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Keyboard Compatibility

Nope, I was wrong once again. The processor in an Intel i486 SX. And yes, it was an old office computer used for word processing, which is why it doesn't have a sound card.

Being the newbie at this that I am, I have another problem now that I've gotten my keyboard to work. According to a how-to guide elsewhere on the 'Net, I formatted the hard drive in order to get rid of all the old files still on the computer. However, now upon boot-up I'm getting the error message "Non-system disk or disk error. Replace and press any key when ready" even when there is no floppy in the drive. I made a boot disk, and I'm still getting the same message. I've tested other disks and it's not a bad floppy, and I've looked in CMOS and it seems to be properly set up. I can't think of anything else to do.

Thanks for helping me out; I feel rather stupid for having so many problems when I thought I knew a bit about computers.
 
"Terry Yager" wrote:

> I remember when the first Pentiums
> came out, (AMD?) was selling a chip
> called the 5x86/133 which was
> advertised as being 7% faster than
> a Pentium @ 66MHz. (We sold a lot
> of them based on that very claim).
> Later Pentium-compatable chips
> were called PR-xxx, which means
> "Performance Rated", to compare
> thier performance with Intel chips.
> (Most AMD and IBM/Cyrus chips
> performed "faster" at the same clock
> speed as the Pentium chips).

Naturally, I can see that AMD's
processor is faster. But if it's
overclocked, then would it be less
accurate, from a normal Pentium
133Mhz?

Cheers,
CP/M User.
 
"Laura" wrote:

> Being the newbie at this that I am, I have
> another problem now that I've gotten my
> keyboard to work. According to a how-to
> guide elsewhere on the 'Net, I formatted
> the hard drive in order to get rid of all the
> old files still on the computer. However,
> now upon boot-up I'm getting the error
> message "Non-system disk or disk error.
> Replace and press any key when ready"
> even when there is no floppy in the drive.
> I made a boot disk, and I'm still getting
> the same message. I've tested other disks
> and it's not a bad floppy, and I've looked
> in CMOS and it seems to be properly set
> up. I can't think of anything else to do.

Oh dear, you should have known better than
to just format the Hard Disk, it wipes the
OS off & everything else. You should have
just deleted the files you don't need & kept
the OS.

Re-Installing a OS isn't particularly easy, so
you'll need to find someone who is at least
qualified to Re-install the OS which was on
it.

CP/M User.
 
"Laura" wrote:

> Oh, crap. So this isn't something I can do myself, then?

Wellll? You can try, but for a newbie it might be much
harder. But it could also depend on the OS. I had to
install PC-DOS 5 from stratch, but I made dual partitions
(in case I wanted to install another OS later - which I
did). I then had to tell it to make it bootable. It was
quite tricky & I did some expermenting to get it right,
but the good news is it's highly likely you don't need
dual partitions, unless you planning on running two OSes
off the same machine.

If it's something like W95, then you have to make sure
you get the approrate disks (if there's no CD-ROM),
somewhere to install it.

Cheers,
CP/M User.
 
Nope, Either MS-Dos 5.0 or Dos 6.22 will do just fine. I'm rather angry at the guide that instructed me to format, though! I'm off to send the webmaster of that site a nasty e-mail.

Quote from <http://www.spacequest.net/misc/customsqpc/index.shtml>:
After a lot of searching you've finally found the right computer for the job. I assume you have bought a second hand computer from some place which still has the Operating System (and possibly the previous owner's files) on the hard drive. We're going to empty your hard drive by using the format command. Turn on the computer and wait until the Operating System loads. This is probably DOS or Windows 95. If it's Windows 95, please click on the START menu, click SHUT DOWN and than select the option REBOOT THE COMPUTER IN DOS (or something that looks like that). The computer will load in DOS. If your computer came with DOS installed, you don't need to do anything and are ready for the job. If your computer doesn't boot at all, the hard drive will probably already be empty. Insert disk 1 of DOS 5.0 and turn on your computer.

To format your hard drive type: "FORMAT C:" to start the formatting sequence. The computer will give you a warning that all the information, files and data on the hard drive will be erased and after having pressed the "Y" key on your keyboard, the formatting will start. After a few seconds you've got a perfectly clean hard drive for our little project. DOS 5.0 comes with three disks and installing it should be easy as pie.

Misleading? Yes.
 
Laura,

Did the bootdisk that you made work before you formatted the drive? How did you format it? Did you just do a high-level format, or what? Did you also run a program named FDISK.EXE? Do you have another machine available to work from? If so, then try your bootdisk in it and see if the disk is actually bootable, then get back to us.

--T
 
"Laura" wrote:

> Nope, Either MS-Dos 5.0 or Dos 6.22
> will do just fine. I'm rather angry at
> the guide that instructed me to format,
> though! I'm off to send the webmaster
> of that site a nasty e-mail.

Send them one, but if you get any large
e-mails from them, delete it - it maybe a
virus (since they seem so keen on getting
you to stuff up your Hard Drive, they
may also send simular files with Batch
files which do the same thing, if so delete
them!).

> Quote from: http://www.spacequest.net/misc/customsqpc/index.shtml

<part of quote snipped>

> To format your hard drive type: "FORMAT
> C:" to start the formatting sequence. The
> computer will give you a warning that all
> the information, files and data on the hard
> drive will be erased and after having
> pressed the "Y" key on your keyboard, the
> formatting will start. After a few seconds
> you've got a perfectly clean hard drive for
> our little project. DOS 5.0 comes with three
> disks and installing it should be easy as pie.

> Misleading? Yes.

Maybe MS-DOS 5.0 is easy to install, but I've
only used PC-DOS 5.0 (slightly different again)
& more complated depending on what you
want to do with it. Multiple Partitions on any
Hard Disk is harder to setup, particularly if
you've only got on hard disk installed, rather
than two. But just the formatting was tricky
because you had to tell the formatting program
(in PC-DOS 5) to allow some space for system
files (which is how you get it booting from the
Hard Disk, so in effect "FORMAT C:" is no good,
under PC-DOS 5!).

Cheers,
CP/M User.
 
Terry Yager said:
Laura,

Did the bootdisk that you made work before you formatted the drive? How did you format it? Did you just do a high-level format, or what? Did you also run a program named FDISK.EXE? Do you have another machine available to work from? If so, then try your bootdisk in it and see if the disk is actually bootable, then get back to us.

--T
I checked the boot disk in my main machine, and it booted right up into DOS 6.22 setup, so it seems fully bootable.

As far as the format on the 486, all I did was use the "format C:" command. Nothing else. After that, I got the "non-system disk or disk error" message every time on boot-up, no matter how my CMOS is set up, and no matter whether or not there's a floppy in the drive.
 
Laura said:
I checked the boot disk in my main machine, and it booted right up into DOS 6.22 setup, so it seems fully bootable.

As far as the format on the 486, all I did was use the "format C:" command. Nothing else. After that, I got the "non-system disk or disk error" message every time on boot-up, no matter how my CMOS is set up, and no matter whether or not there's a floppy in the drive.

To format a bootable disk (hard disk or floppy) you need to use the /s option.

Format C: /s will erase the C: drive and then make it bootable.

If you've already formatted you may be able to use the SYS command. Boot from a DOS floppy and then type SYS C:. That should work.

Good luck!

Erik
 
BUT it's not booting from my bootable floppy. I'm getting the "non-system disk or disk error" message, as I said before.
 
"Laura" wrote:

> BUT it's not booting from my bootable floppy.
> I'm getting the "non-system disk or disk error"
> message, as I said before.

If you can, go into the BIOS setup program &
check to see if the Boot Sequence has the A:
first. Normally this can either be A: C: or C: A:
however if it's set to C: A: then it won't look into
the A: first (which might explain why you're
getting that message), cause it's try to look at
the Hard Disk (which isn't bootable).

Most of the 486s I've see had this kinda option
on the BIOS setup program, so it's quite possible
your's has it & is set to C: A: rather than A: C:

Cheers,
CP/M User.
 
Laura said:
BUT it's not booting from my bootable floppy. I'm getting the "non-system disk or disk error" message, as I said before.

That sounds like it might be a BIOS problem. There should be an on-screen message like "<DEL> for setup" or similar. Then you can verify that the drive type for A: is what you really have. Also, see if the boot sequence is A: first or C: first...

Is A: a 3½" drive or 5¼"? Does the drive LED come on during the boot process?
 
Laura said:
I checked the boot disk in my main machine, and it booted right up into DOS 6.22 setup, so it seems fully bootable.
Ok, did the A: drive work before? Assuming you have the cmos setup correctly, (be sure that it is set to boot from floppy (first boot device)) Then you probably have a hardware problem. (Unless the drive would boot before from the same floppy). Did you use that same machine to create the dos bootdisk, or did you do it on your other pute? If you made the bootdisk in the same drive you're trying to boot from, then the hardware is probably ok, in which case you probably do not have the cmos right (most likely cause).

--T
 
On newer computers (which this 486 doesn't count as), sometimes it is hard to get changes made to start-up order to take effect. I have sometimes been forced to disconnect the hard drive/CD-ROM and start the computer without it once to make it realize I don't want to boot from it anymore. Then I can reconnect the unit and boot from floppy or CD-ROM as I prefer.

Regarding the formatting tutorial, it actually said that either your machine already has some form of DOS, or you should boot from the first floppy in the DOS installation set and once you get a prompt, format the supposedly empty hard drive. If Laura already got to DOS without booting from a floppy, the formatting step was quite unneccessary. :(
 
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