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Reviving a 3800 HD

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David King

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Joined
Jan 16, 2012
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I pulled my wife's old 3800HD laptop out of the attic the other day and tried to boot it. I was able to get the lights lit, and the hard drive is spinning, but it needs to boot from the Startup disc to reset the date/time. The 3 1/2" drive just makes a rumbling sound when it tries to read the disc. I pulled it apart, and as far as I can tell, the drive belt on the drive is so stiff it will no longer spin.

Any suggestions? Can you get belts for these things? Is there a way to fool it into booting without the Startup disc?

Thanks,

Dave King
 
I'm having trouble finding a good picture of the laptop. It isn't by chance just a normal 3.5" desktop drive is it? I've heard a few folks replacing the belt with various things like rubber bands, I recall there being a sturdier solution but I haven't done it myself so someone who has would be a more definitive answer. If it's just the cmos battery you may be able to set hard drive settings in the bios after turning it on and perhaps get it to boot off the drive if it's still working.
 
barythrin said:
I'm having trouble finding a good picture of the laptop. It isn't by chance just a normal 3.5" desktop drive is it? I've heard a few folks replacing the belt with various things like rubber bands, I recall there being a sturdier solution but I haven't done it myself so someone who has would be a more definitive answer. If it's just the cmos battery you may be able to set hard drive settings in the bios after turning it on and perhaps get it to boot off the drive if it's still working.
Click to expand...

Hey, Barythrin,

It's an internal drive, sadly. This is one of the early laptops, although at nine pounds, it required a pretty sturdy lap. I did get it far enough apart to find the belt, and it seems pretty specific. The hard drive seems fine, and I'm pretty confident it would boot given a chance. How would I access the BIOS on this? It's running Windows 3.1 on top of DOS -- I'm not sure which version.

Thanks,

David
 
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