interTan DT-286

[GaZx]

I've recently dug out my first ever PC, an 'interTan DT-286'

will post up some photos at some point, but for now I'm having a few problems.

Before I stopped using it many moons ago, the 40MB ide hard disk had packed in.. but i still used to use it with the 1.44mb 3.5" floppy drive.

well I've tried to boot it up and the floppy drive doesn't seem to be reading and won't load dos. so I guess I need a new FDD and some clean disks.

I'd also like to get a HDD working in the system again, any idea what the maximum size hard disk would be for this 286? I'm attempting to use an old 545 MB seagate IDE drive but not having much luck. Even tho the bios/setup seems to let me specify the drive parameters it still doesn't seem to want to work. But i know the HDD is good because i tested it on my proper PC and even installed dos 6.22 on to it hoping the 286 would just boot from it as soon as i connected it to it. But no luck it seems

A bit more info:

its VGA 256 colour
its an AMD 286/s (12.5mhz)
i've just installed about 4 MB's ram
and i've just bought an 287 AMD math co-processor for it. but haven't fitted it yet.

The system excepts ISA cards, and I used to have a stereo sound card for it till i broke it. So I also wouldn't mind getting another sound card for it. Will any 'ISA' Sound blaster compatible sound card work in this system? I seem to remember the one i had said on the box it needed 386 or higher, but it seemed to work fine it was a 'Sonic sound 16' or something? if i remember correctly??? not sure. it was a few years newer than computer anyway.

Any help/advice you can give on getting this thing loading dos again and up and running wing commander 1 & 2 again would be fantastic.

need to work out what i'm doing wrong with the hard disk really.. Perhaps its just too big?

I've been looking at these DOM things, and was wondering if anything like that would work on this computer? & I've seen a 512MB one for sale that i'm interested in.

Sorry for the long first post... but hopefully someone can help me get this running again.

I'll get some pictures up too! :D

 

[krebizfan]

The hard disk is likely too big. There was a barrier to hard drive size at about 504MB which a system built with a 40MB HD probably isn't designed to exceed but some systems had controllers that were even more limited. It used to be easy to find affordable ISA IDE replacement controllers that supported multi-GB and smaller HDs but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

Some information that might help determine your system's characteristics would be BIOS maker, version and date plus chipset and/or IDE controller chipset. With many of the lesser clone manufacturers, the parts used change frequently so the brand name on the case does not help much.

ISA sound cards will work in DOS mode. Some of the drivers for Win 3 expect to use vxds which won't work on a 286 so you might not get the full range of sound card abilities if you choose to run Windows. DOS games like Wing Commander should be fine.

 

[DOS lives on!!]

Which version of DOS do you want to use? DOS 3.3 has a limit of 32mb, but only Compaq DOS 3.31 can break past that barrier, but not up to 545mb.

Likely, your HDD is too large for DOS to handle.

 

[MikeS]

Size is usually not the issue that most people think it is, unless you want to use the entire disk capacity in which case you need an overlay (or modify the BIOS).

More info needed:
- model number of old drive
- model number of new drive
- what does "it still doesn't seem to want to work." mean, specifically?
- when you "tested it on my proper PC", did it actually boot that PC?
- can the floppy you're using actually boot another computer?
- since the BIOS presumably did not know about the new HD, how did you define it?

 

[GaZx]

Which version of DOS do you want to use? DOS 3.3 has a limit of 32mb, but only Compaq DOS 3.31 can break past that barrier, but not up to 545mb.

Likely, your HDD is too large for DOS to handle.

I used to run this thing with DOS 6.22 before the hard disk packed in. So that will be what I intend to use this time round.

 

[DOS lives on!!]

Have you already tried to get the hard drive working with DOS 6.2? If it's a 545mb hard drive, then 6.2 should andle it. My Eduquest has DOS 6.2 and handles a large hard drive well.

How big was the hard drive you used in it before?

 

[GaZx]

Size is usually not the issue that most people think it is, unless you want to use the entire disk capacity in which case you need an overlay (or modify the BIOS).

More info needed:
- model number of old drive
- model number of new drive
- what does "it still doesn't seem to want to work." mean, specifically?
- when you "tested it on my proper PC", did it actually boot that PC?
- can the floppy you're using actually boot another computer?
- since the BIOS presumably did not know about the new HD, how did you define it?

old drive - FUJITSU limited , MODEL M2611T , P/N B03B-7065-B301A#R , SER. NO. 508751 , DATE 1991-2

new drive - Seagate MODEL ST3660A 1057CYL-16HEADS-63SECT-545.5MB

With the Floppy drive connected, it trys to read the disk, but fails.

With the HDD connected and no floppy drive connected, I turn it on and it says NO BOOT DRIVE AVAILABLE press F1 TO RETRY or F2 to enter set up.

When I put the 545MB drive in my proper pc I first booted the computer with a DOS 6.22 boot CD. I then used FDISK to setup the hard disk. I then used the FORMAT C: /s command to format the drive and copy system files on to it. I then restarted my proper PC and it booted up DOS 6.22 from the 545MB drive.

 

[GaZx]

Have you already tried to get the hard drive working with DOS 6.2? If it's a 545mb hard drive, then 6.2 should andle it. My Eduquest has DOS 6.2 and handles a large hard drive well.

How big was the hard drive you used in it before?

The drive I used originally with 6.22 was the 40MB drive that came with it.

 

[GaZx]

The hard disk is likely too big. There was a barrier to hard drive size at about 504MB which a system built with a 40MB HD probably isn't designed to exceed but some systems had controllers that were even more limited. It used to be easy to find affordable ISA IDE replacement controllers that supported multi-GB and smaller HDs but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

Some information that might help determine your system's characteristics would be BIOS maker, version and date plus chipset and/or IDE controller chipset. With many of the lesser clone manufacturers, the parts used change frequently so the brand name on the case does not help much.

ISA sound cards will work in DOS mode. Some of the drivers for Win 3 expect to use vxds which won't work on a 286 so you might not get the full range of sound card abilities if you choose to run Windows. DOS games like Wing Commander should be fine.

Here's the boot up screen with bios numbers etc.

It also doesn't remember time/date and set up options, but i think that stopped working back when i still used to use it.

 

[DOS lives on!!]

You say that you can enter in the settings for the hard drive, but it won't work? Does it remember the settings after a restart?