Old 286 PC HDD issue \ VOGONS

Old 286 PC HDD issue

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First post, by blintux

Posted on 2022-07-13, 18:38

blintux Offline

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Joined: 2018-10-27, 16:44

Hi guys!

I have a rare and old mini 286 PC: SIIG MiniSys 286
Here's a video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ybU1kVrwXY

The machine has no HDD. But I have an WD Caviar 280 - 85 Mb HDD
Unfortunately in the computer motherboard missing an PAL IC and the IDE controller does not work.
But I have ans IO card, like this: https://retronn.de/imports/hwgal/hw_smc_ide.html

I put this caard on machine and configure the jumpers as follows:
JP1: Close
JP2: Open
JP3: Close

So I have an IDE controller on IRQ 14.

I setup the HDD data (head, sector, ...) in the BIOS correctly.

When the compter start the BIOS say: HDD controller failed
But the HDD LED flashes.

I boot MS DOS 6.22 from floppy. Durning in DOS boot the HDD LED flashing.

When I use the hwinfo program I see the HDD controller on IRQ 14 and I see the IDE Device in the Drive Info tree.

When I use fdisk the HDD LED flashing again but I get this error: Error reading fixed disk.

I have an another HDD: Conner CP30084E - 85 Mb
But the problem is same.

Can someone help me what is the problem?

Sorry for my bad English 😀

Reply 1 of 4, by waterbeesje

Posted on 2022-07-13, 19:09

waterbeesje Offline

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Just to be sure. Did you test the hard drives in another pc?
Did you test the controller in another pc?

Could you hook up the drives to a 486 or Pentium class computer to see what CHS info they autodetect on the HDD? Maybe they detect something unexpected which you could copy to the 286 settings.

Stuck at 10MHz...

Reply 2 of 4, by Horun

Posted on 2022-07-14, 01:00

Horun Offline

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Yes I would test same IDE controller and same drives on a 486 or early pentium and see if you can properly access them.
It appeared new in box so not sure why it would be missing a PAL chip.
Here is same system: Re: 80286 BIOS image collection

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 3 of 4, by jakethompson1

Posted on 2022-07-14, 01:01

jakethompson1 Offline

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Joined: 2015-11-17, 04:16

You're sure the onboard IDE support is totally disabled?

Reply 4 of 4, by Jo22

Posted on 2022-07-14, 01:36

Jo22 Offline

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You have a sound card installed?
If so, you could use the IDE/ATAPI connector for your HDD (if it has one).
It's configured as a Secondary Master normally, so it won't conflict with an on-board IDE.
The only problem is.. The PC BIOS doesn't boot from Secondary Master.
For that, something like XTIDE Universal BIOS is required (works, tested).
But how do you get that thing into the system?
There's no space for an extra network card (as a host for the XUB EPROM). 🙁

Edit: Technically, it might possibly to use free space on the BIOS chips.
So maybe it's possible to integrate XUB into the BIOS ROMs.
That involves a bit of work, though. The BIOS must be saved as a file, the XUB must be attached to it (COPY /B BIOS.BIN+XUB.BIN > BIOXUB.BIN or similar).
Then the file must be split into odd/even, one for each EPROM chip.
WinHEX (shareware, Windows) has such a split feature, I believe.

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