Hi everybody,

I just dug an old 486 out of storage and I'm trying to get it running again. I don't know much about this machine but during POST it says its a Dell Dimension XPS with Phoenix 80486 ROM BIOS PLUS Version 0.10 A01. The model number on the motherboard is 09 00183 08.

I can't seem to get it to boot from its hard disk and I'm hoping someone here has experience with a system like this one and can help me out.

I'm using a Gotek floppy emulator and a CF to IDE adapter as a hard disk. It boots off the floppy fine and I have installed DOS to the CF card. The problem is that it only seems to want to boot off the floppy. The BIOS is pretty simple and I don't see any options for changing the boot device. I've tried setting the floppy emulator to an empty disk but it just says invalid system disk and asks me to replace the disk and try again. I also tried unplugging the floppy all together. When I boot it without the floppy it goes through the POST and I hear the beep where it would start to boot off a disk but it just sits there and never boots or gives me any error.

I started to think it was the CF card or the adapter so I tried an older card that is only 256MB but no luck. Then I tried the hard drive that was originally in it. I was surprised that it still worked so I re-partitioned it, formatted it, and installed DOS to it but it still doesn't try to boot from the hard drive.

It acts like it's not set to try to boot off the hard disk but I don't see any way to change it. I've attached some pictures of the BIOS screens. The picture of the boot messages outside of the bios is when I don't have the floppy connected and it never boots from the hard disk.

Does anyone have any experience with a system like this and have any ideas where I might be going wrong?

Thanks,