VOGONS


First post, by renejr902

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Hi! This a complete computer made by Hyundai.
Hyundai super 286e.

A 286 12 mhz that have a turbo switch at 8 mhz.
The hard disk is a Quantum 50mb, model 12.
One 1.44mb drive that have the old connector like a 360k drive. It does have a 360k drive too, but it didnt work, but i will try to repair it later, i disconnected it. 4mb ram parity 30 simm. Video card oak oti037c.

I got this 286 2 days ago.
The problem is the hard drive already had dos 6.22 installed and a few dos games. The computer boot normally and everything works. But today, the computer stop booting and freeze at: Starting Ms-dos. I tried several times. The computer boot with a 1.44mb dos 6.22 boot disk and the hard disk work.

I have tried all of this to get the hdd booting:

- I made a scandisk and surface scan, no error at all. chkdsk found no bad clusters. All games on it works.

- I changed the hdd ide cable with another one, same problem.

- i remove the 1.44mb drive and the cable, same problem.

- i try a Trident video card instead.

- i tried sys a: c: for reinstalling system boot file.

- I use fdisk and formatted it again with
format c: /s

- format it again and reinstall dos 6.22 with the installation disks.

- i tried a 20gb hdd with ontrack overlay and it works.

- i know i could try ontrack overlay on the 50mb hdd, but i dont like the idea, i want to get it working normally. I will try ontrack on it, only if nobody can help me and i cant find another solution

Nothing work. The hard disk always freeze at: Starting ms-dos. it seems frozen because ctrl alt delete dont work. and most of the time the 1.44mb drive has it green light always on. As soon as starting ms dos appear the 1.44mb drive green light turn on and stay like that.

Nothing else is installed in the computer. It seems to have his original computer part. The 360k drive is disconnected. the 1.44mb drive works, but i disconnected it several time when testing with no result.

I have no other idea. It works for 2 days for booting. It seem to works great after been booting with a 1.44mb boot disk. All files on the hdd works.

Thanks a lot for help and answers.

( I just edited a lot of things in this post, i added more information )

Reply 1 of 11, by BitWrangler

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It sounds like it's trying to write a virus to any disks in drives. Find a clean set of 6.22 disks and on another computer make a bare boot disk with MSAV on it (Microsoft Anti Virus) should come with full DOS set. It's old, but then so is the virus very likely. Maybe "stoned" or similar (virus name)

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 2 of 11, by Horun

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Yes could be a HD boot virus they were common back in the day or the old HD is dieing (or is it dying). There were many old "root" variant virus back in the 90's that could make a mess of a HD.
Question: when you got it and was working did you try to read any floppies you had laying around ? If so get those out of the area so you know they could be a problem in the future.

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. https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 3 of 11, by renejr902

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BitWrangler wrote on 2021-09-11, 03:04:

It sounds like it's trying to write a virus to any disks in drives. Find a clean set of 6.22 disks and on another computer make a bare boot disk with MSAV on it (Microsoft Anti Virus) should come with full DOS set. It's old, but then so is the virus very likely. Maybe "stoned" or similar (virus name)

Horun wrote on 2021-09-11, 03:11:

Yes could be a HD boot virus they were common back in the day or the old HD is dieing (or is it dying). There were many old "root" variant virus back in the 90's that could make a mess of a HD.
Question: when you got it and was working did you try to read any floppies you had laying around ? If so get those out of the area so you know they could be a problem in the future.

Yes i read floppy and copy some games on the hdd.
Hmm maybe a boot virus, i will try what you just say. Thanks a lot. I will let you know later.

Reply 6 of 11, by BitWrangler

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Although fdisk /mbr could fix corruption in boot block, or wipe out a simple boot block virus, I'd recommend running a virus check first... virii sometimes exist as a multi part tag team, and the boot block portion of it is easiest to detect and then the scanner knows exactly what to look for to disable/clean the other half of it. If the bootblock part is removed, the other piece may go undetected in an executable until that is next run, whence it will reactivate itself and write to the boot block again. Often the part in an executable is a very few bytes, just saying something like "read this particular part of the disk" which may be a fake bad sector, or embedded in a not usually scanned data file, which is why scanner may not catch it, depending on settings.

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 7 of 11, by renejr902

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renejr902 wrote on 2021-09-11, 03:15:
Yes i read floppy and copy some games on the hdd. Hmm maybe a boot virus, i will try what you just say. Thanks a lot. I will let […]
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BitWrangler wrote on 2021-09-11, 03:04:

It sounds like it's trying to write a virus to any disks in drives. Find a clean set of 6.22 disks and on another computer make a bare boot disk with MSAV on it (Microsoft Anti Virus) should come with full DOS set. It's old, but then so is the virus very likely. Maybe "stoned" or similar (virus name)

Horun wrote on 2021-09-11, 03:11:

Yes could be a HD boot virus they were common back in the day or the old HD is dieing (or is it dying). There were many old "root" variant virus back in the 90's that could make a mess of a HD.
Question: when you got it and was working did you try to read any floppies you had laying around ? If so get those out of the area so you know they could be a problem in the future.

Yes i read floppy and copy some games on the hdd.
Hmm maybe a boot virus, i will try what you just say. Thanks a lot. I will let you know later.

kixs wrote on 2021-09-11, 05:12:

Try the HDD in another computer.

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-09-11, 12:05:

Although fdisk /mbr could fix corruption in boot block, or wipe out a simple boot block virus, I'd recommend running a virus check first... virii sometimes exist as a multi part tag team, and the boot block portion of it is easiest to detect and then the scanner knows exactly what to look for to disable/clean the other half of it. If the bootblock part is removed, the other piece may go undetected in an executable until that is next run, whence it will reactivate itself and write to the boot block again. Often the part in an executable is a very few bytes, just saying something like "read this particular part of the disk" which may be a fake bad sector, or embedded in a not usually scanned data file, which is why scanner may not catch it, depending on settings.

Hmm its bad. Finally the hdd was dying. It stop working. Drive 0 failure at boot, i tried several times on 2 computer. Before that happen, i tried it first on another pc, one of my 386, and it works the first time i tried it, like a miracle and didnt froze at starting ms-dos. So after that success, i restart the pc and it froze at starting ms-dos. So i turn off and turn on the computer like 20 times and it at least boot normally around 4 times of my 20 tries. After that i made a new boot disk from another pc with another 1.44mb disk that i use rarely of dos 6.22 but french version, just to try something different. Command.com dont have the same size. But it was exactly the same problem like 3 success on 10 tries, while doing this test, i was making the msav thing disk and i download antivirus scan program for dos too, but during this process, the hdd stop working and failure at boot, so i stopped making the antivirus 1.44mb disk and try the hdd several time on 2 computer and could not get it working again. Fdisk didnt start and wrote: cant initialize hard disk or cant read on it. Later today i will open it and try to repair it. Dont worry i didnt put cable in bad direction or something like that. I tried to boot with it so many times, with different cable and different computer.

Last edited by renejr902 on 2021-09-11, 18:41. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 8 of 11, by BitWrangler

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Awww sucks... bearings maybe worn so it's not hitting full speed? Sometimes they live a bit longer mounted sideways or upside down if that's the case.

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 9 of 11, by Horun

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renejr902 wrote on 2021-09-11, 18:35:

Hmm its bad. Finally the hdd was dying. It stop working. Drive 0 failure at boot, i tried several times on 2 computer.

That is too bad ! A virus is easier to fix....Curious what make and model HD was it ?

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. https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 10 of 11, by renejr902

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BitWrangler wrote on 2021-09-11, 18:40:

Awww sucks... bearings maybe worn so it's not hitting full speed? Sometimes they live a bit longer mounted sideways or upside down if that's the case.

I will try to repair it and let you know. Right now i using with my Hyundai 286e super computer with another hdd of 6.2gb but at 504mb with cylinder 1024, 16, 63 and it works perfect on the 286. So the 286 itself didnt broke the old hdd, the old 50mb hdd was dying by itself.

Last edited by renejr902 on 2021-09-11, 18:47. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 11 of 11, by renejr902

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Horun wrote on 2021-09-11, 18:42:
renejr902 wrote on 2021-09-11, 18:35:

Hmm its bad. Finally the hdd was dying. It stop working. Drive 0 failure at boot, i tried several times on 2 computer.

That is too bad ! A virus is easier to fix....Curious what make and model HD was it ?

I'm not near it right now, but if i remember correctly, its a Quantum, model 12 50mb. I will give you more details later.