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Compaq Portable software

cavebear53

New Member
Joined
Sep 24, 2009
Messages
8
Location
Lake George,NY
Hi all Iam new to the forum and I hate to start with needing help BUT HELP. I have a Compaq Portable that had a HARDCARD 20 harddrive in it well it
died :mad: on me and took my only copy of DOS ver 2.12 and all my AST SixPac Plus software with it.Now it just stares at me. I have been looking every where including ebay for replacement software with no luck. Do you members have any of the software I could get a copy from.
You would make a disabled Marine very Happy.
Thanks for listing.
Ron
 
Nothing wrong with first posts being requests for help :) Welcome to the forums. We're always happy to see folks actually using and fixing their vintage systems. You can probably make a bootdisk from images out there if we point you in the direction, but do you have another system with a 5.25" drive?
 
Hi No sorry to say thats why I need someone out there with the software to send me it I would pay and even send them the blank disks if needed. I have even been looking on buying a old IBM Compatable with the 2 drives a 3 1/2 and a 5 1/4. I have a P4 laptop with a 3 1/2 drive that gets on the internet but no way to transfer the files to 5 1/4 format.

Ron
 
Hm, how far away are you from New Jersey? I have a sneaky suspicion there will be a bunch of retro computing folks there this weekend (VCF East).
 
Hrmmm well if I recall correctly, the Portable I/II/III have regular pc floppy drives. You should be able to get a 3.5" drive working, although only likely a 720kb drive. Not sure if a 1.44 will work without having mode loaded first. A 3.5" drive is hackable to force 720kb though. You could then make a 720kb boot floppy off your p4 laptop. Take that over to the compaq, boot the 3.5", and make a system disk on drive B, the 360kb. Should work, since both 3.5" drives use the same TPI.

Or option B, have someone here make you a boot disk and ship you it. Provided your drives are clean and aligned... I have 0 working 360kb drives atm (need belts and cleanings), otherwise I help. If you can use a 1.2mb diskette, I could help...
 
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Hrmmm well if I recall correctly, the Portable I/II/III have regular pc floppy drives. You should be able to get a 3.5" drive working, although only likely a 720kb drive. Not sure if a 1.44 will work without having mode loaded first. A 3.5" drive is hackable to force 720kb though. You could then make a 720kb boot floppy off your p4 laptop. Take that over to the compaq, boot the 3.5", and make a system disk on drive B, the 360kb. Should work, since both 3.5" drives use the same TPI.

Or option B, have someone here make you a boot disk and ship you it. Provided your drives are clean and aligned... I have 0 working 360kb drives atm (need belts and cleanings), otherwise I help. If you can use a 1.2mb diskette, I could help...

Thanks all
I was thinking the same thing I would like to put a 3.5 drive into it that would be great for downloaded software I find on the web. But I only have a spare 1.44m drive and not the skill to do the Hack to get it to work. Anyway Thanks to One Great member here all of what I need he is supplying so the old Girl should be up and running again.:D
Again Thank you all!
Ron
 
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