Compaq Armada 7770DMT BIOS needed \ VOGONS

Compaq Armada 7770DMT BIOS needed

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First post, by multiwirth

Posted on 2021-04-13, 15:37

multiwirth Offline

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Hi everyone,
i have an old Compaq laptop in front of me and i'd like to finally access the BIOS.
Since i do not have the original hdd, the bios partition is missing and i'm currently looking for a Softpaq or floppy image which will allow me to create the missing partition.

Unfortunately or better say at least, i found a rompaq which creates a floppy to upgrade the bios ROM.
But it only updates the bios rom on the mainboard, not on the hdd.
So i'm on latest bios but no way to access it 🙁

Anyone here who knows more about this laptop and where to get the needed stuff?

Thank you all!

Reply 1 of 6, by vetz

Posted on 2021-04-13, 15:53

vetz Offline

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Go to: https://web.archive.org/web/20000303031725/ht … s/us/index.html

Select Armada 7770 family then 7770. Then select operating system.

Find the softpaq number/filename, then google that file. For instance latest RomPAQ is SP11375.exe. It should still be online at the HP FTP (ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp11001-11500/sp11375.exe)

To access the BIOS you need to install the Personal Computer Diagnositics:
https://web.archive.org/web/20000303195424/ht … ftware/661.html

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Reply 2 of 6, by multiwirth

Posted on 2021-04-13, 21:54

multiwirth Offline

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vetz wrote on 2021-04-13, 15:53:

To access the BIOS you need to install the Personal Computer Diagnositics:
https://web.archive.org/web/20000303195424/ht … ftware/661.html

Hi,
many thanks for your reply!
I succesfully created the computer diagnostics floppy.
After booting it (and re-partition the hdd for 2mb space unallocated at the beginning) it tells me to create the partition.

Unfortunately it asks for the disk "SETUP" which i don't have.
Do you know the softpaq no. i need for this?

Reply 3 of 6, by vetz

Posted on 2021-04-13, 21:56

vetz Offline

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Probably "Computer Setup for Portables" https://web.archive.org/web/20000301184342/ht … tware/1320.html

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Reply 4 of 6, by multiwirth

Posted on 2021-04-14, 10:10

multiwirth Offline

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It finally worked, thanks!

Reply 5 of 6, by multiwirth

Posted on 2021-04-14, 10:16

multiwirth Offline

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One last question:
I´ve seen some youtube videos of the very same machine and they enter a key combo to stretch the image to the screen.
Usually it´s not scaling the image if it´s low resolution.
I was unable to see which keys they pressed.
So my question: how can i stretch the image to fit the whole screen?
It becomes handy when playing DOS games since they´re usually in 640x480 but the screen is 800x600 > the actual image is smaller than the screen itself.
Also hard to find any kind of documentation for such old hardware.