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Unboxing my Vendex Headstart II - 8088 XT

chjmartin2 said:
Maybe... What cards are in the computer? Do it post at all? Power LED? Is the power supply putting out the right voltages?
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Thanks for your reply. I don't have much computer tech expertise,but can follow directions well.

1. How do I determine what cards are in the computer?
2. what do you mean by "does it post"?
3. What does Power LED mean?
4. What are the right voltages, and how do I measure them?

I guessed that all I would need is the right numbers for my drives (sectors, cylinders, etc) to enter in the BIOS setup page, and that once i entered them, the computer would respond properly. It appears I was too optimistic.
 
aaarrr said:
I guessed that all I would need is the right numbers for my drives (sectors, cylinders, etc) to enter in the BIOS setup page, and that once i entered them, the computer would respond properly. It appears I was too optimistic.
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Your statement below:
aaarrr said:
I have a Vendex Headstart III that does not recognize the A and B drives on boot up. can you help me?
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...does not refer to a hard drive which is what you enter the sectors, cylinders, etc., for, but rather to the floppy drives which aren't set up with sectors, cylinders, etc. You need to separate the apples and oranges so we can all be on the same page. The floppy drives are either 5¼" 360K or 1.2MB or 3½" 720K or 1.44MB. Get that set first and then you can go after the hard drive (if there is one).
 
Stone said:
Your statement below:
...does not refer to a hard drive which is what you enter the sectors, cylinders, etc., for, but rather to the floppy drives which aren't set up with sectors, cylinders, etc. You need to separate the apples and oranges so we can all be on the same page. The floppy drives are either 5¼" 360K or 1.2MB or 3½" 720K or 1.44MB. Get that set first and then you can go after the hard drive (if there is one).
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My Headstart III has a 5¼" 1.2MB, and a 3½" 1.44MB and 32 MB

Here are some screen shots after trying to boot. During one attempt, the HOT environment came up, and I was able to view and navigate through old files. I guessed that I was lucky and entered some relevant data. But when I rebooted, it seems I went back to square one. I don't have a system disk that was asked for. Is that a standard item I can acquire?
 

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The first problem that needs to be corrected is the apparent CMOS/battery intermittent failure. Double check that you don't have a jumper set to clear CMOS. Otherwise, replace the battery* and then the CMOS chip if you haven't already. If you are on a new battery and CMOS chip, then you have something that is very difficult to track down (busted trace, failing capacitor, that type of issue). If you have a replacement power supply that would work with the Headstart, you may want to try it. A failing power supply can cause all types of issues not readily traceable to the power supply. The power supply may be fine; do not rush out to buy one just on my suspicion.

The system disk it requests is just a DOS floppy for the A: drive. But if the system does not recognize the floppy drives, it won't see the floppy inserted into a drive to boot.

*If you have a Dallas RTC (should look like a big black block), you need to replace it. I suspect you have a failed battery because the clock is showing the default time and date. Without a working battery, the CMOS will lose what you save in it. If the battery is replaced and it still fails to hold changes, then the CMOS chip itself has also failed and needs replacing.
 
krebizfan said:
The first problem that needs to be corrected is the apparent CMOS/battery intermittent failure. Double check that you don't have a jumper set to clear CMOS. Otherwise, replace the battery* and then the CMOS chip if you haven't already. If you are on a new battery and CMOS chip, then you have something that is very difficult to track down (busted trace, failing capacitor, that type of issue). If you have a replacement power supply that would work with the Headstart, you may want to try it. A failing power supply can cause all types of issues not readily traceable to the power supply. The power supply may be fine; do not rush out to buy one just on my suspicion.

The system disk it requests is just a DOS floppy for the A: drive. But if the system does not recognize the floppy drives, it won't see the floppy inserted into a drive to boot.

*If you have a Dallas RTC (should look like a big black block), you need to replace it. I suspect you have a failed battery because the clock is showing the default time and date. Without a working battery, the CMOS will lose what you save in it. If the battery is replaced and it still fails to hold changes, then the CMOS chip itself has also failed and needs replacing.
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Thanks for this info.
Some questions:
1. What specs/label do I look for in a new CMOS battery?
2. Where can I get it?
3. What is on the requested system disk?
4. How do I get the machine to recognize the floppy drives?
5. What are the correct values for cylinders, heads, sectors, and precomp for DISK 1?
 
aaarrr said:
Thanks for this info.
Some questions:
1. What specs/label do I look for in a new CMOS battery?
2. Where can I get it?
3. What is on the requested system disk?
4. How do I get the machine to recognize the floppy drives?
5. What are the correct values for cylinders, heads, sectors, and precomp for DISK 1?
Click to expand...

1) If the battery matches the lithium battery of the other Headstart, check the first page. That one was a lithium battery of 3.6 v with 2.1 Ah. Look for anything that looks like a battery that attaches to the motherboard. If in doubt, take several pictures of things that might be batteries. There were a lot of different battery designs and some companies changed to cheaper batteries in the middle of production.

2) Any supplier of batteries should have one. Most cost $20 or less.

3) System disk is any bootable disk with OS. Since you have a HD drives, PM me if you can't find one and I will mail you an appropriate disk if you in the US.

4) Fix the battery and set the CMOS correctly and the floppy drives should work. There may be problems with the floppies but you can't find out what else is wrong until the battery works.

5) The values are frequently marked on the hard drive. If not, do a web search on the hard drive model and there will be several websites that will show the value. Not sure, post model here and someone should be able to check. I won't include a specific CHS value because I don't know if your system still has the original drive. If you have the manual and the original hard drive, you may not need a CHS value but could instead use a drive type entry which the manual lists.

A web site that shows some types of CMOS batteries and ways to replace them is http://pc-restorer.com/replacing-cmos-batteries-in-old-pcs/

Try to solve one problem at a time. Fix the battery first. If the system still doesn't work, then it will be time to figure the next issue.
 
1) You don't need a battery to warm boot this system; only to cold boot it. So, if you set everything correctly (in CMOS) and don't turn the power off you should be able to start it up. The battery's only function is to 'remember' your settings when the system is not running. If you do not power down the system the battery plays no role whatsoever.

2) Again, don't worry about setting up the hard drive, yet. After you get it running from a floppy boot you get get into that detail.

3) Under 'Error Halt', turn off 'Halt on all errors'.

4) After you have correctly entered all the setup info and rebooted, choose the 'Press F1 to continue' option.

5) Finally you need a DOS system disk to start the machine. Until you have that you can't really do anything more.
 
Hi guys
I got Headstart 2 without hard drive controller, I want to start the computer from drive A.
Can you suggest how to enter the BIOS? I found the old keyboard with switch AT/XT mode, but pressing F1 I can not enter to BIOS, although Alt + Ctr + Del make restart.
 
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XTs don't have a BIOS setup. That was mostly started in the 286+ era.

XTs are almost always designed to boot off of drive A, so that is in your favor. But you didn't provide enough information to troubleshoot what your issue is. After booting, does it not read from drive A:?
 
Trixter said:
XTs don't have a BIOS setup. That was mostly started in the 286+ era.

XTs are almost always designed to boot off of drive A, so that is in your favor. But you didn't provide enough information to troubleshoot what your issue is. After booting, does it not read from drive A:?
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ОК, thanks. And which version of DOS must be on a floppy disk? From Win 98 boot diskette will work?
 
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PC DOS 2000 (a.k.a. 7.0 Revision A) also works on an XT. In fact, PC DOS 7.0/2000 has the lowest RAM usage of any version of DOS since 3.3.

From http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/showthread.php?29636-Favorite-version-of-x86-DOS/page3

vwestlife said:
I just went through all my boot disks, and ran CHKDSK on each one to display the amount of free RAM (out of 640K) on each one, using a totally clean boot (no CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT):

PC DOS 2.00 ... 630,672 bytes
PC DOS 2.10 ... 630,672
PC DOS 3.10 ... 616,432
MS-DOS 3.10 ... 616,432
PC DOS 3.21 ... 609,392
PC DOS 3.30 ... 600,528
MS-DOS 3.30 ... 600,368
IBM DOS 5.00 ... 593,328
MS-DOS 5.00 ... 593,328
MS-DOS 6.00 ... 592,256
IBM DOS 6.10 ... 593,056
MS-DOS 6.22 ... 592,256
PC DOS 6.30 ... 593,024
PC DOS 7.00 Revision 0 ... 593,840
PC DOS 2000 (7.00 Revision 1) ... 593,760

I also have an MS-DOS 4.01 boot disk, but not a copy of CHKDSK which will work with it, so I can't give it an accurate free RAM amount, but judging by what other utilities report, it's somewhere in the ballpark of 590,000 bytes. So IBM claimed that PC DOS 7 offered the most free RAM of any version of DOS since 3.3, and that does appear to be true!
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Hi again
Is it possible to boot it with DOS from 3.5 floppy disk?
I had tried to make it since 3.30 to 6.22 version DOS with formatting floppy 1.44 and 720 kb. Nothing...

Before this actions on other computer (PC 286) — I maked MFM couple «controller+HDD» and install DOS 3.30. The 286 perfect booting and work from HDD. The same controller and HDD I had tried to use in Headstart. Strangely, but booting fails.

I just don`t know what to do next :-(
 
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You might need a 720KB format onto a DSDD (low-density, NOT high density) diskette in order for it to be read. Do you have any 3.5" low-density disks around?
 
No, I have not low-density disks. With great difficulty I found a few new 3.5" disks. I remove a holes, then formatted 720 KB — 286 computer booting from them, Headstart fails. On start read floppy computer gives one signal, then tried read data and then stop reading. Whats mean one signal?

The computer went without a controller and hard drive. I tried last month to run it from a floppy disk, but nothing came of it. Then I bought a controller ST11 and a hard disk ST-225, formatted, install DOS, but from the hard drive load too fails. Something is wrong...
 
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What hard drive/hard disk controller does your Vendex have? I have one too, my ST-225 doesn't get seen though when i use FDISK under DOS...
 
Hi chjmartin2,

I live in Katonah, NY, just north of NYC. Do you know of anyone nearby who could look at and revive my Vendex III Headstart? I'm guessing it needs a new CMOS battery and data to recognize the 3.5" and 5" floppys. Don't know if it has a hard drive.
 
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