My father has an old HP Vectra VL2 runing win3.1 on msdos6.2. When the PC boots up it gets an error 8051 Hard drive error followed by 0250 configuration error. I assume the second error is a result of the first as the config.sys and autoexec.bat refer to the c: drive. We've tried booting from a floppy and get into dos but can only access the a: drive. Can anyone help? Thanks

You'll need to access the bios before the a: boot. usually there is a message at the end of the POST like hit del, F10, esc something like that. If the BIOS doesn't list a hard disk then the operating system or at least the boot sector is hammered. It's absence in BIOS would indicate a hardware problem. try opening up the computer , keep one hand on the chassis and reseat the hard disk connections. see if it boots, post back.

With a machine that old your BIOS backup battery is probably dead loosing all your settings including the HDD so that when you boot the Hdd is not recognised. The older bioses don't autodetect hard drives you have to input the drive parramiters yourself. To get into the bios you will have to at the prompt on the first boot screen (1 beep)press whatrver it tells you to ie,F1 ,F2 or Dell.Once in goto the first screen and if the time is 00.00.00 or close and the date is 19xx your battery is dead and needs replacing before you can restore your bios settings.Asto what the settings are you may need to contact HP. Joe

Good point. I missed the 486 thing. Your battery might be soldered in. If so your better off cutting it out, extending the leads and securely mounting another battery somewhere out og the way. Note the polarity!

Thanks for feedback. Computer has been started up and prompted F2 to get into setup. Time was accurate and details for the HDD were there. Details in setup for HDD matched those on the cover of the HDD. All connections were checked last weekend. Incidently, we have tried starting the computer with the power cable removed from the HDD and again with the IDE cable disconnected from the HDD. Both times we got the 8051 error. Any more ideas?