Wyse Decision 386SX/16S HDD controller error [fixed] \ VOGONS

Wyse Decision 386SX/16S HDD controller error [fixed]

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First post, by Pierre32

Posted on 2022-10-23, 21:41

Pierre32 Offline

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I picked up this little beauty yesterday.

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/wyse-w … x-16s#downloads

(I should be able to dump the BIOS for that page later).

I replaced the battery first, set the date etc, then attempted to get the HDD configured. It's a Quantum ProDrive 40AT.

The BIOS has no custom HDD entry, and no preset that 100% matches the drive. I've tried every preset that matches the advice above. On boot it will only display "HDD controller error." I also picked up a box of other HDDs with this, all small, period correct drives. They all seem fine, spinning up quietly. But no amount of config tweaking gets me past that boot error.

Thoughts?

Last edited by Pierre32 on 2023-03-26, 08:09. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 1 of 8, by weedeewee

Posted on 2022-10-23, 21:46

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Read the first sector of the hdd and see with which parameters the drive was partitioned.

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Reply 2 of 8, by Horun

Posted on 2022-10-24, 01:39

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Yeah that would help. It could have a drive overlay which means setting to disk type 1.
Also it could be setup using the physical drive specs of (3 heads, 834 cylinders, unknown sectors <could be 32 or 33>) like the scsi variant of 3 heads, 834 cylinders, 35 sectors/track for some odd reason.
Most early IDE had both physical and logical specs but cannot find the physical specs of 40AT...

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Reply 3 of 8, by Pierre32

Posted on 2022-10-24, 01:56

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Thanks guys, will look into all of this.

Thankfully I have the full manual for the drive: https://www.minuszerodegrees.net/manuals/Quan … on%20Manual.pdf

Would love a manual for the system itself too, but haven't located one yet.

Reply 4 of 8, by Pierre32

Posted on 2022-10-24, 03:08

Pierre32 Offline

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Progress! The Quantum drive is actually dead. I thought it was spinning, but that was just vibration from the adjacent PSU 😁

So I threw in a Maxtor 7080AT and set it up: https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-drives-hdd/ … -SL-IDE-AT.html

On boot, no more HDD controller error. Now it's "no boot sector" so the system is seeing it, as is fdisk. Looks like this system is good to go.

Reply 5 of 8, by evasive

Posted on 2023-01-18, 08:28

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If you have time could you get some pictures or at least chipset info for this page?
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/wyse-w … ision-386sx-16s

Reply 6 of 8, by Pierre32

Posted on 2023-03-26, 08:17

Pierre32 Offline

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evasive wrote on 2023-01-18, 08:28:

If you have time could you get some pictures or at least chipset info for this page?
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/wyse-w … ision-386sx-16s

Here you go. Looks like I have the same BIOS version you guys already have, so I didn't bother dumping it.