You need to set up the hard drive, since the CF card has a different geometry. You need to run the setup disk for this. So first: get the floppy drive working. You can do this by boiling the belt (2 minutes at 100°C - make sure it always floats in the water). Had a similar model with the same issue and boiling the drive's belt made it work long enough again to run the setup disk and install DOS.

I must try that.
First i have to what is condition of belt.
Drive makes creepy sound. 😐

Thanks for tip!

I think the same as derSammler. Fixing the floppy drive first is worth a try.
Even if it only boots a minimal DOS system (by using 360KB or 720KB formats) so far to let you run FDISK and set up a partition.
(Then, if you like, make an image of the CF card and continue with your emulator approach; afterwards write the image back again).

However, if that fails, even, there's another thing left to try.
Instead of Qemu, use PCem and try to choose an old machine type that's similar to your laptop or has a similar BIOS.

Then, install MS-DOS 6.x and try again. If that doesn't work, give FreeDOS or MS-DOS 7 a try,
since they have got more advanced boot loaders chances are better they do handle geometry issues properly.

These Compaq LTE laptops stores part of the BIOS setup and diagnostics on the hard drive, without it you won't be able to boot PC from a hard drive. You must fix that floppy in order to create a BIOS setup/diagnostics partition on a hard drive. I have two such LTE 486 laptops and both suffer from loose rubber belt in a floppy drive. You must get a new belt or make a custom one.

Does it give you any on screen errors on boot up?

I have a LTE Elite 4/40CX like that and it doesn't need a BIOS setup diagnostic to boot.

What you can do if you have another laptop is to put the CF card in the other lap, format it in there and install everything there then put it back in the Compaq.

Finding a replacement belt would be awesome, but I believe everyone has given up now 🙁

Must be an O'ring that can do the job. What are dimensions of the belt?

Deksor is correct. You don't need the bios util on the hdd to et up drives. Same goes for desktop systems like the Presario CDS524.

Look for "Citizen W1D belt" on Google, there are several threads about this. If you can find a suitable replacement, I'd be so thankful 😀

SSTV2 wrote:

These Compaq LTE laptops stores part of the BIOS setup and diagnostics on the hard drive, without it you won't be able to boot PC from a hard drive. You must fix that floppy in order to create a BIOS setup/diagnostics partition on a hard drive. I have two such LTE 486 laptops and both suffer from loose rubber belt in a floppy drive. You must get a new belt or make a custom one.

Although correct, this is optional. Compaq created a small - so called - maintenance/setup partition at the front of the drive map. On it was the setup and diagnostic software. Now - it is important to say that the "setup" utility is basically the BIOS setup utility.

Yes, that means that without this maintenance partition present, you cannot enter the BIOS (by hitting ESC/F10) at the startup of the machine. This is basically equivalent of having the bootable setup diskette inserted at boot.

It is, though, not necessary to have this partition set-up/present. It merely means that you can't reach the BIOS without the setup diskette. These models are - however - able to boot from the HDD controller without the setup partition present. I have a Contura still (and had an LTE once) - both do not have the setup/diag partition present, and when necessary to change anything in the BIOS, I do boot from setup diskette.

They do not store the BIOS data in this partition, merely the program to access / change it (BIOS GUI)