VOGONS


First post, by MMaximus

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This hard drive was installed in a 286-12 machine. At first it would initialize but not boot, and I was able to access its contents by booting from a floppy. However after doing a quick SYS command the 286 can now boot from the hard drive, so it definitely works.

Now I would like to copy some games on this hard disk - but I don't have enough blank floppies and I can't seem to get a CF card working in the 286 system. So I thought I would remove the HDD and put it it in another machine to transfer files on it. I have tried in 3 different computers but I can't access the Seagate in any of them.

First, a Pentium 4 machine (P4C800-ED) - plugged in the secondary IDE connector, the HDD is correctly auto-detected but windows XP then gets stuck at the loading screen indefinitely and never goes to the desktop.

Then I tried with a Pentium 3 machine (ABIT BE6-II) - plugged in the IDE connector, it is again correctly auto-detected but it refuses to boot, saying "missing operating system" even though I installed Dos 6.22 and it boots in the 286 PC. My plan was to boot from this computer's SATA HDD to windows 98 and then transfer files to the old hard disk, but I can't boot from SATA since the internal IDE seem to take precedence over the add-in SATA card at boot. System will only boot from SATA if I disconnect the old seagate. I've tried other boot options but none seem to work, and the motherboard seems to be lacking an "F8" type Boot menu.

Lastly I tried with a P233MMX (ASUS VX97) - this computer usually boots DOS 6.22 from a 2GB CF card, but if the seagate is present on the other IDE channel, the CF card won't boot and will get stuck at POST after "PCI device listing". Same thing if I only have the Seagate on any IDE, it won't boot either. Again, the computer correctly auto-detects the ST-157A.

I don't think it's a master slave issue because the drive is alone on the IDE channel on the 286 and I think it's configured as a single drive. I also disabled LBA and put "normal" for access mode in the BIOS of the other computers. I also disabled "IDE HDD Block Mode".

Am I missing something? 😕

Hard Disk Sounds

Reply 1 of 2, by chinny22

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Quick google found this age that lists the bios settings as well as other possible useful details
http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-drives-hdd/s … -HH-IDE-AT.html

I'm guessing even with everything disabled the newer PC's still have something enabled that just cant understand the drive. Entering the details manually matching the 286's rather then auto-detect sometimes works.

Reply 2 of 2, by MMaximus

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Thanks. I found this page as well and played around with the jumpers but it didn't seem to make any difference. One thing I didn't try though, is entering the details manually like you suggested. Maybe I wasn't thorough enough and relied on the auto dectection too much. I might try this again if I can't find another way to transfer files to the disk (at the moment I'm trying to set up a compact flash in the system).

Hard Disk Sounds