Olivetti M300-02E drive issues

[richarjo]

I bought a non-booting Olivetti M300-02E recently. It has an issue with the drives, both floppy and hdd. The floppy is an Epson SMD-1000. The HDD is a WD Caviar 2120 125mb unit. On bootstrapping, after first diagnostics the HDD gives a disk error. I don't know if it is a hard error or not formatted. The hdd seeks during introductory diagnostics ok. The diagnostics is in rom. The Bios battery has been replaced and the usual SMD "leaky" caps on the motherboard are absent, instead they are barrel type. There's no evidence of re-capping so I'm assuming a factory oddity.

I sourced an Olivetti M300-02 User Disk from Olivera to run startup without a HDD and ran it to A/ prompt without hassle but I didn't at that stage have MS-DOS disks to run Dos other than the basic User Disk functions. The Olivetti User Disk doesn't have fdisk or format to test the HDD.

I tried MS-DOS disks later which I had and they stopped the FDD from reading because they were in rough condition. The floppy drive wouldn't read after that. I have replaced the floppy drive with another Epson SMD-1000 known to be working and the same error of "Not a System Disk" with my special M300-02 User Disk, and several copies of it in-case of disk error.

I haven't reached a point to see the HDD fault or if I can format it or it needs replacing. The only thing I can think of is the floppy cable or the drive controller IC (87C310). I do not have that kind of knowledge though. It seems the dirty floppies I tried has Vexed the system somehow.

 

[seaken]

Do you have any other floppy drives available to you. Maybe swap in a different drive, checking the drive select settings to make sure they match up with what the Olivetti is expecting.

Seaken

 

[richarjo]

I swapped in a 3rd Epson SMD-1000 also known working and it loaded the User Disk to the A/ prompt. I then tried an MS-DOS disk with A/fdisk /status to test the HDD and it gave a "Failure to Read Drive A" error. Tried the User Disk again and "Not System Disk" error. Is it that the Espon drives are particularly frail or is there something simple like me not assigning A/ when a new disk is inserted?

 

[seaken]

My guess is that you started fdisk and when you swapped the disk the system was looking for fdisk and could not find it.

The correct syntax is A:, not A/. If the User Disk is customized it may show A/. The MS-DOS disk should show A:>, unless it has also been customized to show a different prompt. If you are able to boot MS-DOS to the A:> prompt you are most of the way there. You should try cleaning the heads with IPA. If the MS-DOS disk is booting to the prompt but not reading the files it may be a dirty read head.

Seaken

 

[richarjo]

Making some progress with the Olivetti M300-02E revealing it's secrets. Swapped in a cleaned Epson SMD-1000 floppy drive courtesy of James Longworth. It is reading fine and loaded my M300-02 User Disk to boot the machine. The User disk loaded drivers for disk D: too but there is no D: volume available. My MS-DOS 5.0 floppy disk would load, but I couldn't run FDISK - giving errors. I don't think it's the Floppy drive. I have a stack of erased HD floppies from back when and they might be failing. I'm not sure why running executables is causing disk errors. I managed to list the C: directory and TYPE the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. The DOS folder wouldn't open giving a disk error. There is no edit or ed command to edit the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. The User Disk must have very limited commands. The C: directory has no /Windows directory as PATH in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file call. It's been many moons since I played with DOS so I don't know what I'm doing either!

 

[seaken]

Can you log into the C: drive? After booting the User Disk, at the A:> prompt type "C:". That should change your active drive to C: and the prompt should change to C:>, or C>.

There is a /Windows directory. But the path statement won't be active since you didn't boot from the C: drive. You could try changing the directory to "C:\Windows" and then type "win" followed by "Enter".

You may be using a 720k disk for trying to boot MS-DOS 5.0 in a 1.44m drive, or you may have a 720k drive and the disk was formatted in a different drive.

Can you show the directory of the User Disk after booting?

Seaken

 

[richarjo]

The above photos are of the C: HDD volume. The User boot floppy disk gives an A> prompt without the colon : so that maybe a modified MS-DOS which won't run all commands?

The MS-DOS 5.0 floppy is a 1.44MB disk with all 3 720k disks onboard with PKZIP.

Olivetti M300-02 User disk photos attached with startup diagnostics and floppy directory listing.

 

[richarjo]

Apologies for double posting but more progress: I tried C:Windows and C:DOS but invalid command. I tried running FDISK /STATUS and it reports C: drive 100% full. I ran CHKDSK /f and it found /DOS folder was incorrect and then found /Windows folder was incorrect and got stuck on it.

I then tried CHKDSK /f /r and it said Parse Error 3, also tried /x and also Parse error 3.

Then I tried a complete new install with DOS 5.0. Format was ready to go but gave block 0 error disk unusable (attached pic)

I've ordered another HDD on eBay.

 

[seaken]

Not sure if the format command deleted your C: drive yet or not. But I wouldn't use that command unless you don't care about any of the data and want to wipe the contents of the drive and start over.

C:\Windows and C:DOS won't do anything. To log on to the drive you type "C:". Then you change directories by typing "CD C:\DOS" to go to the C:\DOS directory, The prompt should now be "C:\DOS" and you can type "DIR" to get a directory listing of that directory.

You can also get a directory listing of that directory by typing "DIR C:\DOS" from the A> prompt.

On that A> directory listing I do not see any DOS utilities or commands. How are you running FDISK? Are you booting with the User Disk and then swapping in an MS-DOS disk?

The D: drive is likely a RAM Disk and set in the Config.sys file of the User Disk.

Even when your new hard drive arrives you will need a good MS-DOS diskette with FDISK. You may also need a setup disk or that computer has a key combo to enter the BIOS.

It looks to me that your MS-DOS floppies are not reading properly. You will need to get a good working floppy drive and floppy disk.

Seaken

 

[richarjo]

Thanks for the correct DOS command syntax, I ran FDISK from a file copied onto a formatted 1.44mb floppy - swapped in after the Utility Disk loaded. I tried to use the Format command copied on to the same floppy but that required itself to be on an ms-dos disk, presumably for system file access. I then tried a proper MS-Dos disk to run the Format command.

I hadn't thought of a RAM: disk, Thanks.

I have official MS-DOS 5, Olivetti MS-DOS 6 and Microsoft MS-DOS 6.22 disks and none of them are readable, trashing drives every time a read is attempted. Very sad. It is easy enough to copy a disk img of MS-Dos or Windows to blank disks, which is what I've ended up doing. Assuming my store of blank HD floppies are any better.

 

[richarjo]

I ran FDISK again with A>FDISK /MBR and that worked - supposedly correcting the Master Boot Record on the HDD. But still no joy with formatting or accessing DOS or Windows folders.

The HDD has a MOUSE directory and Olivetti's on the web are reported to have non-standard mouse drivers. A look at the specs shows it is a standard AT mouse (IRQ 12) in this case.
I'm wondering if I will need to source Olivetti Mouse drivers for it when I install Windows 3.1 on the new HDD. I have the Italian Olivetti Windows 3.1 disks also on the way so I might find it there if needed.

 

[richarjo]

An update. I've swapped out the WD Caviar 2120 HDD for a same model replacement and after using FDISK to set it as the boot drive, MS-DOS 5.0 formatted/installed and Windows 3.1 and it's all running ok with the exception of one thing; if Autoexec.bat runs SMARTDRV.EXE the system fails to read the HDD giving a data error. I've REM'd the line in AUTOEXEC.BAT to exclude that and it's loading ok. I'm not sure if any significant slowdowns are happening because of it. I've also ordered some more ram simms to lift the system to 10MB (max). I thought lack of ram may be the cause of SMARTDRV.EXE causing data errors.

 

[richarjo]

Installed 2x 4MB simms. Configs ok. Smartdrv.exe doesn't read C: - Data Error. REM'd for now.

 

[1ST1]

Smartdrv needs emm386 to be installed.

 

[richarjo]

Smartdrv needs emm386 to be installed.

Is that an Olivetti app and not part of the Windows 3.1 distro? EDIT: Installed now but states "Insufficient memory available for UMB's or HVA's" Press any key.
I have the Bios set to 64kb+VGA - what would be appropriate for a 10MB machine?

 

[richarjo]

I've set the Bios to 64kb+VGA shadow memory and 3128kb extended memory and 6298kb expanded memory. EMM386.EXE now loads but says 256kb extended memory? Smartdrv.exe still fails to read drive C: ?