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Vintage 1995 Pionex 486 DX2 66 Mhz Computer

Ok well I remembered I had some old IDE hard drives laying around and figured I'd hook them up to see what happened. Two I know were working when last used ~10 years ago. One was 30GB and the other was 40GB, autodetect pulled up both but had the size listed at around 8GB. Both drives I tried fdisk command on and it said no fixed disk available. Guess I'll try another RTC battery.
 
Sounds like you have BIOS limitations in play. What year and BIOS is in the machine in question? You are aware of BIOS/HD size limitations, aren't you?
 
Yeah I have heard about it, just wanted to see if there was any difference at all with them. The AMIBIOS date is 11/11/92 so I know it can't see all of it. Don't have any older ones on hand unfortunately.
 
Then chances are your BIOS will not properly recognize anything over 528 MB. You could try a DDO with a drive of that size or larger and get it to work.
 
Stone said:
Have you ever LLF'ed an IDE drive successfully?

Do you have the necessary equipment to lay down the servo track?

Since these drives can only be successfully LLF'ed at the factory level I seriously doubt that anybody (here) can successfully complete this type of operation in a home or office environment.

Now, if you've successfully LLF'ed IDE drives on your own equipment I'd love to know (and have access to) the software you've been using as I have a stack of drives that need this process done to them. I just don't think it's possible to really LLF an IDE drive without having all the factory equipment.
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Good news the software is even free. Grab it here:

http://hddguru.com/software/HDD-LLF-Low-Level-Format-Tool/
 
That program is similar To Seatools and several others. It does *not* do a LLF but rather Zero Fills every sector on the drive. Zero Filling and LLF are not the same by any stretch of the imagination and are not synonymous. Zero Filling simply overwrites all data and makes recovery impossible. It does absolutely nothing to change or alter the track layout or embedded servo data. If you have a drive that needs a LLF in order to function this is not going to do it.
 
Well I may yet get this computer to work. I got my new RTC battery today and it looks like you might be right about it causing the issue Krille. After I replaced it I no longer get the CMOS low error at all, BIOS shows the Seagate needs formatting since it's over 528MB, and the Caviar which is under that allows me to do SCANDISK it found no bad clusters nor any other issues with the drive. Typing FDISK shows 1 fixed disk drive now instead of the "No fixed disks present" error I kept getting before.

Now if I start the computer without the boot disk installed it comes to a page after memory check has completed where it says "Hold the CTRL key down to boot from a floppy. . . "Additionally, when it tries booting from the Windows 95 boot disk, it states

"Starting Windows 95 . . .

The compression driver cannot be set up correctly. Get a version from your vendor that is compatible with this version of Windows. Press any key to continue . . . "

Afterwards I did the dir command and it found 28 files taking up a total of 1,692,252 bytes with 32,624,640 bytes free. I can't figure out how to scroll up to see the rest of the files, but I figure I'd need a serial port mouse to do that. Page up and the directional up arrow didn't work for that. The files I can see were installed from 1993-1997. Some programs are : MP95 (10-03-96), MS Office (3-08-95), Windows (12-02-93), WINWORD (3-01-94), and WINWORKS (12-02-93).

So what should the next step be? Why can I still not boot off the drive or start the Windows 95 installation process on it? Would it be easier even though it'd be my first time doing it to just format the >528MB Seagate drive and install Windows 95 on it or what could I do with the Caviar drive?

Lastly, if I type in sys C: at the A: command prompt, it tells me "You are overwriting system files from a different version of MS-DOS or Windows. The system files you are installing will only work with the version of Windows for which they are intended.

Are you sure you want to proceed (Y/N)?"

I am holding off on that until I figure out what the best course of action would be. I wouldn't want to erase a usable copy of an OS by formatting if it wasn't necessary to do so. Got my USB floppy drive a few days ago as well and it works without issue so that could be useful in the future.

Looking forward to hearing back from you guys.
 
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What happens when you type win ? Dir /w/p will give you a directory listing in dos across the screen and pause the screen. Hit space and it'll scroll the next page.

What are you sys c: with? A windows 95 boot disk?
 
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"What happens when you type win ?" It says bad command or file name whether I type it at the A: or C: prompt.

With dir /w I saw it also has DOS (12-02-93) installed, nothing else stood out to me.

"What are you sys c: with? A windows 95 boot disk?" Yes, it's a Windows 95 with USB support boot floppy disk. Had the Windows 95 installation CD in the computer as well.
 
So it's not booting directly to the c: drive still?

If you cd to the windows directory and type win what happens?

The reason sys c: is not working is it's picking up MSDos 6.x and win/wfw 3.x or win95A is already on the hdd.

format c: /s will wipe the drive completely-format it as fat32 and make it bootable using Dos7/win9x files. You varify that the c: drive it is set as bootable using fdisk and view current partition info.
 
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I just set for it to boot from C: first then A: in BIOS and it still says "Hold the CTRL key down to boot from a floppy. . . " I have the 3.25'' drive configured as drive A: in BIOS and plugged into the end of the IDE cable, but the 5.25'' drive light is lit up when this message is given. This is odd because when I had it set to boot from A: first then C: the computer correctly checked the 3.25'' drive and tried booting from the Windows 95 disk. Also, holding down either CTRL button with a disk in as it states doesn't do anything, so I can't proceed past that point when it says that. When I have it set to boot from A: first and I start it with the boot disk already in the drive it will try booting from it, however.

I'll have to look up how to CD to the directory and get back to you.
 
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Master Boot Record on the hdd could be hosed. fdisk /mbr should restore it if it is.

I'd completely disconnect the 5.25" floppy drive btw for the time being.
 
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Alright I changed the directory to Windows and typed win. Here is what it said :

"You started your computer with a version of MS-DOS incompatible with this version of Windows. Insert a Startup diskette matching this version of Windows and then restart.

The system has been halted. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart your computer."

From this it sounds like it would boot with a Windows 3.x boot disk, but the Windows 95 boot disk is incompatible. Should I proceed with fdisk /mbr or create a 3.x boot disk? I have blank 3.25'' floppies and a USB floppy drive I could use if that's a good course of action.

(I tried just disconnecting the 5.25'' floppy drive but then it just gave the same "Hold CTRL" message with the 3.25'' LED lit, so I changed the boot sequence back to A: then C: since then I am able to use the command prompt.)
 
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That's exactly right dos & windows versions are incompatible. No halm in trying fdisk /mbr What you do next is really up to you. Do you want to recover anything from the hdd? If not just wax it with the win95 install or just format as I mentioned earlier and see how you get on.

If you want to recover stuff just find a compatible boot disk with a version of dos that's on the system. In the Dos directory on the hdd there may be a readme file you can have a look at using the edit command giving a clue as to the version. There is no Windows 3.1x boot disk btw. You need Dos installed first to be able to install/run win3.x.
 
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Nothing I need to recover, just didn't want to format the drive before I knew for certain what would need to be done to use it as it is now. I bought it because I thought it looked like a decent old machine and figured someone would like to have it. Learned a bit about troubleshooting from dealing with it.

Is there a DOS command to copy the Windows 3.x installed on the hard drive to one of my blank floppies first though?

There's a hard disk utility in the BIOS where formatting the drive is an option. I'll check and see if I can figure out how to format it.
 
vintageestatefinds said:
nothing i need to recover, just didn't want to format the drive before i knew for certain what would need to be done to use it as it is now. I bought it because i thought it looked like a decent old machine and figured someone would like to have it. Learned a bit about troubleshooting from dealing with it.

There's a hard disk utility in the bios where formatting the drive is an option. I'll check and see if i can figure out how to format it.
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Don't use the bios utility!!
 
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