We have a piece of equipment driven by an IBM 386 that will nit boot even from a floppy boot disk. Replacement and upgrage is not possible because of what is is linked to. Does anyone know what error codes 163 and 602 mean? these codes are returned after this message - "ID6 Maxtor 7345-SCSI Firmware Rev. 2065(FS)" I feel it is a controller card message, but am not sure.

163=Time and date not set-(Run SETUP). 602=Diskette test failed; boot record is not valid. Most IBM BIOS error codes can be found at: http://www.landfield.com/faqs/pc-hardware-faq/part4/ The error 163 suggests your battery may be failing. The battery provides power to a chip that store data like the date/time and other BIOS settings. If your SCSI device needs data saved by BIOS, that may be why it isn't working. The 602 error suggest that possibly your boot disk is bad. Have you tried another? Are you sure you're using the correct diskette? The 386 machines back then used 360k or 720k diskettes. If you disk drive is old, you'll need to use an old diskette. Today's new 1.44k or 1.2mb disks won't work in an old drive. You could try posting some more information like what kind of floppy/hard drives are in the machine and whether you have used a IBM diagnostic or reference diskette to try to problem solve the errors. Your 386 does not have a built in BIOS program. You have to download a "reference" diskette or "diagnostic" diskette to check your BIOS for errors.

What error messages do you get if 1)config.sys file is removed and 2) if autoexec.bat file is removed.