Rubix
Experienced Member
- Joined
- May 20, 2007
- Messages
- 163
Hi all, I recently was very lucky to having been given this early PC's Limited Turbo PC from 1985. This was the very first Dell PC.
I was able to boot it from floppy, using a different monitor. The monitor that came with it, gives a garbled image and I'm not sure if it's the monitor, or me using an incompatible cable. The monitor cable was missing when I got it.
The problem I'm facing now, is that I can't get the computer to read from the hard drive. The cables were disconnected when I first got it, and the controller cable was damaged. I connected a different controller cable which now seems to make the controller and drive initialize properly. The drive mechanically sounds as it should; it spins up properly, does the whole seek tests and then the LED turns off. Then a short blink. Once the POST is done, both drive A: and C: light up looking for a boot sector, but it doesn't find anything.
Booting to PC-DOS 2.0, I can go to C: but it can't read the drive. The light doesn't even come on. When I try to list the partitions with FDISK (option 4), I see the drive LED blink for a bit and then FDISK throws an error saying it can't read from the drive.
Interestingly, the exact same things happen when I disconnect the data cable entirely. I tried a different data cable, but that gives the same results.
I attached pictures of the controller with the jumper settings and the cable connections. The controller card's BIOS is the Super Bios.
Controller settings can be found here: https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-d...L-CORPORATION-Two-MFM-ST506-412-driv-221.html
Hard drive specifications can be found here: https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-drives-hdd/seagate/ST225-21MB-5-25-HH-MFM-ST412.html
I checked all the jumpers on the card, and it all seems correct. Does anyone have any suggestions what I could try next? Thank you!
I was able to boot it from floppy, using a different monitor. The monitor that came with it, gives a garbled image and I'm not sure if it's the monitor, or me using an incompatible cable. The monitor cable was missing when I got it.
The problem I'm facing now, is that I can't get the computer to read from the hard drive. The cables were disconnected when I first got it, and the controller cable was damaged. I connected a different controller cable which now seems to make the controller and drive initialize properly. The drive mechanically sounds as it should; it spins up properly, does the whole seek tests and then the LED turns off. Then a short blink. Once the POST is done, both drive A: and C: light up looking for a boot sector, but it doesn't find anything.
Booting to PC-DOS 2.0, I can go to C: but it can't read the drive. The light doesn't even come on. When I try to list the partitions with FDISK (option 4), I see the drive LED blink for a bit and then FDISK throws an error saying it can't read from the drive.
Interestingly, the exact same things happen when I disconnect the data cable entirely. I tried a different data cable, but that gives the same results.
I attached pictures of the controller with the jumper settings and the cable connections. The controller card's BIOS is the Super Bios.
Controller settings can be found here: https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-d...L-CORPORATION-Two-MFM-ST506-412-driv-221.html
Hard drive specifications can be found here: https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-drives-hdd/seagate/ST225-21MB-5-25-HH-MFM-ST412.html
I checked all the jumpers on the card, and it all seems correct. Does anyone have any suggestions what I could try next? Thank you!