First post, by Kinoli
Hi, first time poster here. Thanks for having me!
Maybe this will come as a long post, so bear with me.
tl;dr I have an old PC and I want to game in it.
I have an old HP Vectra 486/25VL (486-25 MHz) which I played some games as a kid and I rescued and wanted to make it run so I can playe those games (and more) again. I'm pretty new at the old retroPC stuff, so even though I know my way around MS-DOS a little bit, I'm newby at configuring everyhing from scratch.
The specs are:
- i486SX at 25MHz
- 8MB of RAM
- Cirrus Logic GD5428 onboard
- 3.5" Floppy Disk Drive
- Sound Blaster Pro 2 CT1600
- SD to IDE adapter with an 8GB SD (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000029233067.html)
Things to take into account:
- I attached some photos I took, so you have more information.
- I don't have the MS-DOS installation disks (or any 3.5" floppy drives at hand), so I had to install it in another PC with a virtual machine and then copying the contents of the .hdi to the SD.
- To install anything from the internet, I have to boot the MS-DOS into a VM and then install the diskettes.
- I can copy files form a Windows PC without problems.
- I have not found the exact Motherboard model. I think it could be the D3021-6002 because it is repeated two times in the MB, but who knows. There are also some jumpers, so maybe there are things that are fixable "easily"?
- It has an AMIBIOS 200676 chip.
Things I have problems with:
- Installation: If you know some method to install the content of a diskette in the HDD without using a physical diskette, would be amazing.
- HDD: In the VM I configure 4 partitions (2GB each: 1 primary, 1 extended with 2 logical) and the PC only recognizes the first one and ~500MB of free space. The BIOS detects the ~8GB of the SD.
- I tried to use the HDD autodetect and that's how I make it work in the 486.
- I did run WHATIDE and everything seemed to be OK.
- I also tried to only use the 2GB partition and install MS-DOS 6.22 on the SD but it makes no difference.
- VGA: I wanted to install a Cirrus Logic 5420. Looking at the Motherboard I found that there is a Cirrus Logic 5428 onboard. Although I did look and downloaded a driver from your driver repository, I have not found any information regarding the configuration of VGA drivers, so I will appreciate any sort of information you could give me.
Things that work without problems:
- CPU
- RAM
- Sound Blaster
- Floppy Disk Drive
Games I tried and run great:
- Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (dubbed)
- The Lost Vikings
- Raptor: Call of Shadows
Games I tried and run poorly:
- The Lion King
- Prehistoric II
- Doom
It was a long post but I hope you can help me. Thanks!