Re: Wanted - Recovery Diss for Sony Vaio PCG-R600HMPD

Posted on 2023-06-27, 19:53

by

by nfraser01

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

cyclone3d wrote on 2023-06-27, 13:44: For generic OEM XP, you should set up on a working machine, then run sysprep. Here is a pretty decent guide: https://petenetlive.com/KB/Article/0000599 Thanks for that - looks like an interesting read...

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Re: Wanted - Recovery Diss for Sony Vaio PCG-R600HMPD

Posted on 2023-06-27, 11:34

by

by nfraser01

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just found this post, which has a similar story: How to install Win98 SE on laptop with no CD or Floppy Drives? I'm going to try and fix the floppy drive and use the DOS drivers to see if I can get anywhwere... Would still be interested in those Sony CD's though!

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Re: Can I just pull out a Promise BIOS from an ultra66 PCI Card and put it in an ISA networking card?

Posted on 2023-06-27, 10:59

by

by nfraser01

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Is the Promise BIOS similar to the XT-IDE Universal BIOS, wherein I can just stick the BIOS chip in any available ROM slot? This is to break the 500mb capacity barrier in an ISA only 286 system (PC AT clone). OK, I've seen comments like this before but I don't really understand the context. You …

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Re: WinGPT, AI chat bot for Windows 3.1

Posted on 2023-06-27, 10:54

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by nfraser01

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Wow!

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Wanted - Recovery Diss for Sony Vaio PCG-R600HMPD - [PART RESOLVED]

Posted on 2023-06-27, 09:40

by

by nfraser01

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi all I've just restored a Vaio PCG-R600HMPD but have run into the usual VAIO problem of not being to install an opertaing system on it. FYI It's a Pentium III/ Windows XP laptop from circa 2002. The problem arises beacuse: 1) Sony have removed all legacy downloads from their support site 2) There …

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Re: Less popular Youtube channels

Posted on 2023-06-20, 21:30

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by nfraser01

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

schmatzler wrote on 2023-05-28, 16:09: NCommander - he's a coder and has a lot of knowlege about old architectures and systems. Regularly goes almost insane during livestreams. Had me with at the banner picture...

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Picked up a Gateway 2000 P4D-66 - but it isn't...

Posted on 2023-06-20, 21:18

by

by nfraser01

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi All Picked up a Gateway 2000 P4D-66 today as I was nostalgic for the case :-) However it has been upgraded interally and it's actually got a P5A-B motherboard - I should have spotted the Asus sticker on the front :-/ Silver linigs though as it's a decent/colectable board and had a S3 Trio 64V+ in …

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Re: Snappy Driver Installer - Thoughts?

Posted on 2022-12-17, 11:04

by

by nfraser01

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Horun wrote on 2022-12-17, 04:24: Is this whole topic a promotion/spam post ? Not at all.. Sorry if it came across that way. Genuinely I interested if a single tool can save me time on some older systems. Time is the one thing I have least of....

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Re: Snappy Driver Installer - Thoughts?

Posted on 2022-12-16, 22:28

by

by nfraser01

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

99% of the time it works fine. there is the odd time that a driver it installs is buggy though and can brick things. some drivers its better to install manually are things like gpu. also sometimes its best not to mess with Raid/Sata/ide drivers as if the wrong or a buggy driver is installed it can …

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Re: Snappy Driver Installer - Thoughts?

Posted on 2022-12-16, 22:28

by

by nfraser01

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

mihai wrote on 2022-12-15, 20:59: in my experience, it is very good - no issues at all. Great... Thanks

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Re: Snappy Driver Installer - Thoughts?

Posted on 2022-12-15, 20:50

by

by nfraser01

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I downloaded the entire offline installer package and put it on a usb drive with easy2boot for installing windows xp. It's fantastic for setting up offline systems and knocking out those obscure chipset drivers that can be such a pain. Had pretty mixed results with Audigy or SBLive drivers though. …

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Snappy Driver Installer - Thoughts?

Posted on 2022-12-15, 20:38

by

by nfraser01

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi All Came across a reference to this tool recently. I'm (very) wary of things like this - tools that offer to do stuff for free :-) As the saying goes "when a service is free, you are the product". My assumption is that it contains adware or malware. I have searched the forums and it comes up …

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Re: Announcing SOFTHDDI, a TSR for DOS that adds hard drive clicks and lights

Posted on 2022-12-12, 15:46

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by nfraser01

in Release Announcements

in Release Announcements

I wrote a progam for vintage DOS computing that I thought VOGONS people might be interested in: It's called SOFTHDDI, and it implements in software what the "HDD Clicker" does in hardware. And while I was writing it, I added the ability to show hard drive activity onscreen and on the keyboard LEDs …

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Re: Weird Toshiba Libretto 50CT Boot Image/Error

Posted on 2022-10-25, 21:04

by

by nfraser01

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That's the Libretto's suspend to disk function in action. I think it's booting from the hibernation file in that picture. That's a good thing, it means the hard drive is working and it's getting far enough to boot from the hard drive, so the mainboard is most likely working properly. Great - that's …

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Weird Toshiba Libretto 50CT Boot Image/Error

Posted on 2022-10-25, 20:14

by

by nfraser01

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've had my eye on getting a Libretto 50/70 and one has just come up on eBay, but it's showing a weird boot image intead of an error code: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/H7UAAOSw4L9jVrZx/s-l1600.jpg Having looked through the service manual and done a Google image search I can't find a definitive …

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Re: Commander X16 of The 8-Bit Guy, can it be considered as the most nonsense neo-retro computer of all times?

Posted on 2022-10-25, 20:08

by

by nfraser01

in Milliways

in Milliways

ThinkpadIL wrote on 2022-10-17, 06:34: Whether I ever wanted to max out an 8-bit computer to the degree when it becomes not compatible with any previous model but still has not a CP/M capability? Of course not! 😀

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Re: BIOS password bypass on Zenith Data Systems Z-Note 325L?

Posted on 2022-10-17, 08:45

by

by nfraser01

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-10-16, 21:58: Since battery removal and clear attempts have you tried to enter a null string password? (just press return) because some clear and still have the prompt. No, I probably have not....

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Re: BIOS password bypass on Zenith Data Systems Z-Note 325L?

Posted on 2022-10-16, 21:05

by

by nfraser01

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Predator99 wrote on 2022-10-16, 21:01: Is the EPROM on a socket and are you able to replace it? Can you provide a dump of your BIOS? Can't recall from wghen I had it apart. will look when I get the chance. I don't have any EPROM readers etc though...

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Re: Commander X16 of The 8-Bit Guy, can it be considered as the most nonsense neo-retro computer of all times?

Posted on 2022-10-16, 20:38

by

by nfraser01

in Milliways

in Milliways

Yesterday I've watched a new video of The 8-Bit Guy about his Commander X16 project which is in the final stages of its development. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcWqMGju7fk First of all I have to say that any project and any attempt in the retro computing field deserves respect, but ... And …

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Re: BIOS password bypass on Zenith Data Systems Z-Note 325L?

Posted on 2022-10-16, 20:29

by

by nfraser01

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

nfraser01 wrote on 2022-10-16, 10:45: BitWrangler wrote on 2022-10-16, 04:47: Either of these work? https://www.passwordsdatabase.com/vendor/zenith Not seen this list before - thanks. Will try the 1st one. Already tried the second... Nope, no luck. Looks like its going to have to be a motherboard …

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