falter
Veteran Member
Decided to mess around with this BC286 I got a while back. I *think* this is technically an XT class computer running a 286 somehow, sort of like the Tandy 1000TL.
It has both an IDE/floppy controller, and an Adaptec ACB-2002 MFM hard drive controller. As it came to me, it had a (ugh) Miniscribe 3438 30-someodd meg HDD. The drive spins up, but flashes an error which, if I'm reading the code right, is some kind of weird seek error. This is a video of it here:
The drive spins up and the stepper motor does its thing, so it's not seized up.
In an ideal world, I'd find a way to make the machine run with it's original drive. But maybe that's not possible.
I thought of maybe using a Seagate 42MB MFM drive I have that I know is working, but I can't get past a 1701 error on startup.
It's been 30+ years since I had to deal with this sort of thing and have forgotten much. I'm trying to remember - can and IDE and MFM controller co-exist like this? I'm assuming they can since the machine came like this.
This machine has a battery backed BIOS with the usual Rev H options for hard drive settings. But I'm assuming those are for IDE, not MFM.
The Adaptec controller doesn't seem configured per the manual. The jumper is set for a Seagate 10mb - I would have thought it should be set to 'other'. It must be correct, at least for the Miniscribe.. otherwise I've no idea how it ever booted.
Anyone have any advice on this? I mean, I could just use the IDE controller and use one of the now numerous low cap IDE drives I have.. but I'd love to have the machine working with its original drive, or something resembling it if possible.
It has both an IDE/floppy controller, and an Adaptec ACB-2002 MFM hard drive controller. As it came to me, it had a (ugh) Miniscribe 3438 30-someodd meg HDD. The drive spins up, but flashes an error which, if I'm reading the code right, is some kind of weird seek error. This is a video of it here:
In an ideal world, I'd find a way to make the machine run with it's original drive. But maybe that's not possible.
I thought of maybe using a Seagate 42MB MFM drive I have that I know is working, but I can't get past a 1701 error on startup.
It's been 30+ years since I had to deal with this sort of thing and have forgotten much. I'm trying to remember - can and IDE and MFM controller co-exist like this? I'm assuming they can since the machine came like this.
This machine has a battery backed BIOS with the usual Rev H options for hard drive settings. But I'm assuming those are for IDE, not MFM.
The Adaptec controller doesn't seem configured per the manual. The jumper is set for a Seagate 10mb - I would have thought it should be set to 'other'. It must be correct, at least for the Miniscribe.. otherwise I've no idea how it ever booted.
Anyone have any advice on this? I mean, I could just use the IDE controller and use one of the now numerous low cap IDE drives I have.. but I'd love to have the machine working with its original drive, or something resembling it if possible.