• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

Kalok Model KL 320 - Copy Data

Jeff--I don't know your geographic location, but it seems to me that you'd have better luck contacting one of the forum members with experience in this and allow them to plug the controller and drive into a "working" system and salvage your data. After all, you're not interested in the physical media once the information is rescued no?

You'll find the forum members to be very generous and helpful.
 
Hi Chuck,

Thanks for your reply.

I agree wholeheartedly that the members here are very helpful.

You're right that my primary objective is to retrieve data if the drive is still working. A secondary benefit is to make sure the computer is still in working condition. If the video card fails to work with the adapter I doubt that I will take things too much further. At that point I might need to ask for some help as you suggest.

I'm in Indianapolis. I'll take a look at the members list here to see if there is anyone local. (I'd also be willing to ship the drive.)

Thanks again.

Jeff
 
Hi Guys,

The good news is that the display is working. I am attaching a shot of the display once the hard drive was connected.

IMG_5243 (Copy).JPG

To be honest, I'm not sure if the screen is a reflection of the hard drive, or if it's the system Bios.

Before I start making changes I thought I would ask for a little more help.

The original manuals that I have reference dip switch settings for one floppy drive, or two floppy drives. There is no reference to connecting a hard drive.

What I have done so far is disconnect the power and the ribbon cable to the B floppy drive (the one to the outside). I used the power that was attached to the floppy to connect to the hard drive.

I thought about setting the dip switches to reflect a single floppy; but, I wasn't sure what that would do hard drive attached.

Any suggestions for moving forward?

Thanks for your help.

Jeff
 
The screenshot you provided indicates that the system has booted into ROM BASIC. The reason it has done this is that it could not find a bootable drive (either Hard drive or Floppy drive)

The DIP switches don't have any effect on booting from a hard drive. If you have them set to 1 FDD or 2 FDD's it doesn't matter. I would set them to 1 FDD so that it is consistent with your setup.

The reasons this occurs are:

A) Your hard drive / controller is not quite set up correctly. Check that any jumpers or dip swtiches on the controller board are set correctly.
B) Your hard drive does not have a bootable partition on it. Could be that the hard drive has damage to the boot sector or data etc.
C) Your hard drive is no longer working.

What I would do is boot from a floppy disk running DOS 3.3. You can then run FDISK and see if the HDD is visible and if any partitions are defined on it. You can also run a plethora of diagnostic tools for the hard drive too if you desire. If you don't have access to a DOS 3.3 boot disk or access to a computer with a 5.25" drive I am sure someone local to you can post one out at very little cost.

The good news is your PC is working properly. Most older IBM machines require new RAM after being stored for a long time.
 
Last edited:
The original manuals that I have reference dip switch settings for one floppy drive, or two floppy drives. There is no reference to connecting a hard drive.
NeXT's earlier "... the original revision motherboard which lacked hard disk support ...", needs to be clarified for you. Unlike in the later IBM 5170 (IBM AT), the IBM 5150 motherboard does not have hard drive support per se. The final BIOS revision for the IBM 5150 (and all IBM 5160 BIOS revisions) have support for something known as 'BIOS expansion ROM'. When the IBM 5150 motherboard starts, one of the things that the POST (power on self test) does is initialise any BIOS expansion ROMs that it finds in the system. Your Western Digital WDXT-GEN card has a BIOS expansion ROM on it, and that ROM is what DOS interacts with for hard drive functionality.

A diagram is at [here].

I am attaching a shot of the display once the hard drive was connected.
The screenshot you provided indicates that the system has booted into ROM BASIC. The reason it has done this is that it could not find a bootable drive (either Hard drive or Floppy drive)
When the IBM 5150 was started, you would have initially seen a blinking underline cursor. Between the time that you saw that and the appearence of the BASIC screen, did you see something else? If so, what was it?
 
Your hard drive / controller is not quite set up correctly. Check that any jumpers or dip swtiches on the controller board are set correctly.
No. From a data recovery point of view you DO NOT want to modify any jumpers either on the hard drive or matching disk controller. It adds variables to the troubleshooting process and should only be done either if you know what needs to be changed or as a last effort.
I'd like to ask you OP to answer three questions just so we are positive you do not have one of these early revision 5150's that did not support a hard disk (the dual floppies strike me as suspicious)
-What color is the circuit board? Brown? Green?
-Is there something like "16kb-64kb CPU" marked on one of the edges of the board? What does yours specifically say?
-What is the color of the power supply in the computer? Black? Silver finish?
 
Last edited:
I'd like to ask you OP to answer three questions just so we are positive you do not have one of these early revision 5150's that did not support a hard disk (the dual floppies strike me as suspicious)
-What color is the circuit board? Brown? Green?
-Is there something like "16kb-64kb CPU" marked on one of the edges of the board? What does yours specifically say?
-What is the color of the power supply in the computer? Black? Silver finish?
The question is one of motherboard BIOS revision, not of 16KB-64KB revision motherboard versus 64KB-256KB revision motherboard. Many owners of a 5150 containing a 16KB-64KB revision motherboard, upgraded the motherboard BIOS in order to get support for 'BIOS expansion ROM' equipped cards, such as hard drive controllers and EGA cards.

The OP has already verified (at post #17) that his 5150 motherboard contains the requisite BIOS revision.
 
Hi modem7,

Thanks for the detailed explanation and the diagram. This is making sense to me.

When the IBM 5150 was started, you would have initially seen a blinking underline cursor. Between the time that you saw that and the appearence of the BASIC screen, did you see something else? If so, what was it?

You are correct about the blinking cursor. The cursor was blinking in the upper left hand corner of the screen. Nothing else displayed on the monitor until the BASIC screen appeared. (I was watching pretty closely and didn't see any type of blip or instantaneous screen display.)

With the information you provided about the interface card the one thing I'm going to change right away is the setting for the number of floppy drives on the dip switch. I know that it shouldn't make any difference to the hard drive recognition; however, it will make the settings consistent with the number of floppy drives (one (1)) now attached to the system.

Thanks again for your help. I'll report back after I change the switch settings and restart.

Take Care,

Jeff
 
Hi Guys,

Here's the latest...

The monitor is working (as explained in the last couple of posts.

I started the system configured with two (2) floppy drives.

At this point there is a small problem. I can boot from a DOS 1.1 disk; but, I receive a "Bad or missing command interpreter" when I attempt to boot from a DOS 3.1 disk. (I don't have a DOS 3.3 disk, so I'm not sure if the results would be different.

When I boot from the DOS 1.1 disk in Drive A I can run a directory of Drive A with no problem (with the DOS 1.1 disk inserted). With the DOS 3.1 disk inserted in Drive B I can read the contents of that drive, too; however, there are a number of odd graphic characters which display when I run the DIR command.

Regarding the hard drive, there's not so much success to report. With the second floppy drive removed from the system and the dip switches changed to indicate a single floppy I booted from the DOS 1.1 floppy in Drive A. I attempted to access the hard drive by changing to C: the drive isn't recognized.

The two questions that I have now are:

1. Would the DOS 1.1 version prohibit access to a hard drive?
2. I didn't receive any information with the interface card, so I'm not sure if there are any hardware settings that need to be changed.
3. Not sure it's relevant... The system has additional RAM installed (Quadramm) along with additional ports. Any concerns?

I'm hoping that there is something simple that can be changed/addressed.... Otherwise, the hard drive might not be operational.

Thanks again for everyone's help.

Jeff
 
The "odd graphcs characters" displayed in the DIR command and the inability to boot DOS 3.1 tells me that you've got memory issues. If, as you say, there's an added memory board in the system, remove it. You may have to reset the configuration switches to reflect the lower amount of memory, but your chances of undetected memory errors will be much lower.
 
At this point there is a small problem. I can boot from a DOS 1.1 disk; but, I receive a "Bad or missing command interpreter" when I attempt to boot from a DOS 3.1 disk. (I don't have a DOS 3.3 disk, so I'm not sure if the results would be different.

When I boot from the DOS 1.1 disk in Drive A I can run a directory of Drive A with no problem (with the DOS 1.1 disk inserted). With the DOS 3.1 disk inserted in Drive B I can read the contents of that drive, too; however, there are a number of odd graphic characters which display when I run the DIR command.

So, booting from the the 1.1 floppy, then doing a DIR command against the 3.1 floppy.

DOS 1.1: double-sided floppies with 8 sectors per track, i.e. 320K
DOS 3.1: double-sided floppies with 9 sectors per track, i.e. 360K, but can also read/write the earlier 8-sector floppies.

I wonder if the 'odd graphic characters' are related to the above differences (DOS 1.1 having a problem fully understanding 9-sector floppies).
 
The two questions that I have now are:
1. Would the DOS 1.1 version prohibit access to a hard drive?
In your case, you do not need to boot from floppy in order to access the hard drive. In theory, based on knowledge gathered about your scenario, after adding the WDXT-GEN card and matching drive, the IBM 5150 should boot from the hard drive.

You are correct about the blinking cursor. The cursor was blinking in the upper left hand corner of the screen. Nothing else displayed on the monitor until the BASIC screen appeared. (I was watching pretty closely and didn't see any type of blip or instantaneous screen display.)

When I fit my WDXT-GEN card to an IBM 5150, but no hard drive, I observe at 5150 power-up:
1. Blinking underline cursor.
2. After what seems an eternity (as the RAM is checked), I then see "1701" appear.
3. Then, my (empty) A: drive is accessed.
4. A single beep from speaker.
5. About 1 to 2 seconds later, the 5150 jumps to BASIC.

The 1701 indicates:
1. The 5150's POST found the BIOS expansion ROM on the WDXT-GEN.
2. The 5150's POST then validated the ROM's checksum.
3. The 5150's POST then executed the BIOS expansion ROM.
4. The BIOS expansion ROM signalled "1701" to indicate a problem.

1701 is the typical error code signalled by the BIOS expansion ROM in XT-class eard disk controllers

If you disconnect the hard drive (or disconnect power from it), do you see "1701" ?

4. I powered on the computer. There was a single beep and hard drive activity, and then approximately 30 seconds later there were several other beeps.
Are you still hearing multiple beeps? If so, would you describe them as: 1 long beep followed by 2 short beeps ?
Where I am going with that is the bug referred to in step 27 of the POST sequence described at [here].
 
Hello Again,

Hope these questions don't have answers that are too obvious...

I believe I have found a bootable 3.3 DOS disk for sale; but, I'm curious if I will have a boot issue with it, too.

What would you guys recommend?

If the floppies will read the DOS 1.1 floppy (at 8 sectors) and the later versions of DOS are on floppies with 9 sectors, am I wasting time trying to load a later version of DOS? Maybe I'm missing something in the discussion.

I would like to get this system running; but, as a last resort for checking out the hard drive, I would be happy to pay someone to plug the controller card into the system to see if the hard drive is even worth messing with. If anyone is interested, please PM me.

Thanks again.

Jeff
 
So, booting from the the 1.1 floppy, then doing a DIR command against the 3.1 floppy.

DOS 1.1: double-sided floppies with 8 sectors per track, i.e. 320K
DOS 3.1: double-sided floppies with 9 sectors per track, i.e. 360K, but can also read/write the earlier 8-sector floppies.

Really? My original copy of DOS 1.1 is single-sided, 8 sector. So 160K.
 
No. From a data recovery point of view you DO NOT want to modify any jumpers either on the hard drive or matching disk controller. It adds variables to the troubleshooting process and should only be done either if you know what needs to be changed or as a last effort.

I agree, but I should have been more specific. Where I was going with this statement is to make sure any jumpers which set the ROM address etc are set correctly. The problem with older cards is that people sometimes rob them for parts (i.e. I have been guilty of stealing jumpers from old ISA cards which I thought I would never use again). This results in a seemingly dead card which actually works fine.

Personally I would avoid anything below DOS 3.3. DOS 3.3 is a nice happy medium that can read earlier DOS disks and as stated before really early DOS versions do not support hard drives (or only very specific ones). As for the corrupted characters when performing a DIR I would agree that it's probably indicative of the older version of DOS not fully supporting the DS,DD floppy format.

Do you have any other 'older' PC's which you could temporarily install your B drive into (i.e. something like an early pentium, 486 etc running nothing newer than Win98 or XP) You can then make your own boot disk quite easily.

Also try what Modem7 suggested earlier about plugging in the controller card with no hard drive attached. This will start to narrow down where the problem is.
 
Back
Top