I'd get myself a regular 720 floppy disk and boot from another pc into PC Dos 5.02 and make the floppy bootable. Then copy the most important files over: fdisk, format, debug and some other.

Don't bother with ms Dos 7 from win9x because that needs a 386.

For a hard disk solution you may look at the XT ide project and maybe some xt cf card. I love them. And no longer need to fiddle with floppy disks for other software any more.

waterbeesje wrote on 2024-06-17, 10:26:

I'd get myself a regular 720 floppy disk and boot from another pc into PC Dos 5.02 and make the floppy bootable. Then copy the most important files over: fdisk, format, debug and some other.

Don't bother with ms Dos 7 from win9x because that needs a 386.

For a hard disk solution you may look at the XT ide project and maybe some xt cf card. I love them. And no longer need to fiddle with floppy disks for other software any more.

Thanks, good option. Still I wonder what else I can do about hdd to work. Ide-xt is a good option, but I'm thinking about "that period" options.

Does the 65 have onboard scsi? I think that would be what the bios is searching for.

FYI, you can make 1.44MB floppy into 720kB floppy by taping over one hole on the bottom. 😉

Hey. I kmow about hole amd DD/HD topic 😉 still this PC despitenof fact that in manual isnstated that it accepts 1.44 doesn't want to initialise it. Yes, it has SCSI internal.

Did You change settings in BIOS to 1.44MB, when connecting 1.44MB FDD?

Yes I did. Weird problem.

Spitz wrote on 2024-07-01, 10:18:

Yes I did. Weird problem.

Than it has to be controller.... Did You try with any other ide controller?

Yes. When I put Gold star or prime contoller with IDE/FDD then floppy drive is going crazy.

Try i/o card again with 1.44 drive only on the middle (B drive) connector, see if it shows up as A: .... might be the BIOS expecting untwisted cable.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-07-01, 20:29:

Try i/o card again with 1.44 drive only on the middle (B drive) connector, see if it shows up as A: .... might be the BIOS expecting untwisted cable.

Yes, that's a good idea!

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-07-01, 20:29:

Try i/o card again with 1.44 drive only on the middle (B drive) connector, see if it shows up as A: .... might be the BIOS expecting untwisted cable.

Thx for help. I cant do this becasue there is only 1/1 cable there. I even forced through BIOS to set it on 1.44MB with no luck. Thats how the fdd behaves, doesnt want to read of course:

https://youtu.be/eNcgdpO6I8o?si=WaI0rA0bSiE2z_im

From what I can see, it doesnt have normal BIOS just by floppy disk. After restart it gives me error about "unknown" floppy disk.

When i change original floppy to non-original it does play 720 without problems.

In conclusion:
-original 720 works good, when changing to 1.44 doesnt want to work
-nonoriginal 720 works ok same, when changing to 1.44 its not working
On I/O which is not original:
- nothing works 😉

Hi, I have a Bull Micral 200 286 but mine cannot recogenized Hard Disk and I cannot manage the bios because i haven't its own bootable floppy to enter the bios.

It boot regulary into dos 5.0 installation from 720kb floppy drive but it cannot forward because not recogenized any hard disk.
I modify the exsaust Dallas battery with the famous mod for 2032 battery.
When i switch on the pc, it checks the ram and then posts 2 errors about the configuration, then boot from floppy....

Please help!

I made a mistake, the floppy drive was 1.44 and not 720. Now it works as a 1.44 regulary.

Tonight I was able to run gsetup and apparently store any configurations.
I tried many hard disks type 2 3 4 6 and so on but nothing can by visible to the motherboard. I tried even sone compact flash card that usually works on 286 ..32 mb 64mb nothing....

Someone could help ? Thanks

Spitz wrote on 2024-10-04, 10:32:

-original 720 works good, when changing to 1.44 doesnt want to work
-nonoriginal 720 works ok same, when changing to 1.44 its not working

By "original 720" do you mean the drive that the system originally shipped with?
are 1.44s known to work in that system?

There is an interface difference between 720k and 1.44m 3.5" floppy drives.
The 720k transfers data between drive and controller at 250kbds ... the 1.44
transfers at 500kbps. This is how it stores twice a much data - twice as many
bits are written to each track (by sending them twice as fast).

So, for 1.44 you not only need a drive and media that can handle the faster
rate, you also need a controller in the PC which can be switched to 500kbps ....
is it possible this system does not have an FDC that supports that rate?

-- This is why the original PC/XT couldn't support HD (1.2m) drives, they
(with a improved FDC) came out in the AT. Being a 286 .. this is probably from
a similar time period, and nobody knew what standards to follow, because the
standards either didn't exist yet, or were so new that they had not been
widely adopted.

Dave ::: https://dunfield.themindfactory.com ::: "Daves Old Computers"->Personal

mig81 wrote on 2025-02-12, 20:27:

Hi, I have a Bull Micral 200 286 but mine cannot recogenized Hard Disk and I cannot manage the bios because i haven't its own bo […]
Show full quote

Hi, I have a Bull Micral 200 286 but mine cannot recogenized Hard Disk and I cannot manage the bios because i haven't its own bootable floppy to enter the bios.

It boot regulary into dos 5.0 installation from 720kb floppy drive but it cannot forward because not recogenized any hard disk.
I modify the exsaust Dallas battery with the famous mod for 2032 battery.
When i switch on the pc, it checks the ram and then posts 2 errors about the configuration, then boot from floppy....

Please help!

Hey. Best place to start seeking for answers is forum.system-cfg.com There are many experts in Bull computers. Yes it's french but you can easy translate it with your browser.

Thanks Spitz, really beautiful dog though!
Thus evening I gave done the boot! Setted the bios with generic boot setup and it booted great! I duscovered thus Micral was to Deborah! Hahaha

I tried gsetup 3, gsetup 3.1, cmoser11 and setup21! Great computer! I'll upgrade it!