aLinux wrote on 2022-01-21, 18:12:

SuperLuke2003 wrote on 2022-01-20, 13:08:

Here is the Video i made, apologies for the poor quality but i hope its good enough for your needs

PS: Do not unscrew the two resessed screws on the heatsink assy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zXNPsjAjC0

1 milion thanks.. <3 ill take mine apart soon and post the results of cmos battery or other problems

hello again
i did take it appart and the cmos battery is not leaked it looks like new
since then i tried many things and failed

if i remove the hdd and dvd-rom drive it gets past post screen and shows operating system not found (also tested with many ram sticks but its not ram fault)
if i add the hdd it tries to boot but gets stuck on flashing line right corner up
i tried installing freedos on the hdd from another laptop and it gets stuck on loading freedos 12
i tried installing msdos to hdd from another laptop and got the same flashing line
i tried installing windows 98 to hdd from another laptop with copy files to hdd and starting setup with first step until reboot. same result,gets stuck at flashing line
i tried creating a msdos floppy but it doesnt boot from it.
i tried booting usb dvd-rw drive with 98,freedos,and others but doesnt boot. gets stuck on operating sistem not found if there is no hdd in laptop and if there is a hdd > flashing line
i tried booting from usb stick but i think the laptop is too old to boot from usb sticks.. so this one is a fail too..

also with dvd-rom and hdd removed i can acces bios fine and change settings. too bad i cant flash bios...
originaly it had windows nt on it
i have no ideea what to do next. 🙁

Might be a silly question, but did you change the CMOS battery?

snufkin wrote on 2022-03-04, 20:06:

Might be a silly question, but did you change the CMOS battery?

yes. it works fine.
ive found something.. if i spam F12 at bios boot and enter or some keys it loads freedos fine.
i tried running some flashing tools for bios but i get errors. im unable to flash.
also edit says there is no memory
laptop has 128 mb ram

Well... It doesn't boot anything. All os,95,98,nt,dos give error because low ram. I tried with 256 MB,128,64 but same...
and i tried again today
2 usb external floppy drives. but no power on them(they work fine on my desktop)
replaced the cmos battery and same results
the only possible option that i see or think,it may be locked and it needs some kind of token or card for unlock or the bios is corupted but im unable to flash or recover bc internal floppy drive is bad.
so it wont boot any hdd,cd,floppy bc of low ram and sometimes (with spamming f12) it boots freedos 12 (that i have on hdd) but it show insufficient memory and im unable to run any apps.
🙁

Does the command mem work in FreeDOS? Do you see a memory count during boot?

snufkin wrote on 2022-03-05, 22:14:

Does the command mem work in FreeDOS? Do you see a memory count during boot?

yes and it posts this (and laptop has 256 mb ram)
no i dont see any memory count. it boots so fast.

I don't know FreeDOS, but don't those numbers look wrong? "Total under 1 MB" is given as 57MB, and there's only 121k free of conventional so that'll be why nothing can run. Assuming those numbers are reported wrong, I don't know why they would be wrong. Problem with the chipset?

Does the laptop have 128MB soldered in place, or is it all socketed? Maybe try changing the memory and seeing if the numbers reported by mem change.

[edit: just noticed that the BIOS flash tool said it can't run if a memory manager is present, so maybe edit the autoexec / config.sys to remove himem? ]

what are the chances that one of the drives connected to the system is causing the thing to hang and not boot. Maybe try pulling out the cd and hdd drive and then booting from a floppy.

snufkin wrote on 2022-03-07, 00:56:

I don't know FreeDOS, but don't those numbers look wrong? "Total under 1 MB" is given as 57MB, and there's only 121k free of conventional so that'll be why nothing can run. Assuming those numbers are reported wrong, I don't know why they would be wrong. Problem with the chipset?

Does the laptop have 128MB soldered in place, or is it all socketed? Maybe try changing the memory and seeing if the numbers reported by mem change.

[edit: just noticed that the BIOS flash tool said it can't run if a memory manager is present, so maybe edit the autoexec / config.sys to remove himem? ]

no it does not have any soldered ram. it has 2 slots ocupied by two 128 mb
can you tell me what to remove from autoexec ? ill put the hdd on another pc and edit.

Warlord wrote on 2022-03-07, 04:23:

what are the chances that one of the drives connected to the system is causing the thing to hang and not boot. Maybe try pulling out the cd and hdd drive and then booting from a floppy.

none. replaced the drive. the laptop wont boot anything floppy,cd,hdd
the only method to boot is to spam f12 and enter.. sometimes it boot and sometimes it doesnt. and when it does i get low memory and i cant flash.

aLinux wrote on 2022-03-07, 11:50:

can you tell me what to remove from autoexec ? ill put the hdd on another pc and edit.

Don't actually know, but if you can post both the fdconfig.sys and fdauto.bat then it might be possible to work it out. I think those are what FreeDOS use for the normal DOS config.sys and autoexec.bat

snufkin wrote on 2022-03-07, 14:35:

aLinux wrote on 2022-03-07, 11:50:

can you tell me what to remove from autoexec ? ill put the hdd on another pc and edit.

Don't actually know, but if you can post both the fdconfig.sys and fdauto.bat then it might be possible to work it out. I think those are what FreeDOS use for the normal DOS config.sys and autoexec.bat

since i cant upload more than 5 pics
i uploaded to google drive
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1tEbO1 … eX2?usp=sharing

Will it boot if you select option 5? That looks like it skips loading anything other than command.com. If it does boot, check what the output of mem is, and have a go with the BIOS flash. To be honest, I'll be surprised if it is a corrupted BIOS as I think it does a checksum on itself and will either not work or give a beep code if the checksum isn't correct.

snufkin wrote on 2022-03-07, 18:53:

Will it boot if you select option 5? That looks like it skips loading anything other than command.com. If it does boot, check what the output of mem is, and have a go with the BIOS flash. To be honest, I'll be surprised if it is a corrupted BIOS as I think it does a checksum on itself and will either not work or give a beep code if the checksum isn't correct.

well. i tried and tried for 1 hour
i managed in 1 hour to succesfuly boot once and it was low on ram as usual.
the rest were failed atempts

most of the boots it spamms lots of keys and when it stops keyboard doesnt work and no external keyboard at all (only caps lock works)
and sometimes it wont boot and displays it has low ram
i dont know what else to try.. and im kinda tired of trying and failing.
my guess it has problems with motherboard or something

When it boots do you get an option to select different modes? The fdconfig and fdauto you posted look like they should give you 5 options, with option 5 loading nothing but command.com. Try taking the drive out and renaming FDCONFIG.SYS and FDAUTO.BAT to .BAK, then create a new FDCONFIG.SYS with just

1SHELL=C:\FreeDOS\BIN\COMMAND.COM /P /D

If you can get that to boot, and the keyboard to work, then see what the output from mem looks like (you might need to change directory to C:\FreeDOS\BIN\ ).

Also, might be worth trying booting with the keyboard removed. You won't be able to press F12, but maybe there's some sort of cable/connector problem that's giving random inputs from the keyboard, so without the keyboard it might boot ok.

snufkin wrote on 2022-03-08, 15:00:

When it boots do you get an option to select different modes? The fdconfig and fdauto you posted look like they should give you […]
Show full quote

When it boots do you get an option to select different modes? The fdconfig and fdauto you posted look like they should give you 5 options, with option 5 loading nothing but command.com. Try taking the drive out and renaming FDCONFIG.SYS and FDAUTO.BAT to .BAK, then create a new FDCONFIG.SYS with just

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1SHELL=C:\FreeDOS\BIN\COMMAND.COM /P /D

If you can get that to boot, and the keyboard to work, then see what the output from mem looks like (you might need to change directory to C:\FreeDOS\BIN\ ).

Also, might be worth trying booting with the keyboard removed. You won't be able to press F12, but maybe there's some sort of cable/connector problem that's giving random inputs from the keyboard, so without the keyboard it might boot ok.

even with kb removed and a usb or ps2 keyboard it starts spamming keys when freedos boots
the same low memory!
its not worth it.. ill just take it appart and consider that the motherboard has problems.

aLinux wrote on 2022-01-21, 18:12:

SuperLuke2003 wrote on 2022-01-20, 13:08:

Here is the Video i made, apologies for the poor quality but i hope its good enough for your needs

PS: Do not unscrew the two resessed screws on the heatsink assy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zXNPsjAjC0

1 milion thanks.. <3 ill take mine apart soon and post the results of cmos battery or other problems

you're very much welcome buddy, happy i can help!