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I dropped my 2820 HD.

F

facattack

Veteran Member
Joined
Mar 7, 2007
Messages
960
Location
Bucks County, PA
I swear it was less than a foot drop. Maybe half a foot. Instead of bending over to set the laptop on the floor, I dropped the bag from about knee-level. THUNK!

So now I'm getting hard drive errors. So, yeah, I figured a Tandy laptop would have propriety software and hardware. :( Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. The thing had a nice Dos-Shell. It looked something like

C:
AOL
DOS
DESKMATE

On the right side, it listed the files in the directory.
On the bottom there was an option to go directly to DOS 6.0 labeled "Command Prompt."

Oh well, my next project... in the distant future... is to get a Pentium I or II laptop and install Windows 3.11 and DoS 6.0 on it. :D

I guess I should know right now what the "Click of Death" means... I dropped another hard drive, an external 350MB one. That one fell off a desk, whacked against the arm of my swivel chair, then crashed pretty hard on the carpet floor. :(
 
As in "won't boot, read errors". You could have just loosened the cable to the drive.

It was all just Deskmate. I have a 1100, 1110, 1500. The 20 MB hard drives in those things (connor cp2024) are pretty flakey. I have one, I do the low level format using the Tandy utility, put the software on it again. It will work for awhile. I pick it up a week later. Read error, no boot. The hard drives were all dead in everyone I purchased. I had to hunt around for a replacement connor drive. I tried a larger capacity connor but it wouldn't work.
 
I think I might have such a 2.5" Conner drive somewhere but not sure which capacity
 
I have no idea if the larger drive would work in his machine. It does sound like it's a goner. They barely work even if you don't bounce em.
 
If it makes you feel better, you can sing it to the tune of Brother John:

Hard disk error, hard disk error.
Oh my dear! Oh my dear!
No longer it is booting, no longer it is booting.
Click - click - click, click - click - click.

I have two small 2.5" HDDs that expired earlier this year without me dropping them (or at least I don't recall doing so). One sat in my Amiga 1200, and the other was intended as a spare the day the first one gave up. It turned out that both went bad almost at the same time. Fortunately on an auction site I found a guy selling a huge lot of small and medium sized 2.5" HDDs one by one at that time, so I picked up a cheap replacement. Those less than 2-4 GB are hard to come by, and often end about as high as the larger capacity ones. So far, I haven't gotten to dumping the two broken HDDs, but they're in my outgoing pile in the hall.
 
Okay, after years of it missing, I found the Tandy. Or my mother found it in the garage somewhere... she left it in my comptuer room. I look down and see something black with the word "TANDY" on it... yay.

Anyhow... here's a manual page for it. http://support.radioshack.com/produ...=Tandy Laptops and Portable Computers&Reuse=N

Now it won't boot up or power on. I press the power button and sorta flashes a light for a second... I guess the battery died. Opened it up and... where's the battery???? Ah... it's in a door on the top of the machine. Next to that is another area to put something. Pics to follow.

Where can I find a battery for this old girl? Come to think of it anyone willing to spruce her up for me? Maybe put a better hard drive in?

It takes an external 5.25 parallel port drive. Where can I find one?


I found some nice pics of it... Pics. Oops this one's the 2800. Mine has a 3.5 drive on the side.

What do you suppose goes here??? http://s3.amazonaws.com/kpsurplus_images/bed93a62b9a8e0cb4a4df2f29ba60bfa36641b61.jpg

I think the math co-processor goes there...?
 
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Will it not power up w/o the battery in place? It should... and the charge light will blink.
You apparently found where it is... the left side of the back area. Next to that is the slot for the modem... 2400/9600fax was the best they got, Im afraid...
The chip holder is for the 287XLT math chip...

How much ram did/does it have in it? They are 35 pin devices, not the standard 30-pin memories... and so far I havent been able to find any of them for the... multiple... Tandys I have. :rolleyes:

If you're still having trouble with the drive, you will likely find that the actuator for the heads is stuck in the 'park' position.
If you CAREFULLY pop the top off the drive and GENTLY push the arm (NOT THE HEAD END) out of the edge you will likely be able to get it running again...
Good luck!
 
hehe. Can't open the darn thing. I looked around and got a bunch of screws out but it sill didn't seem ready to open up....

Then it started to try to load the hard drive. Now it's gone back to the old gag where when I push the power button it powers up for a split second, the screen flashes, and then it goes dead again.
 
Lets see...
3 up front underside edge of keyboard,
1 underneath center memory access panel,
1 under right-side (light-side) hinge cover,
1 (rear hinge screw) under left-side hinge cover,
2 holding battery connection plate, (to get access to connector)
2 left of battery connection plate,
1 right of battery connection plate,
2 under modem cover,
1 right-rear wall - drive location
I think that's all.

I fear for the complaint you have about the powerup... that 'problem' seems to be common to almost EVERY 2810/20 Ive gotten except for ONE. I have not been able to isolate the cause so far... and may have lost the PDF file I had of the schematics (Panasonic CF-270)..

Will hope better things for yours! :D
 
Yours has a 'block battery' like that VERY DIFFICULT to see page showed?

Mostly similar but, it seems, much different too... ???
 
However, the 2810 IS the same thing... with a smaller (20Mb) hard drive...
In all other respects, the same thing.
:D

2810#1.jpg
 
Darn. Took out the hard drive and spent a few hours googling possible replacements. Then I thought "it won't power on anyway" so I guess I'll just set it aside after I put the screen back on...

Thanks for the help, Leeb.
 
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So it wouldnt come up on an external monitor?

PPPPPLLLLLLZZZZ tell me you DID try?
:eek:

Did you try what I suggested: pop the top off the drive, ensure the head travel is not stuck, ensure the head(s) are not stuck to the platter... put it back together. ?

:D

EDIT:
Oh... just to entice you...
My ORIGINAL 2810 ended up with a 120Mg HD before I got rid of it...

I will not give up on mine either... :cool:
 
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I took the screen off, sure, but it wouldn't boot or power-on anyway. I put the hard drive back in but somehow couldn't put both screws in to mount it properly. It's only loosely mounted now.... so I put the screen back on and set it aside. I'm not gonna get rid of it, though.

How much more advanced is the Tandy 2820 HD to a Tandy 1000 EX? I need somehow to make disk images. I could assemble my Antec computer with a 5.25 floppy drive in it if I had a PCI video card to put in the machine.
 
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