VOGONS


First post, by Soap

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Basically I've acquired this old Dell 486 (Model 466/LE).

Upon booting I get the HDD failed message, I press F1 to continue and it boots no problem and runs without issue.

What could be causing this issue? I just flashed the bios from A01 to A08 and I get the issue still.

Cheers in advance.

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Reply 1 of 9, by BitWrangler

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Sometimes ageing drives don't come up to speed fast enough to beat the check. That can also be a PSU ageing issue, it doesn't quite deliver enough at the power on surge to get everything going.

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 3 of 9, by rasz_pl

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>Medalist 2122 (ST32122A) provides the following key features: Low power consumption; Quiet operation; Support for S.M.A.R.T. drive monitoring

maybe bios supports SMART too and drive has errors logged/is on a way out

Open Source AT&T Globalyst/NCR/FIC 486-GAC-2 proprietary Cache Module reproduction

Reply 5 of 9, by Soap

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Boohyaka wrote on 2023-03-09, 19:13:

that looks to me like you have a secondary (non-connected) disk configured in BIOS

You sir are an absolute legend.

I had disk 1 in the BIOS set to Auto, nothing is connected so I just figured with it being on Auto it would be able to tell, I set to disable and problem is gone.

No idea why I never thought of that, had a complete brain fart that time.

Cheers

Reply 7 of 9, by Horun

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Nice ! Never seen a white wrapped HD before, seen many black wrapped ones. Nice pictures. Glad you got it working.

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 8 of 9, by Soap

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jakethompson1 wrote on 2023-03-09, 19:10:

Might there be a missing second hard drive enabled in the BIOS setup

It certainly was, I had a bit of a brain fart and missed that.

Many thanks

Reply 9 of 9, by Soap

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Horun wrote on 2023-03-10, 00:33:

Nice ! Never seen a white wrapped HD before, seen many black wrapped ones. Nice pictures. Glad you got it working.

I'll get some better pics when reassembled and fully set up, and thanks.