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Recover IDE hard drive after CMOS battery change

Grinstead

New Member
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Jun 26, 2022
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6
Sorry to ask an oldy, but my memory is not what it was. I have an old Viglen work computer, early Pentium chip. The CMOS battery expired, and after changing, the usual problem. On switching on, the BIOS has been reset, and it no longer detects the IDE hard drives. I really need the machine up in its old state. Is there a recommended way of getting the C drive “reregistered” when booting? Very grateful for any help.
 
I'm not familiar with that brand of system. Does the CMOS setup (I assume that there's a key combination that will get you into that) allow you to manually set up drives?
 
Sounds like you need to enter the CHS manually.

Look up the parameters for the drive, then in the BIOS, manually set the parameters ?
 
Presumably, your computer is hanging shortly after the boot process with an error message regarding the hard drive. On this screen, there should be a message inviting you to enter setup by hitting a certain key (often 'DEL', 'ESC' or one of the function keys. Pressing that will take you to the BIOS setup routine, and in there, there should be an option to set the 'type' of hard drive that's installed. This is likely to be easy to spot, but if not, let us know what sort of BIOS is in place on your system - this is likely to be displayed either in the top left hand corner of the inital screen (a banner displaying the manufacturer such as American Megatrends, Phoenix etc) - or there may be a long line of letters and numbers at the very bottom of the screen; if you can let us know what's on that first screen (where the machine 'freezes'), or better still, upload an image of it, there'll be someone here that will be able to talk you though the process of getting it up and running again (assuming, of course, that the HDD hasn't died).

Sounds like you need to enter the CHS manually.

On a Pentium-based system? I very much doubt it. Every post-486 system I've ever used has had an auto-detect function.

Regards,

M.
 
1: Check and re-check the cables.

2: Exactly what model of hard drive is it?

3: When the drive powers on, does it spin up and sound ok?

4: What kind of BIOS/exact model of machine?

Ideally you want to set the BIOS to "auto detect" the first had drive. It may have been set to "none" in the settings. If there is no "auto" option then you may need to look up the drive model and manually enter C/H/S parameters for that drive.
 
On a Pentium-based system? I very much doubt it. Every post-486 system I've ever used has had an auto-detect function.
Depends on the BIOS, I'm not familiar with the Viglens but early > Pentium system's can have Auto-Detect and the option of entering CHS manually. If it's a Viglen modified bios from one of the usual bios manufactures....... ??
 
Ta to all.
AMIBIOS 1992 vers 1.00.06.CB0
0049152 KB
Keyboard detected
Floppy A: Installed

Insert bootable media in the appropriate drive(flashing cursor)

BIOS set to hard drive autodetect Says “not installed”
 
Presumably, your computer is hanging shortly after the boot process with an error message regarding the hard drive. On this screen, there should be a message inviting you to enter setup by hitting a certain key (often 'DEL', 'ESC' or one of the function keys. Pressing that will take you to the BIOS setup routine, and in there, there should be an option to set the 'type' of hard drive that's installed. This is likely to be easy to spot, but if not, let us know what sort of BIOS is in place on your system - this is likely to be displayed either in the top left hand corner of the inital screen (a banner displaying the manufacturer such as American Megatrends, Phoenix etc) - or there may be a long line of letters and numbers at the very bottom of the screen; if you can let us know what's on that first screen (where the machine 'freezes'), or better still, upload an image of it, there'll be someone here that will be able to talk you though the process of getting it up and running again (assuming, of course, that the HDD hasn't died).



On a Pentium-based system? I very much doubt it. Every post-486 system I've ever used has had an auto-detect function.

Regards,

M.
Please see separate reply.
 
By the Pentium era auto-detection was pretty standard, I’d be really surprised to run into a machine that didn’t have it. But you may well have to get into the BIOS to trigger it.
 
You've been given good advice already. Hopefully you can get the hard drive recognized again. Do you have any other PC computers? What I have done in some cases is put the hard drive in another working system and have it auto detected. If it does not not auto detect the hard drive may have failed. Maybe you can get the data off using a utility and replace the drive in the Viglen with a new drive.

Did you try booting with a floppy and then trying to read the C: drive? Maybe it just has a bad boot but otherwise is recognized?

Seaken
 
Presumably, your computer is hanging shortly after the boot process with an error message regarding the hard drive. On this screen, there should be a message inviting you to enter setup by hitting a certain key (often 'DEL', 'ESC' or one of the function keys. Pressing that will take you to the BIOS setup routine, and in there, there should be an option to set the 'type' of hard drive that's installed. This is likely to be easy to spot, but if not, let us know what sort of BIOS is in place on your system - this is likely to be displayed either in the top left hand corner of the inital screen (a banner displaying the manufacturer such as American Megatrends, Phoenix etc) - or there may be a long line of letters and numbers at the very bottom of the screen; if you can let us know what's on that first screen (where the machine 'freezes'), or better still, upload an image of it, there'll be someone here that will be able to talk you though the process of getting it up and running again (assuming, of course, that the HDD hasn't died).



On a Pentium-based system? I very much doubt it. Every post-486 system I've ever used has had an auto-detect function.

Regards,

M.
Please see separate reply
 
Thanks for help. I have posted the BIOS number above. AMIBIOS 1992 vers 1.00.06.CB0. The problem is the bios not being able to autodetect the drives. I will pull the drives, find the details for manual setup, and copy the drive contents before going further. This will tell if the drives are still good. I have had the same problem with other old PCs but can’t remember if there was a fix.
 
Just throwing this out there... Do you have the cable attached in the right spot and is the drive jumpered correctly?

5371-16.jpg
 
"Early Pentium" may just use a flat 40 conductor cable without the cable-select features. In any case, it won't hurt for testing if the drive is set to "master" instead of "cable select". No other devices should be on the same cable in that case.
 
Thanks to all. I fixed it but not sure how. Stripped out the drives and USB'd them to another system. Also pulled the board battery again, left it for ten minutes before reinserting. Had trouble seeing the drives on the other system, used Seagate Seatools and through the pulldowns to Microsoft Disc Management. One drive could be seen, the other not. Copied the contents of the visible drive (old C drive) to another disc so I at least had the old contents. Then put the drives back in the old system, and on reboot the drives were detected. The system now back up and running. I seem to remember that sometimes the drives on these old systems get confused, and will not boot on the original system until they had been 'woken' by being interrogated as a non-system disc on a different machine, given a drive letter so that they can be copied, and then the drive letter wiped. Presumably some sort of mis-set flag or similar on the drive. The second disc had Linux on it in a multiboot setup, that is also now running ok.
 
For what it's worth, Viglen Computers were a huge PC manufacturer in the early PC-compatible era - competing directly with Compaq (in the desktop market) and AST. You guys in the US had CompuAdd and Gateway 2000 (which we in the UK had also), but Viglen had a much larger market share in the 286, 386 and 486 era until they were bought out around 1994 by Amstrad. As memory serves they had a reputation for top-notch quality and compatibility.
 
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