 KB Memory Good
000096 KB Shadow RAM
Diskette Drive Error

1 Parallel Ports(s)
1 Serial Port(s)

Pointing Device Installed
80X87(SX) Coprocessor Installed
Diskette Drive Type Mismatch
Equipment Configuration Error

Memory Cache On
RAM BIOS Enable
Video RAM BIOS
Press F1 key to continue or Ctrl_Alt_Esc to enter setup...

I have no clue how to make it start when i press F1 it still says :
Insert system diskette and press <enter> key to reboot
 
Do you have another computer with a compatible floppy drive? You can download a bootable floppy image and create it on another computer then with fdisk or other tools you can check if your hard drive hasn't been set up yet or get things further along to install one yourself.
 
I've noticed "1 fixed disk(s)" isn't in the startup anymore.

I'd recommend finding out what model of hard drive is in there, and then configuring it in the setup program (CTRL ALT ESCAPE as mentioned by Stone above). If the hard drive has data, it should try and boot off it if it's configured correctly.

If it wont boot off the hard drive, you will need to create a system disk.
 
Well try to configure the hard drive first, set those parameters and see if you can get it to boot.

If not, then you've got a diskette configuration error as well - so that needs to be taken care of too. Once the correct drive type is configured in the BIOS setup, and the drive passes it's self test, then you'll want another PC with a 3.5" floppy - even a modern PC with a USB floppy drive will do. You can get DOS boot disk images off the net very easily, then write them using a program like WinImage.

I'd recommend MS DOS 6.22 for that machine.
You'll need to get the hard drive and floppy drive configured correctly first for it to be of any use though.
 
I figured out the floppy drive was bad so i got a new one but it still has the errors and the store says they tested it and it works so there is something else wrong with the computer. I will try to find out the hard drive model but in bios there is a setting that says fixed disk and i don't know what that means. :(

I also want to know if i can put a 40gb hard drive i have laying around in there. I know for a fact that it works.

@Stone Ctrl_Alt_Esc bring me to the bios.
 
TY19405 said:
how do i make a system disk?
Click to expand...

Your floppy drive itself is most likely good. Just make sure the ribbon cable is on correctly and that you know the actual capacity of the floppy media (360K DS/DD usually had a hub ring, 1.2MB DS/HD didnt, 720k has only one hole (write protect), 1.44 HD has 2 holes (write protect and HD media detect hole)

Format a: /s /u
/S copy system files to floppy
/u Unconditional format (no unformat save)
If you are using a 720K disk then specifiy tracks /t:80, sectors /n:9. (otherwise it will try to format it as 1.44 and will error out. for simplicity, you can try using size instead /F: (360, 720, 1.44, 1.2)
If you want to get a boot disk, try "http://www.allbootdisks.com/download/dos.html"
They have all sorts of them. :smile:
The floppy drive settings should be on the main bios screen as well.
 
*UPDATE*
Nothing is showing on ANY monitor I try but both are clearly on.
 
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