First post, by facuarmo
Hello everyone, I'm experiencing a couple of issues with the first computer I've ever had.
I simply hooked it up to the power, and it didn't post. Then, I went to take out the cover, cleaned off the VGA card and everything booted just fine, however, the problem is that I stopped using this computer not only because, as a child, I disliked it very much, but also because, back then, I didn't understand neither how to make it boot nor fix any compatibility issue. It stopped booting all of the sudden as I played with the DOS commands, guess I formatted C (yeah, I wasn't very smart).
The thing is... today, I've recorded a couple of CDs: Windows 95 OSR2 and Windows 98SE. Then, I proceeded to unplug and remove the hard drive off the case and plug it on my Pentium II test bench. I used both CDs simultaneously: the Windows 98 CD to have a boot record and the Windows 95 CD (which is just a data CD) to actually install that OS.
Everything went as expected, however, putting the HDD back to the 386, would make it hang. I then realized that it was my fault because I've formatted and installed the OS using the drive into LBA mode, while I should've setted it up into CHS. Alright, wasted my time, had to do it all over again but in CHS mode. I did it, and it booted just fine in the test machine, but once again, the 386 won't boot; anyways the disk is now being read, and it doesn't hang anymore, instead, it displays "Disk I/O error", and that's it, I can't get any further as I'm not very experienced with this kind of seriously legacy stuff.
Lastly, I'd like to provide some background about what kind of system are we talking about:
Motherboard: PC Chips M321
Processor: 80386DX
Graphics: OAK VGA Card
Hard disk: Seagate ST3660A
I/O Card: Acer ISA controller (doesn't seem to have a model label).
Any hints will be really appreciated as I want this PC to be alive again, about the compatibility, well... I used this computer with Windows 95 during my entire childhood, so I'm pretty sure it can handle it.
Cheers and thanks in advance!