First post, by MatthewBrian
I had a 80286 (exactly, an Am80286) with a Kentech motherboard on it (I don't know what is the brand actually, but "Kentech Computer" is what written on the mobo). It had a ST11 harddisk controller, along with a ST238R harddisk (it was not IDE, it is the kind of drive which had two IDE-like cable going to the ISA slot controller).
When I cleaned up my computing space last month, I decided to put it on the storage room so my IBM PC 330 would sit nice on the 286's desk (and I don't use the 286 too often because of the monitor being flickered heavily).
A month later, I tried to powering up the 286. Usually at the end of the POST screen, it would say:
ST11 BIOS
1 hard disk present Seagate ST238R
but, now it is freezing on the "ST11 BIOS" screen. A minutes later, it showed up :
ST11 BIOS
No Hard disks present.
I looked around... and found that I was placing the computer right to an old, big, tall speaker which has wiring problems (but of course, with a good enormous amount of magnet inside). Even though it was placed around 20 cm from the harddrive, I thought that the speaker messed something up on the drive, rendering it unusable.
Is there any suggestion about how to restoring the harddrive to its useable condition?
(Last minute update: Just tried to insert the "ST11 Disk Reinitialization Diskette" to the diskette drive, but it wouldn't load, and filled the whole screen with colourful blocks of random ASCII characters. It could be corrupt, or maybe it doesn't work with the broken ST238R?)
