laser turbo xt questions \ VOGONS

laser turbo xt questions

Topic actions

Post a reply

First post, by gordesky1

Posted on 2017-02-27, 12:00

gordesky1 Offline

Rank Newbie

Rank: Newbie
Posts: 45
Joined: 2017-01-22, 22:26

So i found a old laser turbo xt like 13 years ago that someone was giving away free with the monitor too and joystick and bunch of games on 5.25 floppy's like 2 cases full of them..

Worked great but it relies on a boot floppy disk asks to put the floppy in when it says too and it boots to the command prompt it has no hdd. And at one time i had the boot floppy just die on me which took a long time to get one for it which i found a box set of dos 3.3 on ebay which the boot disk from that worked. Cost me around 40$ at the time...

The thing is no matter what i do i cant make a copy of that boot disk the pc wont read the copy at all.. Even tried puting a 3.5 floppy drive in it and make a copy too but yep wont read it after copying..

So the pc doesn't get used much because im afraid one day the boot floppy will get damage again..

The other question is there a easy way and cheap way to add a hard drive to this? That would make life with it much easier 🤣

I asked a youtuber about it BBISHOPPCM's World 7months ago not sure if he comes on here or is known on here but hes pretty cool, But he told me i need a special board to get it to work and is expensive and really not worth it.

Figure i mention it to you guys cause you guys know your stuff:)

Reply 1 of 6, by Jorpho

Posted on 2017-02-27, 14:36

Jorpho Offline

Rank l33t++

Rank: l33t++
Posts: 8168
Joined: 2003-02-14, 19:50
Location: Canada

gordesky1 wrote:
The thing is no matter what i do i cant make a copy of that boot disk the pc wont read the copy at all..

So what exactly have you done to try to make a copy? If you're just copying files from one disk to another, then that will never work; you'll need a floppy imaging program that can copy the boot sector. (I like http://www.chrysocome.net/rawwrite .)

The other question is there a easy way and cheap way to add a hard drive to this? That would make life with it much easier 🤣

I for one have no idea what a "laser turbo xt" is.

Reply 2 of 6, by gordesky1

Posted on 2017-02-27, 16:57

gordesky1 Offline

Rank Newbie

Rank: Newbie
Posts: 45
Joined: 2017-01-22, 22:26

i was doing it on the machine itself and just did copy a: to b: cause it has 2 drives. i guess that wont work?

and heres a pic i found on google of it. would post mine now but camera is dead:(

http://imgur.com/a/0RS4x

Reply 3 of 6, by Jorpho

Posted on 2017-02-27, 17:07

Jorpho Offline

Rank l33t++

Rank: l33t++
Posts: 8168
Joined: 2003-02-14, 19:50
Location: Canada

gordesky1 wrote:
i was doing it on the machine itself and just did copy a: to b: cause it has 2 drives. i guess that wont work?

No. That will not duplicate the boot sector and will not create a bootable disk.

To make a bootable disk, you have to use the "sys" command ("sys a: b:").

Reply 4 of 6, by gordesky1

Posted on 2017-02-27, 17:43

gordesky1 Offline

Rank Newbie

Rank: Newbie
Posts: 45
Joined: 2017-01-22, 22:26

thanks going to give that a try:) going to make a few copys and see if i can get a 3.5 drive in there again 🤣.. i just wish i can run a hdd in it:(

Reply 5 of 6, by FesterBlatz

Posted on 2017-02-27, 18:30

FesterBlatz Offline

Rank Member

Rank: Member
Posts: 166
Joined: 2016-12-05, 13:49

Unless you'd be interested in messing around with old ST-506/ST-412 type hard drives and controllers (I personally love them), your best bet for adding a hard drive might be to try and find an XT-IDE board. It requires a little skill with a soldering iron, but isn't difficult to assemble. Once built, you can use practically any IDE hard drive you wish in your XT clone.

There are also CF card versions too.

When the PCB's are back in stock, you could get the board here:

https://www.lo-tech.co.uk/product/8-bit-ide-adapter-pcb/

Reply 6 of 6, by gordesky1

Posted on 2017-02-27, 19:51

gordesky1 Offline

Rank Newbie

Rank: Newbie
Posts: 45
Joined: 2017-01-22, 22:26

FesterBlatz wrote:
Unless you'd be interested in messing around with old ST-506/ST-412 type hard drives and controllers (I personally love them), y […]
Show full quote
Unless you'd be interested in messing around with old ST-506/ST-412 type hard drives and controllers (I personally love them), your best bet for adding a hard drive might be to try and find an XT-IDE board. It requires a little skill with a soldering iron, but isn't difficult to assemble. Once built, you can use practically any IDE hard drive you wish in your XT clone.

There are also CF card versions too.

When the PCB's are back in stock, you could get the board here:

https://www.lo-tech.co.uk/product/8-bit-ide-adapter-pcb/

Hmm that probably will be my best bet getting a xt ide adapter and cf version would be great to have. hopefully they get them back in stock.

is there a site that shows you what you need to solder on the board? im pretty decent with soldering so that's not a problem.

Would be nice to put all those games on a hdd the machine will get used alot than 🤣..

Go to top of page Go to top of page

Back to General Old Hardware

Main menu

Common searches