Re: Packard Bell Spectria Legend cd-rom drive issue

Posted on 2019-07-29, 23:27

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That's really odd, OEM machines of this era were most of the time quirky, if it doesn't detect the CD drive (just leave it disconnected) it may have a chance of trying to boot from the floppy drive.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2019-07-29, 19:05

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm really digging these convertible cases, I think Compaq did something very similar too, with some of their full size Deskpro computers (don't quote me on that 🤣, I haven't seen any of these)

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Re: Packard Bell Spectria Legend cd-rom drive issue

Posted on 2019-07-29, 19:03

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'd try temporarily leaving the CD drive disconnected and if there is an option for the CD drive in the BIOS, set it to none, so at least you could try booting from a boot disk.

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Re: Packard Bell Spectria Legend cd-rom drive issue

Posted on 2019-07-28, 21:07

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hmm try changing the battery first, after that change the floppy drive settings to the correct one (in your case I assume it would be "1.44M 3½-inch"), if after that the FDD starts again reading, then we can move onto the hard drive.

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Re: Packard Bell Spectria Legend cd-rom drive issue

Posted on 2019-07-28, 18:07

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

No I meant testing the PB's hard drive on another machine to see if it works. Anyways, the floppy being lit all the time could be either that you plugged the cable backwards (early 34-pin floppy drive cables weren't keyed, I learned it the hard way...), but if it's just lit when you try reading a …

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Re: Packard Bell Spectria Legend cd-rom drive issue

Posted on 2019-07-28, 16:27

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That is strange indeed... Try setting the CD drive to Master (or "Single Drive" if it has such an option) when it's connected to the sound card, the hard drive not being suddenly recognized might be that it died (unless if you have an other machine to test it).

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Re: Packard Bell Spectria Legend cd-rom drive issue

Posted on 2019-07-28, 12:55

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

See the "CR-5xx" header on the sound card? That's where the CD drive should be connected, it's not IDE but rather a proprietary interface, first CD drives didn't have a standardized interface (to each manufacturer their own) except some which used ATA or SCSI.

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Re: I recently found this hardware, AKA the Dumpster find thread.

Posted on 2019-07-27, 16:36

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Quite surprised that the previous owner didn't remove the other drives.

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Re: Which board and OS should i use for my MMX 200 build?

Posted on 2019-07-26, 17:50

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

the downside of that board is that the HDD space limit is 8.4gb It actually isn't. This boards can work at least with 32gb HDDs, although it won't show you the correct numbers in BIOS. Some motherboards with early Award BIOS will simply lock up if they detect an hard drive that is 32 GB or more, …

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Re: Powermac g4 blue (how to properly close cd rom cover?)

Posted on 2019-07-26, 16:03

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Are you using the original Apple CD drive? Could be that the drive you're trying to install is too long. (Slight nitpick: It's not blue but rather "Graphite Grey", the only blue Power Mac was the original blue and white Power Macintosh G3)

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Re: CD-R disks blow out sales ?

Posted on 2019-07-22, 01:02

by

by Vynix

in Milliways

in Milliways

CD-Rs are starting to vanish in my area, but oddly enough not CD-RWs (well to each their own I guess)

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2019-07-21, 20:53

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just scored an Dell AT102W (actually I bought it a few weeks earlier but it only arrived yesterday :p), my first mechanical keyboard lol (I like the feel of the Black SKCM Alps): ndm767j5dfb31.jpg Probably by far the heaviest and sturdiest keyboard I ever had, I actually got it NIB (some guy in …

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Re: Thanks for the ride

Posted on 2019-07-21, 15:33

by

by Vynix

in Milliways

in Milliways

It is just good admin ethics to remove inactive logins. It's the opposite actually. It leads to dead links since you can't view a removed user's profile or search only their posts for information. If you feel you have learned from this forum, leave your posts easily accessible for others to do the …

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Re: Chinon Fz-502 5.25" floppy drive

Posted on 2019-07-20, 20:03

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Contrary to what was stated earlier, the IBM PC and its clones (also including XT-class and AT-class) machines did indeed use a twisted FDD cable, exception of some unusual PC clones (such as the Tandy 1000) which relied upon the DS jumpers and didn't use a twisted cable.

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Re: Dell / Sony CRT

Posted on 2019-07-15, 11:05

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Sounds like the high voltage isn't even firing up, I could be wrong however, as it's been years since I have last fiddled with CRT monitors.

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Re: QDI Advance 10T Drivers needed

Posted on 2019-07-01, 00:09

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

For the ROM socket on the NIC, it was for a PXE bootrom (wasn't exactly PXE but rather an ancestor of PXE so to speak, I don't specifically recall what it was named), it's not very useful that is, unless you wanna slap an XT-IDE BIOS (to bypass for exemple a BIOS hdd size limit), you could put it on …

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Re: What's the nastiest thing you caught from a retro PC/Part?

Posted on 2019-06-30, 19:04

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Another nasty caught, I'm posting it on the behalf of my friend... So he had this VX S7 system (which he handed me... Can't complain, it still boots, but it is very iffy sometimes), he decided to tear it apart to give it a good clean, and this is where things went south, first of all, he stumbled on …

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Re: What's the nastiest thing you caught from a retro PC/Part?

Posted on 2019-06-28, 08:24

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Probably weird to some of you but the nastiest thing I ever caught from a old PC, was a litteral spider nest. And to add insult to injury I am deathly afraid of spiders (arachnophobia). So yeah ever since that incident, if I ever spot a PC that seems suspicious, I'm not even touching it with a 40- …

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Re: How to Clone WinXP hard-drive ?

Posted on 2019-06-27, 16:51

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

CloneZilla is also an option (IIRC it may be possible to boot to CloneZilla from the network, that if your laptop's NIC supports PXE boot)

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Re: Fastest pc you have win98 on? (besides emulation)

Posted on 2019-06-19, 17:43

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Muh my fastest W98 system would be this: -Pentium 133 (might upgrade to K6-II or 233MMX since my mobo supports K6 and MMX CPUs... Weird) -Shuttle HOT-555A (quite a big standard VX mobo that just works, quite the reliable workhorse, alas mine is really boycotting SDRAM so I'm leaving it with the EDO …

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