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Am I doing something wrong?

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Robuck

Experienced Member
Joined
Jul 30, 2017
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65
Location
Philadelphia PA
Hello,

I don't know if I am posting this in the correct place, but my problem may have something to do with hardware? Anyway, here we go. I recently purchased a "refurbished" Compaq Portable II from a seller on eBay. The seller is good, and has a 100% rating, so I don't think I am being scammed here. The original hard drive of the machine does not work, and the seller listed that, which is completely fine because he installed a compact flash card to replace it. The photos on the listing show it completely fine, and booted in to some version of MS-DOS. The problem I have, is that I can't get it to boot no matter what I do. I put the system disk he included in the package in the floppy drive, then turn the switch on. The only thing that happens after that is RAM detection, then the cursor just blinks in the top left corner forever. If I remove the CF card, the hard drive light turns off and it gives me a non boot disk error. After that, it still does nothing after I try different combinations of putting in the CF card, floppy disk, and restarting the computer. I'm sorry to ask such a noob question, but I'm at a loss here. Any info would help.

Thank you,
Mark Robuck
 
While not terribly helpful, it is true that if the seller was selling it as tested, working, and warranted, you should decided if you want to keep or return it before doing anything major to it.

That said, it is quite easy for parts to come loose in shipping. The first thing I would do is check all the internal cables to make sure they are plugged in firmly. Make sure all I/O cards are firmly in their slots, and that nothing is shorting against anything else. Check for any loose chips or other socketed devices. Off hand, my guess would be a loose floppy drive cable.

So it runs off of a compact flash card? Is it using an XT-IDE or a standard 16-bit IDE I/O card? (A portable II is a 286)

If it did have a hard drive in it, does it still have the old hard drive controller in it also? (It should not).

The typical mode of operation at boot should be to test the RAM (may take a while), show any BIOS errors or messages, access the floppy drive to attempt boot, then attempt booting the hard drive.

Does the floppy light come on at all? Does it seem to access the disk? Was there any damage to the disk?

New CF cards can be a bit tricky to set up, so you would want to only use the one the seller provided until you are sure things are working. (Just throwing one in from another system probably would not work).
 
SomeGuy said:
While not terribly helpful, it is true that if the seller was selling it as tested, working, and warranted, you should decided if you want to keep or return it before doing anything major to it.

That said, it is quite easy for parts to come loose in shipping. The first thing I would do is check all the internal cables to make sure they are plugged in firmly. Make sure all I/O cards are firmly in their slots, and that nothing is shorting against anything else. Check for any loose chips or other socketed devices. Off hand, my guess would be a loose floppy drive cable.

So it runs off of a compact flash card? Is it using an XT-IDE or a standard 16-bit IDE I/O card? (A portable II is a 286)

If it did have a hard drive in it, does it still have the old hard drive controller in it also? (It should not).

The typical mode of operation at boot should be to test the RAM (may take a while), show any BIOS errors or messages, access the floppy drive to attempt boot, then attempt booting the hard drive.

Does the floppy light come on at all? Does it seem to access the disk? Was there any damage to the disk?

New CF cards can be a bit tricky to set up, so you would want to only use the one the seller provided until you are sure things are working. (Just throwing one in from another system probably would not work).
Click to expand...

As soon as I got it, I reseated all of the cards and ribbon connectors that I could reach. They seemed like nothing was really loose with them, so I didn't bother to try to get to the other ones. I just looked at the IDE card, and it doesn't really have an indication of what exactly it is or where it came from? It has a few different connection slots on it, so I assume it's one of the new XT-IDEs.

It does have the original hard drive, and the controller card. The floppy drive is connected to the controller card, and the CF reader is connected to it as well. The light on the original hard drive lights up when I turn the computer on? I don't really see the purpose of keeping the power cable connected to it.

Upon turning it on with everything exactly how it came, the floppy drive makes a little noise, then the PC speaker beeps twice, then the RAM check, and then the cursor blinks forever.

The floppy light and hard drive light come on at various times. I don't hear any noises from the hard drive ever, but the floppy drive clicks and grinds in the beginning. After that it just spins.

I am waiting on a response from him, but he sent me three disks with the PC so it would be unlikely he wouldn't include any setup disks if he had them. The three disks were an MS-DOS 3.3 disk, and a set of two Compaq Portable II Diagnostic disks. All of them look to be newly fabricated, due to the fact that the labels appear to be printed on a standard copy paper and glued on.
 
Robuck said:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Refurbishe...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649
Click to expand...

Per the listing:

The computer does not boot off the CF card. You need to have the included DOS disk in
the floppy drive. Version 8.0 of both the Compaq Diagnostics disks are included. I could
not find the correct hard drive type that is fully functional to boot from C. These disks could
help with that. There maybe other versions that have more drive types available. Power
cable, CF card holder, CF card adaptor manual included in the bottom compartment.

Does the machine boot from the floppy and let you access the CF card? It's possible that trying to boot to the CF card as it's presently configured is giving you the non-system disk error. I would boot to the floppy, try FDISK /mbr and see if that lets you boot to the CF card. Not sure if there's anything useful on the CF card, so back it up, but if that still gives a non-system disk error, try format c: /s after booting from a floppy to format the CF card and add the DOS system files.

Send some pics of the CF adapter that is installed.
 
Also, it's a 1GB CF card, you might want to try a smaller capacity CF card as that could be part of your problem, especially with the old bios.
 
chulofiasco said:
Per the listing:

The computer does not boot off the CF card. You need to have the included DOS disk in
the floppy drive. Version 8.0 of both the Compaq Diagnostics disks are included. I could
not find the correct hard drive type that is fully functional to boot from C. These disks could
help with that. There maybe other versions that have more drive types available. Power
cable, CF card holder, CF card adaptor manual included in the bottom compartment.

Does the machine boot from the floppy and let you access the CF card? It's possible that trying to boot to the CF card as it's presently configured is giving you the non-system disk error. I would boot to the floppy, try FDISK /mbr and see if that lets you boot to the CF card. Not sure if there's anything useful on the CF card, so back it up, but if that still gives a non-system disk error, try format c: /s after booting from a floppy to format the CF card and add the DOS system files.

Send some pics of the CF adapter that is installed.
Click to expand...

I can't boot the machine at all, which is why I am reaching out for help. After I get it to boot I can definitely figure out how to set everything up, but I am kind of stumped right now. The files on the CF card look like normal MS DOS system files, which is strange. Maybe the seller tried to install it there but it wouldn't work? Here are the pictures you wanted, the CF card is the one with the red and yellow wires connected to it.

IMG_5320.jpg
IMG_5318.jpg
IMG_5321.jpg
 
If you power up, with Floppy not inserted do you get a message to insert floppy? If you then insert floppy what happens?
And which way is the Label of the floppy? Towards top or not?

Larry
 
Ok, I had to look this up to be sure, but apparently the Compaq Portable II uses an early IDE/PATA.

Is this your I/O card?
https://i.imgur.com/SLi2591.jpg

The referencing thread here: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=62937 even suggests the included hard drive is MFM but with an MFM-IDE adapter board.

I'm a tad surprised that a CF works with this at all. I'm not sure how they have hooked it in here as it would require setting one drive to "slave".

So for now, just unplug the hard drive from this card and focus on getting the floppy to boot. Do you have any other 5.25" disks you can try? Reportedly, the default drive shipped in these is only 360k, so disks written in a 1.2m drive are not likely to work.
 
Nothing happens if I leave the disk out, the label is on what I think the top of the disk is (The side where there are no folds or creases).
 
Ensure you are inserting the floppy disk in the drive with the exposed portion first, and the diskette label upward (with the jacket "folds" on the bottom). Try every single disk he gave you to see if any of them boot.

If none of them boot, you can try to obtain some other boot disk. If that is known good and also fails, then your floppy drive may have been damaged during shipping.
 
Not all 5.25 drives are equal. DOS and Windows will let you write 360K data onto a 360K disk with a 1.2M drive. This will most likely NOT be readable on a 360K drive. It is possible that the seller doesn't know this.
Dwight
 
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