After buying a dual floppy (looks original inside) Compaq Portable I (but, I'm not an expert, so don't shoot me if I'm wrong at VCF East a few years back, trying to boot it, failing, and stowing it away for a better time to diagnose, I finally pulled it back out and started debugging.
Unit boots to a 601 error (FDC error). I have removed both drives and successfully booted MS-DOS on another machine with those drives (and a fresh 260kB disk), so I know the drives are good. Thus, I suspect the FDC is bad. I have read that an IBM PC FDC will work, so I found a used tested on and it is coming. That said, I think it is worth trying to get this FDC fixed:
Jim
Unit boots to a 601 error (FDC error). I have removed both drives and successfully booted MS-DOS on another machine with those drives (and a fresh 260kB disk), so I know the drives are good. Thus, I suspect the FDC is bad. I have read that an IBM PC FDC will work, so I found a used tested on and it is coming. That said, I think it is worth trying to get this FDC fixed:
- Is there some specific component that often fails on these units? The drive lights up, so some of the signals are making it, but no track to track movement, if that helps
- If not, is there someone around who would fix the card for a fee? I am out of my element and would much prefer to pay someone to bring the card back to life, or at least test it and ensure it is working
- Failing either of those two options being reasonable, is there a replacement FDC I should look for? I don't know that I need this unit to be vintage pure, so am happy to replace portions with items of usefulness.
Jim