Intresting internal design 😀 Far from any known standards...

Old Compaqs are a bit odd but they are quite fun to work with. I have a few in my collection that Im trying to get back to life.

Nice looking system 😀

The support files for these old Compaqs are normally remarkably easy to track down as all the SoftPaqs are still available online, both thru the HP ftp site and from the many independant mirrors of the same...e.g. this SoftPaq for the Trio64V+ is SP1879 (there may be newer ones as well) and supports Windows 95 on the Presario 9500 series. Here's a link to the readme file

ftp://ftp3.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp1501-2000/sp1879.txt

Small update:

There was another chip hiding behind the modem

Here´s the stripped frame

And here it´s recovering from spray poisoning

This seems like a pretty good page.
http://www.driversguru.com/manufacturer/HP-pi … 63194%3E3768941

If you check the 2nd "Download Now" option for the driver (Not the installer) you can see its linking back to HP's FTP.

It may not have an individual page for the 9538 but alot say the 9500 series (alot of the time the hardware was the same across the series with a small change like a CPU the only difference)

earlier Compaqs accessed bios from a bootdisk/system partition, which if your missing the HDD you won't have. The "Personal Computer Setup" in the list from the site above looks to be what you'll need.

Compaq created their own motherboard chipsets but everything else (like the onboard sound/video) has a 90% chance of working with generic drivers.

I agree should be nice little project. Once you get the new HDD setup all working should be like running up any other PC

chinny22 wrote on 2020-05-26, 14:49:

This seems like a pretty good page. http://www.driversguru.com/manufacturer/HP-pi … 63194%3E3768941 […]
Show full quote

This seems like a pretty good page.
http://www.driversguru.com/manufacturer/HP-pi … 63194%3E3768941

If you check the 2nd "Download Now" option for the driver (Not the installer) you can see its linking back to HP's FTP.

It may not have an individual page for the 9538 but alot say the 9500 series (alot of the time the hardware was the same across the series with a small change like a CPU the only difference)

earlier Compaqs accessed bios from a bootdisk/system partition, which if your missing the HDD you won't have. The "Personal Computer Setup" in the list from the site above looks to be what you'll need.

Compaq created their own motherboard chipsets but everything else (like the onboard sound/video) has a 90% chance of working with generic drivers.

I agree should be nice little project. Once you get the new HDD setup all working should be like running up any other PC

Thanks! This is very helpful.

Here´s a couple of new pictures:

I thought that by now this project would be finished with a video but a few parts are still on the way. So, here´s a little photo of my cabling solution.

That's a fascinating case. I wonder what the design philosophy is behind that segregation? Whatever it is I like it. Cool project.

That's a fun little machine. Beautiful job on the cable management. Looking forward to seeing the finished product!

Looks 95% the same as my Presario 9232. The one in your pictures appears to have the extra 1MB graphics RAM for the onboard Trio64 as well. There's a wavetable header on the motherboard you can use for MIDI in DOS with the ESS sound which is quite good. I put a Dreamblaster S2 in mine. Also, you can find the Compaq Presario 9548 Quick Restore CD on Archive.org which may work on the 9538. I ended up finding the quick restore CD's for my 9232 on eBay.. I believe it also covers the 9500 series, but you need to input your serial number which would normally be on the rear of the case just below the PSU fan exhaust.

Does the cd-rom give you any trouble opening or closing? If so the trick I found out on here about boiling the belt (or replacing it with an o-ring if it's broken) I've been able to revive several drives.

Well, here´s the deal: two months ago I ordered an SD2IDE adapter from some sort of importer in Finland which turned out to be just a rip-off. The order had to be paid in advance but the product never arrived, the guy doesn´t reply to my emails and he´s not returning my money. So I had to order it elsewhere and this project got delayed yet again. If not these setbacks, I would´ve finished this project and the video a couple of weeks ago. So, here´s couple of pics to show that this computer is coming together nicely:

wiretap wrote on 2020-06-12, 01:30:

Looks 95% the same as my Presario 9232. The one in your pictures appears to have the extra 1MB graphics RAM for the onboard Trio64 as well. There's a wavetable header on the motherboard you can use for MIDI in DOS with the ESS sound which is quite good. I put a Dreamblaster S2 in mine. Also, you can find the Compaq Presario 9548 Quick Restore CD on Archive.org which may work on the 9538. I ended up finding the quick restore CD's for my 9232 on eBay.. I believe it also covers the 9500 series, but you need to input your serial number which would normally be on the rear of the case just below the PSU fan exhaust.

Thanks for the tip, I´ll download that restore CD for sure!

jakethompson1 wrote on 2020-06-12, 21:33:

Does the cd-rom give you any trouble opening or closing? If so the trick I found out on here about boiling the belt (or replacing it with an o-ring if it's broken) I've been able to revive several drives.

It indeed gave me trouble, but it started working after tinkering with it a bit. However, it turned out to be a painfully slow 4x CD-ROM so I decided to replace it with a 32X that I had.

I finally got the SD adapter and I bought a 16 Gb card for it. There´s a problem though: I don´t know how to boot this thing! 😁 Win95 bootdisk doesn´t work, Personal Computer Setup doesn´t work, I even tried partitioning and installing OS on another computer but it doesn´t help. I partitioned it into two C and D, both 7,5 Gb. Chinny22 said earlier that the new hard disk needs some sort of special boot partition. How do I do that?

If the Compaq software to create the partition didn't work, all by itself, you'll need to boot from a floppy and likely do an 'fdisk /mbr' to write the Master Boot Record onto the SD. Might also need to mark a partition as 'active' in fdisk, too.

NautilusComputer wrote on 2020-06-25, 10:10:

If the Compaq software to create the partition didn't work, all by itself, you'll need to boot from a floppy and likely do an 'fdisk /mbr' to write the Master Boot Record onto the SD. Might also need to mark a partition as 'active' in fdisk, too.

I created a bootable floppy of the Personal Computer Setup executable but it doesn´t work. I can´t boot even to DOS with Compaq, I partitioned and formatted the SD card with another computer. So, preparing the SD card on another PC step by step:
1. I place the Win95 CD and Win95 bootdisk, and boot from the floppy
2. in A:, I go to fdisk, delete everything, create the new partitions (C as primary and D as extended, 7.5 Gb each)
3. I set C as active and escape to DOS and restart
4. I format C (format c: /s) and D (format d:)
5. Go to A:, and type "fdisk/mbr"
6. Swap the SD card into Compaq

Should everything be set at this point?

I did kind of expect the Diagnostic/SETUP disk SP2141 to work as it mentions restoring 'a destroyed' diagnostics partition

http://cwcyrix.duckdns.org/ftp-archives/compa … 2500/sp2141.exe
http://cwcyrix.duckdns.org/ftp-archives/compa … 2500/sp2141.txt

so maybe try the previous version just in case

http://cwcyrix.duckdns.org/ftp-archives/compa … 1500/sp1363.exe
http://cwcyrix.duckdns.org/ftp-archives/compa … 1500/sp1363.txt

also might be worth trying the the aboves partner disk, Diagnostics/TEST, to see if the machine will at least boot

http://cwcyrix.duckdns.org/ftp-archives/compa … 2000/sp1986.exe
http://cwcyrix.duckdns.org/ftp-archives/compa … 2000/sp1986.txt

Hopefully you don't need a Recovery CD for this as they seem to be only available on request from Compaq

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2020-06-26, 10:23:

I did kind of expect the Diagnostic/SETUP disk SP2141 to work as it mentions restoring 'a destroyed' diagnostics partition […]
Show full quote

I did kind of expect the Diagnostic/SETUP disk SP2141 to work as it mentions restoring 'a destroyed' diagnostics partition

http://cwcyrix.duckdns.org/ftp-archives/compa … 2500/sp2141.exe
http://cwcyrix.duckdns.org/ftp-archives/compa … 2500/sp2141.txt

so maybe try the previous version just in case

http://cwcyrix.duckdns.org/ftp-archives/compa … 1500/sp1363.exe
http://cwcyrix.duckdns.org/ftp-archives/compa … 1500/sp1363.txt

also might be worth trying the the aboves partner disk, Diagnostics/TEST, to see if the machine will at least boot

http://cwcyrix.duckdns.org/ftp-archives/compa … 2000/sp1986.exe
http://cwcyrix.duckdns.org/ftp-archives/compa … 2000/sp1986.txt

Hopefully you don't need a Recovery CD for this as they seem to be only available on request from Compaq

Thanks! I´ll check those out.

Since this project turned out more difficult than I anticipated, I decided to make this a 2-part video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYdpuJPVYC8&feature=youtu.be

I'm also restoring a computer like this, mine is the 9548, but basically the same system.
These have an S3 Scenic MPEG decoder on the motherboard for watching full screen mpeg1 videos.
There is also an optional Compaq made ESS wavetable midi board to attach to the motherboard.
That compaq video ram upgrade is quite rare, it upgrades the built on S3 Trio64V+ from 1mb with 32bit access, to 2mb with 64bit access.
The Trio64V+ has no 3d functions, but its an excellent 2d card for dos games and windows.
The cacheable address range of the motherboard L2 cache seems to be 64mb from what I can find, so 2x 16mb simm, 2x 8mb simm, and 8mb built on, should max it out.
Not sure on yours, but the 9548 has EDO memory for the built on ram, so installing EDO simms will give the system a slight speed boost.
I was wondering if an i200 cpu would work, now I know it does.
I love your cable job! looks great! I hope mine comes out that nice.

I'm still in the hardware portion of the cleanup and rebuild, so havent hit any software problems, yet.
My plan is to run Win95c for dos and windows games.
That Orchid Voodoo1 is worth more than the rest of the computer, 🤣.
The Orchid model is the only V1 I have seen that uses all tantalum caps, so no cheapo electrolytic to dry out and make the card unstable.

HUGE thank you in this thread for the softpaqs, I will need the same ones!
Anybody know if there is a final bios update hidden in those softpaqs somewhere?

These files are for a 9536, but I think will be useful on your 9538:

https://drivers.eu/PC/Compaq/Presario%209536

If your still unable to get the system to boot, could the floppy drive be bad, or perhaps the cmos battery is dead.
You might need to unsolder the battery and replace it, I have had to do that on a few of my other 90's compaq's.

On the baseboard, just inside of the floppy cable socket, check that component Q2 isnt damaged, or has its legs touching.
When you removed that heavy black tape, it hit that part and bent it over, can see it in the picture.