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Zenith 161

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OlderNDirt

New Member
Joined
Dec 28, 2006
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1
The Zenith 161 was my first PC. Back when I was strong enough to lift it, I would carry it from job to job. I still have it and pull it out to play with it from time to time. The grand kids are here for the week and I pulled it out to show them what computing was like back in the early days of the PC.
I am getting a message "1701" on the screen. I figured that was the HD on a card going bad. I put a floppy disk in with DOS 3.2. The system booted from that after display of the 1701 for a bit.
I opened the case up and pulled out the HD on a card. Put her back together and booted from the same DOS boot disk. Now it gives me a message that says "partition invalid". I figure that the system still expects the HD to be there. I don't see any CMOS setup in this old baby, so I figure it must be some dip switches. Don't have any manuals that have survived this long. Anyone have any suggestions on getting this old girl to boot again?
 
There's an earlier thread that dealt with a member who had boot problem with a 'hard drive on a card'.
http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/showthread.php?t=3603
In that case, a Hardcard had 'stiction' (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiction ) and was at least temporarily fixed. Read the thread.

If you are unable to get the hard drive working, and simply want to boot from floppy without seeing the hard drive related error messages:

If the Zenith 161 is a PC or XT clone, then simply remove the hard card from the machine.

If the Zenith 161 is an AT clone, then you'll need to set the C: drive type in the CMOS setup to zero. To access the CMOS setup, you may need to run the 'setup' program supplied with the machine (or try the generic GSETUP.EXE from http://motherboards.mbarron.net/download/ )
 
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