I can only tell you that those symptoms seem to be some kind of incompatibility between that BIOS program and the drives you are trying to plug in
many times I had fdisk and format errors that pointed to the drive parameters not being correctly set

that said it could also be as you said some kind of controller problem. and the computer is just not talking properly to the hard drive
can you enter the drive parameters manually on the setup ?
I would enter a low value like 1024 cylinders, 16 heads and 63 sectors and then try to fdisk the CF card

Good luck !

Nunoalex wrote on 2024-08-28, 14:38:

I can only tell you that those symptoms seem to be some kind of incompatibility between that BIOS program and the drives you are […]
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I can only tell you that those symptoms seem to be some kind of incompatibility between that BIOS program and the drives you are trying to plug in
many times I had fdisk and format errors that pointed to the drive parameters not being correctly set

that said it could also be as you said some kind of controller problem. and the computer is just not talking properly to the hard drive
can you enter the drive parameters manually on the setup ?
I would enter a low value like 1024 cylinders, 16 heads and 63 sectors and then try to fdisk the CF card

Good luck !

Thanks!

Unfortunately I haven't been able to find anywhere in the BIOS to manually enter CHS settings, which is odd because from my research it also doesn't seem to fully support LBA either. I have found a BIOS update though, from 5 to 7.2. I don't know what it changes, but hopefully it will improve disk compatibility.

there is a program somewhere called gsetup that lets you update your bios setting from DOS
that means you can install an hard drive with CSH parameters

the idea is to at least see if you can format one of those hard disks at least with some very basic fall back parameters that are universally accepted

that being said I am not expert in laptops and laptops bioses and their quirky incompatibilities

but if you can clearly access the hard disk with the current partition I dont think it is an hardware problem... more a software one

Good luck buddy !

Try prepare HDD using WD EZ-Drive first, many hdd's I tried with this laptop began works fine after using it.

If no success, perhaps you are right about the controller and the seller obviously hid the presence of this defect.

run ideinfo from a floppy disk, perhaps there's a fault with the caddy connection / flat flex cable.
You can get that here: https://archive.org/details/msdos_IDEINF_shareware

I was able to track down a broken data pin on a laptop IDE cable by how the ASCII was reading incorrectly: Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Additionally, if the caddy isn't damaged then check out whether the laptop's NiMH standby battery or the main battery have released any green corrosion, the LTE 5000 series are pretty bad for that.

Thanks a heap for the suggestions guys. I'll try them out and update the thread with the results.

Thought I'd add an update for anyone who's interested in my progress. Haven't had time to try everything yet but I did try WD EZ-Drive on all the disks I have.

The CF card gets into the program but when I try to run the Automatic Installation the screen flickers for a split second and nothing seems to happen - no appreciable change to the disk.
The DoM and the two mech. drives (OEM and 20GB laptop drive) all have the same result - the program starts, pops up a dialog "Gathering Information" then prints a "Divide Error" and dumps me back at the DOS prompt.

One weird thing - I tried to run the WD diagnostic tool included on the floppy image with EZ-Drive and I got this result:

Screenshot is from the MoD but they all had similar results.

StudlyCaps wrote on 2024-08-28, 07:43:

Hi all, I've recently bought a Compaq LTE 5380 laptop. The seller told me that the hard drive was working but had failed just a […]
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Hi all, I've recently bought a Compaq LTE 5380 laptop. The seller told me that the hard drive was working but had failed just a little while before he listed it however I've made numerous attempts to fix/replace it with no joy. The OEM disk appears to have no partitions, I can boot MS-DOS 6.22 from disk just fine, but setup fails when it attempts to format the hard drive. Entering to MS-DOS command line fdisk /mbr appears to fail silently, and if I run fdisk and create a primary partition is appears to work but when I exit fdisk and it reboots DOS the disk has no partitions once again.

Aside from the OEM disk I have tried the same process with two different 2.5" PATA disks as well as a 2GB CF card in an adaptor and a 4GB Disk On Module. I get the same results though on all disks - setup fails and I'm unable to create any partitions via the CLI.

Some strange observations - the BIOS reports any and all hard disks as having a 32GB capacity, despite them having different capacities and none anywhere near 32GB. fdisk also reports all drives I've tested as being 8GB if I attempt to manually set a partition size. This makes me suspect a BIOS issue, or even physical damage to the disk controller. I even located a Hitachi disk diagnostics tool which I could boot from floppy (the OEM disk apparently being manufactured by them), but it fails to read the OEM disk.

Any ideas for troubleshooting would be very much appreciated as I've hit somewhat of a wall. I'd love to be able to revive this machine.

sometimes CF adaptors can be problematic, if you want to check your original hard drive to rule out any problem run it through "HD Tune Pro" go to the error tab make sure quick scan is de-selected and scan it, if its all green then theres no bad blocks it all good in that regard, then check the health tab this will tell you if theres any other issues, like communication errors or unstable sectors like in my pic below, used to use this at a company i worked for building systems, never heard of it before that really good software!

DudeFace wrote on 2024-09-10, 06:39:

if you want to check your original hard drive to rule out any problem run it through "HD Tune Pro"

Thanks a lot for the suggestion. I just got a 40-44 pin IDE adaptor in the mail so I should be able to put the old hard drive into a windows PC and run this (before the only 2.5" PATA compatible computer I had was the Compaq).

StudlyCaps wrote on 2024-09-11, 00:53:

DudeFace wrote on 2024-09-10, 06:39:

if you want to check your original hard drive to rule out any problem run it through "HD Tune Pro"

Thanks a lot for the suggestion. I just got a 40-44 pin IDE adaptor in the mail so I should be able to put the old hard drive into a windows PC and run this (before the only 2.5" PATA compatible computer I had was the Compaq).

no problem 😀 . i picked up a 40-44 pin adapter for this exact reason, i didnt want to throw it out until i was sure it was bad since ive only got two drives left, one in a toshiba and one in a thinkpad, when they die i might have to go with one of those 40pin sd adapters.

anyway its definitely a good idea to run any old drive through this first just to make sure their good, i had problems with a drive i installed an Os's on and it was just unstable and constantly locking up, i then used it as a storage drive, copying files back and forth again my pc would just lock up, i ran it through hd tune and it was a checkerboard of red and green, just bad blocks right across the drive, i was unable to recover most of my files, so just had to throw it in the bin.

also another thing to note i had a old hdd from a freeview box with a linux file system the first few blocks were red indicating it was bad, though after a full format it was all green, so some files or file sysems might give you the indincation the drives bad when its not, so try a full format first and re-scan it before you throw out any drives.

So I've done some testing off and on the last few months but now I'm on holidays I've finally been able to spend some real time looking at this. Thought I'd keep updating the thread for posterity.

• I put the hard drive that came with the laptop in a working PC and it won't take a format, the newer BIOS also does a SMART test on boot and it tests bad.
• I installed DOS 6.22 on the DoM, which worked just fine on my PC, but it doesn't boot on the laptop. Also can't read it if I boot from floppy.
• While testing I noticed some string corruption in the BIOS. This made me think the BIOS itself might be causing the issue, so I flashed the BIOS to 7.20, the last good BIOS (7.32 is available but apparently has a pretty inconvenient bug). This had no impact on my issue, but it's apparently forgotten how to drive the LCD screen, just displaying a bunch of very concerning artifacts. Luckily the external VGA output still works, but I really thought I bricked it. Other than the LCD issue which I now need to fix as well, the flash seems to have worked fine.
• Finally bit the bullet and disassembled the laptop. Remarkable easy with one major exception, a moulded plastic standoff which is supposed to retain a nut broke (or was already broken - not sure), so the nut spun freely and couldn't be unscrewed, making it impossible to separate the main board from a large RF shield. Had to snap some plastic fixing the RF shield to the case in order to get in and remove the nut.

The "good" news. The area on the main board just around the hard drive connection is corroded, meaning I've probably found the issue. Looks like some liquid got in via the drive bay. The battery has also leaked, but the spread of acid appears to have been stopped by the RF shield. There's no visible trace of it on the board itself.
I'm going to clean everything, try to test continuity and hopefully not need to try to resolder anything, because I am not good at soldering.

Success!

A thorough cleaning of the mainboard has my 3GB DoM working well, interesting to note that this also fixed the incorrect disk size displayed in the BIOS.
Must have just been corrosion shorting two pads.

Glad to have this interesting machine up and running.

Still need to re-assemble and try to sort out the inbuilt LCD display and then to get all the proprietary add-on hardware working, but a big step forward nevertheless. Thanks again to everyone who helped me work through it!

Nice one.
I've fixed completely dead gpus Eg rx580 with nothing but a dishwasher (no soap).

It really should be one of the first steps on old gear.

Thanks.

It is amazing what a cleaning can do.