and after i attached the ribbon data cable from 80 mb hard drive to the ide controller card
the light issue happened strait after i tried using the actual original 80mb hard drive that i brought on ebay
i was wondering if you could fix up the epson 286 images disks for me i think you mentioned that you
might be able to you could always send it to me on my email
jude_stanton1@hotmail.com

jude1977 wrote on 2026-07-23, 01:36:

... i was wondering if you could fix up the epson 286 images disks for me ...

As far as I know those are direct images of the original 4 Epson master 360k diskettes that would have come with you machine.

I don't think there is anything I can do to "fix up" them.

What you need to do is write those images onto actual 360k disks, effectively recreating the factory issued masters so you can use them to configure the system.
To help you figure out how to do that, I need to know exactly what you have for a "modern" system.

Is it Winblows, Linux or something else?
Does it have 5.25" floppy drives?
If no, does it have ANY floppy drives?
If no, do you know if it has a floppy disk controller (Does BIOS have options to configure floppy drives)?

If Winblows, you should be able to use DSKWRITE.EXE which is available in the DOSBOOT.ZIP archive in downloads on my site.
If Linux, you can use the "dd" command, I don't do this often enough to remember details, but I can look it up and let you know.

If your "modern"system doesn't have floppy drives or a floppy controller, things get more complex - as long as you have a DOS disk that will boot on the Epson we could probably figure out a round-about way to use that.

If it has a floppy controller but no 5.25" drives, you might have to "borrow" the drive from the Epson long enough to make the disks.

If it has a 5.25" drive, I need to know exactly what type (HD or DD) and can give you more information.

If you do have a way to make physical disks, I'd suggest first doing the "reference" disk as it is bootable and has the SETUP program on on it.

... Once I know details of exactly what you have available to work it, I can provide more specific instructions on what you'll have to do ...
(And of course if you have a friend nearby who has a system with a working 5.25" you might be able to do it "indirectly")

jude1977 wrote on 2026-07-23, 01:36:

and after i attached the ribbon data cable from 80 mb hard drive to the ide controller card
the light issue happened strait after i tried using the actual original 80mb hard drive that i brought on ebay

You had said "it was on before but now it isn't" - so what I was trying to figure out is: What exactly is different from "before" to "now"?

hi my epson 286 has 2 floppy drives or i can connect a 3 and half floppy drive if need being
in regards to the light not coming on
ill explain it the best i can the sd card adapter has 3 lights that should turn on 1 for power one for sd card active im not sure what the 3rd light is for
but its the light to show card active not turning on this is also the case for the ch flash card adapter
both use to show the light turning on for active but now it doesn't i only had this problem after i
i tried attaching the 80 mb hard drive but now i dont have the 80mb hard drive attached im attaching
the sd card adapter and ch flash card adapter

hi just a quick update iv tried the epson software on the computer it now works when i use the 5.25 floppy drive
if i run setup on the reference disk it gives all sought of info which i can change but i tried to save the settings but it said my
battery is dead so i can only exit without saving theirs so many other files as well on each disk im a bit confused on what i should do
in regards to the light not coming on from my sd card adapter it came on stayed on but when i restarted the pc it came on only briefly
but went off this is the light to show the card is active so im not sure why it does that now
when i use the epson reference disk and set up on it in the menu it shows the memory on the memory card
but i tried running fdisk from dos and it do-sent detect any hard drive and it use to before i tried attaching the 80mb hard drive

jude1977 wrote on 2026-07-23, 07:20:

hi my epson 286 has 2 floppy drives or i can connect a 3 and half floppy drive if need being

Not what I asked - I need to know what you have available for a "modern"system? (I assume you're not using the Epson to posting in this forum)
It may be possible to write the disks from the Epson, if you don't have a "newer" system with the capability to write floppies, but it would be quite "tricky"...
- You would need to be able to boot DOS on the Epson (from a floppy can work)
- You would need a serial port on the Epson and a more modern system (could be a USB serial port on the modern one) to be able to get things onto the Epson
Then there's a few of steps you could do to actually write the disk image ... but it's a fair bit of work.

It would be FAR easier to write the disk on a fully working system ... but I have to know what you have available.

Since CMOS was dead, it's quite likely that the only type of floppy you could easily access is a 5.25" DD (360k) on the Epson
(My own ImageDisk "talks" to the floppy directly without going through BIOS - so as long as the hardware can do it, IMD can write to drive types not configured in BIOS - but you would still need a 360k drive to boot the system)

in regards to the light not coming on ill explain it the best i can the sd card adapter has 3 lights that should turn on 1 for p […]
Show full quote

in regards to the light not coming on
ill explain it the best i can the sd card adapter has 3 lights that should turn on 1 for power one for sd card active im not sure what the 3rd light is for
but its the light to show card active not turning on this is also the case for the ch flash card adapter
both use to show the light turning on for active but now it doesn't i only had this problem after i
i tried attaching the 80 mb hard drive but now i dont have the 80mb hard drive attached im attaching
the sd card adapter and ch flash card adapter

It really depends on the adapter ...

If attaching a drive caused it to change the way it handles the CD card even after that drive is disconnected, my first thought is that the drive must have been in such rough spate that it damaged the hard drive interface ... but you never know what BIOS can "remember" after hardware changes.

Is the CMOS still "dead" - if not, try disconnecting it for a while to insure BIOS strats "fresh".

Also, did you change any jumpers on the drive controller? or do anything else which might have "lasting" effects on the system?

jude1977 wrote on 2026-07-23, 10:26:

hi just a quick update iv tried the epson software on the computer it now works when i use the 5.25 floppy drive
if i run setup on the reference disk it gives all sought of info which i can change but i tried to save the settings but it said my
battery is dead so i can only exit without saving

We discussed this before - the Dallas RTC contains a battery - you have to remove the existing chip and either replace or repair it - I'd put in a socket so if is easier to replace in the future.

theirs so many other files as well on each disk im a bit confused on what i should do

Being able to boot from floppy is good - you are going to have to get a hard drive working before you can do much more.
Once you have a hard drive, doing a proper system restore from the factory diskettes should be fairly straightforward, otherwise we can help you figure out what to do to install DOS on your own.

in regards to the light not coming on from my sd card adapter it came on stayed on but when i restarted the pc it came on only b […]
Show full quote

in regards to the light not coming on from my sd card adapter it came on stayed on but when i restarted the pc it came on only briefly
but went off this is the light to show the card is active so im not sure why it does that now
when i use the epson reference disk and set up on it in the menu it shows the memory on the memory card
but i tried running fdisk from dos and it do-sent detect any hard drive and it use to before i tried attaching the 80mb hard drive

Humm.... sounds like the attaching 80m drive damaged or changed something!

Unless you can identify ANYTHING else you changed in the system, jumpes on any card etc.
Are you using the same cables in the same orientation as before? (obviously you would had them off while changing the drive)

It would be good to know if FDISK reports that it can detect the 80m drive - but if it damaged something you may not want to connect it again (but if anything was damaged ... it's already damaged, and the only way you can know for sure it's not something about the SD adapter would be to try with an actual hard drive - just make sure you have the cables right)

hi sorry for the confusion i have a windows 10 pc with usb and a usb external floppy drive i downloaded the images on my windows 10 pc then transfer d them to my usb external floppy drive to put on a 3 and half
disk i then transferd the files from 3 and half to 5.25 floppy from my windows 3.1 pc then finally used all the floppy s on my epson 286.
im also wondering if i damaged the ide controller card when i attached the 80 mb hard drive to it maybe i damaged some of the pins
because before that i wasent having trouble with the sd card adapter,in regards to your question on the jumpers i had removed one
as someone asked me to try that a few messages ago and i did that and it detected the sd card adapter but as i said as soon as i tried attaching the 80mb hard drive thats when i had
the issue of the sd card adapter not being detected and i haven't put the jumper back on

jude1977 wrote on 2026-07-23, 11:03:

hi sorry for the confusion i have a windows 10 pc with usb and a usb external floppy drive i downloaded the images on my windows 10 pc then transfer d them to my usb external floppy drive to put on a 3 and half
disk i then transferd the files from 3 and half to 5.25 floppy from my windows 3.1 pc then finally used all the floppy s on my epson 286.

OK, so you have a Windows 3.1 system with both 3.5" and 5.25" drives - Win 3.1 runs in top of DOS - this is good.

Do you know if the 5,25: drive is HD or DD (whas does it say in BIOS)

Do you have the systems on a network together? That could be a much easier way to transfer images than writing/reading to/from a 3.5" floppy (but that will work)
What (exactly) did you use (on the Win3.1 system) to write the images to an actual 5.25" 360k floppy?

im also wondering if i damaged the ide controller card when i attached the 80 mb hard drive to it maybe i damaged some of the pi […]
Show full quote

im also wondering if i damaged the ide controller card when i attached the 80 mb hard drive to it maybe i damaged some of the pins
because before that i wasent having trouble with the sd card adapter,in regards to your question on the jumpers i had removed one
as someone asked me to try that a few messages ago and i did that and it detected the sd card adapter but as i said as soon as i tried attaching the 80mb hard drive thats when i had
the issue of the sd card adapter not being detected and i haven't put the jumper back on

Visually inspect the pins - to they LOOK damaged? (Should look about the same as the floppy cable connector only longer)

Do your cables have TABs on them to insure they get inserted the right way?
Does the disk controller have shrouds around the pins (with a slot on one side to accept the tab - this insures that the cable will be inserted correctly)? -or- does it just have "bare" pins?

A very common problem with connecting drives is inserting the cable the "wrong way around"....
To reduce noise, these cables have ground on every second wire (between the active signals), which means that one side of the connector is all ground pins.

Inserting the cable "wrong way around" can effectively short all the signals to/from the drive.
This stresses those signals but typically doesn't "kill" things if it doesn't last too long. In the typical case you realize fairly quickly that things aren't connected correctly and pull the cables.
If however you leave the output signals grounded for an extended period of time - it can cause damage!

Another things - reversed cables also grounds the inputs to the drive - the drive select is active-low, which means the drive is "always" selected.
For most drives this will show up as the select light being "solid ON" - which is a good factor to help realize that you have the cables reversed.

ive done some more testing i re attached the 80mb hard drive it detected when i turned on pc but then it stopped working like the motor in it stopped running and now that do-sent detect
any way i re tried the sd card adapter and once again it do-sent detect
i also got a bit confused when i ran the reference epson disk with setup i originally said i thought it detected the sd card but it do-sent the memory witch is detected is the base memory of
the pc 3000kbts so im wondering if the ide controller card is playing up and that is maybe why nothing gets detected
so i dont know and now im worried my 80 mb hard drive may be toast

i have inspected the pins on the ide controller card and they look fine they dont really looked damaged as far as i can tell

hi all im just wondering if id have more luck using a xtide card witch a user suggested in this thread

Maybe.

I still dont think that ide card is bad, but it would eliminate an unknown variable: '32bit memory operations and instructions present in the option rom?'

lotec card is 8bit. Its version of the xtide rom is baked for 8086 cpus, and uses 8bit words, with a 20bit memory bus, and a 16bit data bus. No 32bit instructions. Will be guaranteed to work with a 286. (Which has a 16bit word size, and a 24bit address bus. The lotec card will live comfortably.)

Unfortunately - I think you are going to have to fix the CMOS battery problem before you can go much further with the hard drive - until you can tell BIOS about the type of hard drive, I wouldn't expect much to work.

Most likely Epson defaults the system to the most basic (5.25" DD 360k) floppy no hard drive, expecting you to boot the reference disk and configure these things.

It's too bad the Epson setup program won't even let you write the settings if the battery is bad - if it did, you could set up and as long as you didn't power down the machine they would remain set.... but it looks like you can't even try that.

I've looked in the DS12287 datasheet (I'm assuming that's what the Dallas chip is, and it does have a bit called VRT in one of it's status registers which indicates of the battery is good.

It also says "this bit is set to 1 before shipment and if ever read as 0 indicates that the time and RAM content is questionable" - it's not clear if replacing the battery (something Dallas never intended you to do) will cause it to read 1 again... so I'm not 100% sure the method I described of grinding off the top and accessing the battery will actually work - you might have to find an undepleated one.

It's also possible(even likely) that a card to support newer drives will have a BIOS extension to do this. Hopefully that would still store it's configuration in the system (RTC) CMOS, but who knows - could they identify bytes there that the could count on being free to use - is there any sort of NV-RAM on your IDE card?

i got asked what was different since i started having this problem with the sd card not being detected i have just remembered i formatted my sd card on my windows 10 pc to fat 32 then inserted it in my epson 286
thats when i started having the trouble as well as trying the 80 mb hard drive

jude1977 wrote on 2026-07-23, 14:14:

i got asked what was different since i started having this problem with the sd card not being detected i have just remembered i formatted my sd card on my windows 10 pc to fat 32 then inserted it in my epson 286
thats when i started having the trouble as well as trying the 80 mb hard drive

Even with a FAT32 partition it should still be detected by BIOS/FDISK (as an unknown) - but I'm pretty certain the partition table is different between DOS 3.3 and Win10 so it could be "confusing" it.

Do you have another (untouched by W10) SD card that you can try?

I recall you switched the cable to a different one last time?

Are you still using the SIIG controller card?
Do you have any documentation on it?

Since it supports IDE drives it it must be able to handle different drives than the Epson BIOS originally supported (which I'm sure are just bog standard MFM drives of the day)
It might support a key at startup enter a ROM BIOS
-or- it may have it's own SETUP utility.

If we can figure out how it's drive(s) are configured, perhaps it will allow storing that config even if the CMOS battery is dead (or maybe it has it's own CMOS?)

@davedds

I did find its manual, and did share it.

It can be found here.

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/3397366/Sii … l?page=4#manual

The controller bios just does autodetection. No NVRam on it.

Here are the relavent pages.

The only thing 'strange' about it, is optional ISA DMA functionality.

For completeness, page 3-4 gives the logic table for configuring the ROM address location for the controller's BIOS.

In nearly all respects, this is an ordinary 16bit IDE controller, with a socketted 32kb EIDE option rom baked on it.

I still feel that yanking the rom out of its socket, and putting an appropriate xtide eeprom in there instead, would make this a very premium bit of kit.

Page 1-1 mentions that the controller bios wants to use multiword transfers, if it thinks it can use it.

I mentioned my own troubles with sintechi drives not liking mwdma mode 2. Only mwdma mode 1.

^Hm, looks like a decent little EIDE card! 😎
It also has an extra floppy controller. I hope it 's been set to disabled if the Epson's floppy controller is used.