Taffer
Member
I picked up the first computer to retail with a CDrom. It's a 10mhz XT class machine. It came with the Headstart labeled monitor/keyboard/mouse and the 4 setup CDs. It was $15 at an estate sale. It uses a caddy CDROM drive and has a 3.5" floppy drive. Has a ATI VGA wonder 16 card with a bus mouse port.
Aside from the CDrom and it's ISA controller card, it has a built in controller on the motherboard for the miniscribe 8450XT 40mb hard drive. I believe this is a "8 bit IDE" system. The system is in like new condition with plastic wrap still on the logos and keyboard cord.
The hard drive seems to be working properly; it spins up, the head seeks etc. I added a little lubricant to the stepper bearings. Sounds smooth and clean and seeks properly when booted. However, I think it's lost it's data/formatting over the years.
The manual shows that I'm missing a floppy disk that seems like it kicks off the hard drive and CDROM installation setup, then copies everything from the recovery CD to the hard drive.
Manual link here: https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_philipsheaUsersGuide1989_34277909/page/n23/mode/2up
I would really like to restore this!
I tried to install a known-working lotech XT IDE with the latest universal BIOS flashed to the EEPROM, but it never throws up the flash screen when set to either C800 or D800. It is detected with the XTIDE utilities and I can even detect/flash to the EEPROM.
Spinrite 4.0 will not detect the 8450XT hard drive or the XTIDE, nor will DOS setup. No difference if the mobo dip switch is told there is or isn't a hard drive.
Does anyone have this floppy they could image for me?
Any other suggestions for testing the 8450XT HDD?
Any idea why the XTIDE is not working? The VGA card works, so presumably the mobo supports BIOS extensions.
Thanks in advance. I'll have to post some pics of the machine for your viewing pleasure.
Aside from the CDrom and it's ISA controller card, it has a built in controller on the motherboard for the miniscribe 8450XT 40mb hard drive. I believe this is a "8 bit IDE" system. The system is in like new condition with plastic wrap still on the logos and keyboard cord.
The hard drive seems to be working properly; it spins up, the head seeks etc. I added a little lubricant to the stepper bearings. Sounds smooth and clean and seeks properly when booted. However, I think it's lost it's data/formatting over the years.
The manual shows that I'm missing a floppy disk that seems like it kicks off the hard drive and CDROM installation setup, then copies everything from the recovery CD to the hard drive.
Manual link here: https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_philipsheaUsersGuide1989_34277909/page/n23/mode/2up
I would really like to restore this!
I tried to install a known-working lotech XT IDE with the latest universal BIOS flashed to the EEPROM, but it never throws up the flash screen when set to either C800 or D800. It is detected with the XTIDE utilities and I can even detect/flash to the EEPROM.
Spinrite 4.0 will not detect the 8450XT hard drive or the XTIDE, nor will DOS setup. No difference if the mobo dip switch is told there is or isn't a hard drive.
Does anyone have this floppy they could image for me?
Any other suggestions for testing the 8450XT HDD?
Any idea why the XTIDE is not working? The VGA card works, so presumably the mobo supports BIOS extensions.
Thanks in advance. I'll have to post some pics of the machine for your viewing pleasure.