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Help with 386SX without integrated CMOS setup

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First post, by kalgon

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Hi,

I recently found a Harris Adacom Netvision/SC 386SX which does not seem to have an integrated CMOS setup. Its HDD seems to be dead and no floppy disks came with it.

At boot, it complains (and beeps/halts) that no network card can be found (although it has a 3Com Etherlink II TP which I haven't yet tested).

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I've tried several setup utilities (GSETUP, ATSETUP, SETUPNU) but none seems to be able to disable the mandatory presence of a network card.

Does anybody have an idea if any other setup utility could help here?

Thanks,
Xavier

Reply 1 of 6, by kalgon

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After reading somewhere that this brand was very close to Tulip computers, I used TSYSID.EXE which identified this computer as a Tulip TC-24 model.

This page indicates that version 3.33 of the Tulip diagnostic tool can be used for this model.

I ran the tool and now I don't have the error about the missing network card at boot-time anymore but the hard disk controller is screwed up ("hard disk controller failure")... and I can't even boot from a floppy anymore, oops! 😬😬😬

Reply 2 of 6, by zzgus

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kalgon wrote on 2022-12-16, 15:20:

After reading somewhere that this brand was very close to Tulip computers, I used TSYSID.EXE which identified this computer as a Tulip TC-24 model.

This page indicates that version 3.33 of the Tulip diagnostic tool can be used for this model.

I ran the tool and now I don't have the error about the missing network card at boot-time anymore but the hard disk controller is screwed up ("hard disk controller failure")... and I can't even boot from a floppy anymore, oops! 😬😬😬

Hi @kalgon !!!
I know it's an old thread but last week I got the same computer (well the tulip brand).

Did you finally solved the problems?

Gus

Reply 4 of 6, by zzgus

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kalgon wrote on 2024-03-04, 17:31:

Hi @zzgus

In my case, it was the PSU +12V line that was faulty. I could get it fixed and that solved the problem.

Oh good to hear that !!!

Have you been able to boot from HDD ???
I'm struggling booting from HDD... no way (a 40MB HDD). Boot fine on my P166Mhz.
The only option I could find was installing some boot sector program like EZDRIVE / ONTRACK. But I don't want that.

Is so difficult to boot from HDD?

Thankyou
Gus

Reply 5 of 6, by zzgus

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Finally managed to boot from HDD without any problem.
Identified the HHD with WHATIDE program to know CYlinders, Heads, Sectors.
Boot from ms-dos 6.22 floppy, fdisk, formated, etc no problem. I can now boot from HDD

The problem is that I wan to do the same from Compact Flash but it's impossible. Repeated the steps with the HDD in the Compact Flash but always the same... unable to boot.

Tried a pair of IDE to CF adapters and 4 different CF (128, 256, 512MB) without luck.

I don't know what else to try. Will I have to finally install ONTRACK or EZDRIVE to solve it.

Thankyou
Gus

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