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Tandy 1000 SX : disk boot failure from HDD and floppy

DeathAdderSF

DeathAdderSF

Experienced Member
Joined
Jul 2, 2016
Messages
316
Location
USA
Hello. I just acquired a Tandy 1000 SX. It powers on OK, then tries to boot but always fails. There's a hardcard in one of the ISA slots; I can hear the hard drive being accessed, and see its LED flicker on and off. But the computer simply returns a "Disk boot failure" message. So I inserted a Tandy MS-DOS 3.2 system disk (5.25") and tried to boot from it. No dice, same "Disk boot failure" message. I removed the hardcard, powered on the computer again with just the DOS system disk in the drive, same message. The MS-DOS 3.2 system disk is working, I tested it with another machine and that machine boots from it just fine.

Does anyone have some suggestions I could try, please? I'd like to get this machine working so I can have some fun with it.

Thanks in advance.
 
Most likely bad hard drive and bad floppy drive... If the floppy drive appears to try to boot (activity light on) you can try to clean it. If still nothing, try to swap it with known good drive. Once you get it booting from floppy, you can then diagnose the hard card.
 
Have you looked at your BIOS settings. Is the Floppy enabled, and what is the boot order of drives/floppy's?

Another thing you can do is purchase an IDE to CF Adapter and use it to boot from. I've got a IDE to CF adapter that
I use Hitachi 6GB Micro Drives with to boot MSDOS 7. It works good. I just used gparted to make 2 - 2GB Partitions,
then fdisk'd the first partition, and copied all the MSDOS files to it. Then I can plug it into any computer and boot to DOS,
or any other OS that I sysgen on the Micro Drive. Linux works good also. The Micro drives are around $10 and the
IDE to CF Adapter is around $15.


Larry
 
ldkraemer said:
Have you looked at your BIOS settings. Is the Floppy enabled, and what is the boot order of drives/floppy's?

Another thing you can do is purchase an IDE to CF Adapter and use it to boot from. I've got a IDE to CF adapter that
I use Hitachi 6GB Micro Drives with to boot MSDOS 7. It works good. I just used gparted to make 2 - 2GB Partitions,
then fdisk'd the first partition, and copied all the MSDOS files to it. Then I can plug it into any computer and boot to DOS,
or any other OS that I sysgen on the Micro Drive. Linux works good also. The Micro drives are around $10 and the
IDE to CF Adapter is around $15.


Larry
Click to expand...

Doesn't work that way on the 1000SX. There are no BIOS settings per se. Settings are changed via programs on floppy's plus a limited number of settings that can be changed on the motherboard. Documentation is surely an asset.
 
I removed the floppy drives, and replaced them with two clean, tested, working drives. No change. With the hardcard installed, the machine displays: "Disk boot failure." With the hardcard removed, the machine displays, "Insert system disk and strike a key." The system disk is in drive A:, and it is a verified working disk. As I said before, other machines can boot fine with this disk. I tried swapping out the floppy drive cable as well. No change. The machine does at least seem to be trying to read the disk in A:, but for some reason refuses to boot from it. I have a feeling this is a deeper problem.

Where do I go from here? (If anywhere.)

Thanks.
 
Leave the computer and hard drive running and try to boot it after letting it warm up. Old stepper motor hard drives are not temperature compensated and you can get errors when the drive tries to read data when it's cold that was written when it was fully warmed up.
 
vwestlife said:
Leave the computer and hard drive running and try to boot it after letting it warm up. Old stepper motor hard drives are not temperature compensated and you can get errors when the drive tries to read data when it's cold that was written when it was fully warmed up.
Click to expand...

OK, I'll try that. But even if that is an issue here, it still doesn't explain why the machine won't boot from a DOS startup disk, with verified working floppy drives + cable, when the hardcard+hard drive are removed from the machine entirely.
Do you have any ideas about what the problem could be with that?
 
First off, check the power supply for stable voltages, and ac ripple.
Then go ahead and reseat the chips, the 1000sx has custom chips instead of boards for most functions (floppy. serial, etc.)

I had different issues with my 1000sx, and I have some spare parts if needed.

Later,
dabone
 
What is the current setting of the DIP switch settings 1 thru 4?
Default is 1 thru 4 ON.

1 OFF Selects Composite Monochrome Monitor
ON Selects CGA Monitor - Default
2 OFF Selects IRQ 5 for HD/ IRQ 2 for Video
ON Selects IRQ 2 for HD/IRQ 5 for video - Default
3 OFF Selects IRQ 6 Floppy Controller IRQ
ON Enables IRQ 6 - Default
4 OFF Disables IRQ 7 Printer Port IRQ
ON Enables IRQ 7 - Default

Note for some Hard Drives and hard cards, you will need to set Switch 2 OFF. This allows you to use standard XT Controller Cards in SX.

What jumpers do you have at E1 - E2, E3 - E4, and E5 - E6 ?

E1 to E2 Jumpred ONLY if 384K Memory installed. Removed for 256K Memory Upgrade.

E3 to E4 Jumpred if NO Math Co-processor. Removed if Math Co-processor installed.

E6 to E7 Should be removed to use some IBM Software and/or IBM compatible Printers. May be necessary for some programs
that use the status line for printer control.


If you think it's a bad FDC or HD controller, you can use an 8 Bit ISA Hard Drive controller as a replacement.

The WD1002A-WX1, WD1004A-WX1, WDXT-GEN2 and the WD1004-27X can be modified to operate in
Tandy 1000 series computers, models SX, TX and the original or "A" version. These computers utilize
an interrupt of 2 (IRQ2) instead of IRQ5, the IBM standard.

Larry
 
Here is my own meager suggestion :

Remove all cards from the expansion slots and set the dipswitches to their default, ON position. Check the E1-E2 and E3-E4 jumpers.

Next, take one known good 5.25" double density floppy drive and a good MS-DOS boot double density disk (2.1 or better). If you have the original, if short, SX floppy cable, use it. Otherwise, you must use an untwisted floppy cable. Set your floppy drive to DS0, not DS1. See if it boots now. Also, make sure your drive has a termination resistor installed.
 
Stone said:
A bad floppy controller comes to mind.
Click to expand...


I would x2 this. I just made a post about my KayPro, and I'm running into the EXACT same problem. I have done the following:

1 - Tested it with multiple floppy cables.
2 - Tested it with three different floppy drives that I know work in other computers.
3 - Tested it with multiple diskettes that I know work in other computers.

... only conclusion I can come to as well... is that my floppy controller (on-board) is bad. I just bought a new independent floppy controller which I am hoping is going to work. Unfortunately for me... my computer is a super-rare / uncommon version... so I have no idea what the dip switches do.

Good luck...


... any update on this? I'd love to know if a new FDC worked for you... since that's what I'm about to try also.
 
There is no way to disable the Tandy 1000SX on-board floppy controller, is there? If the on-board fdc is bad you're pretty much stuck.

You could pick up an XT-IDE card and boot from a standard ide drive or compact flash card, but without a working floppy drive it'd still be a little inconvenient.
 
keenerb said:
There is no way to disable the Tandy 1000SX on-board floppy controller, is there? If the on-board fdc is bad you're pretty much stuck.

You could pick up an XT-IDE card and boot from a standard ide drive or compact flash card, but without a working floppy drive it'd still be a little inconvenient.
Click to expand...

You might try this: Switch position 3 ON Enables IRQ6 (Floppy Disk) / Switch position 3 OFF disables IRQ6 (Floppy Disk). Install a XT 8-bit floppy controller in one of your 5 slots. The 1000SX will only support 3.5" 720 KB and 5.25 360 KB floppies regardless of the what controller you have. You can use a 1.44 MB 3.5" floppy drive as a 720 KB without any modifications. The 'gotcha" here is the whether or not the 1.44/720 3.5" floppy is hard set to to DS0 or DS1. Some older types 3.5" drives had a jumper that you could move or unsolder and select which ever position you desired. However, that's not going to slow you down. Your Tandy 5.25" floppy does have the ability to let you select DS0/DS1. My 1000SX is set for DS0 on the 5.25" and DS1 on the 3.5" This combination will allow you boot off your original Tandy floppies. You must use the Tandy cable without the twist. While you're at it, opt for a XT-IDE HD controller kit.
 
Did you check to see what drive selector you had on the disk drives? I had a similar problem when both drives where set to DS0.
 
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