ok why does my hdd not work correctly i have a 43mb hdd on a 286 that had the old ide with the 2 cables i just upgraded it to the 40pin cable and added a new hdd i installes Ms-dos 6.22 and windows for workgroups 3.11 and i cant boot to hdd i can only boot to floppy. WHY?

~!~!~!~thanks for reading my post~!~!~!~

I'm sure you have your reasons for struggling with this old system. I could be wrong, but I feel the majority of those that post on here don't have experience with 286's. Personally, I didn't jump on the PC bandwagon until late 486/early 586 days. The only experience I have with 286 & 386 is to gut em for parts & then pass em on to the local recycler...lol!

Maybe if you explained more about what's happening? Did to boot OK before the cable chnage? My guess is that's what messed you up. If not that, there may be a problem with your BIOS settings (boot devices)...or possibly your CMOS battery is bad & you're losing your BIOS settings? Those old batteries didn't last all that long...I'm guessing you have the old "barrel" style battery that's soldered to the board?

There is no turning back, now that you've woken up the demon in me...

a) I would think that you can only use a standard ide cable on the 286.

b) once booted does the pc 'see' the hdd and all its capacity?
If no, it is not set up correctly in the bios.

c) I think you will have problems attempting to use any version of windows on a 286 as this pc does not have the power/memory to support.

d) have you set up more than one partition, as the installing of dos 6.22 generally sets up the hdd to boot.

Good luck - Keep us posted.

Please clarify. You have an IDE with two cables? Do you mean two cables connected to the hard drive?

You've got lots of things working against you here, in addition to some of the things others have already mentioned.
You may want to get a lot smaller hard drive, or throw this 286 in the trash.

1. Dos 3.3 has, I believe, a limit of 32 mb (yes mb, not gig) per partition - if you have only one partition on a hard drive, it can be no larger than 32mb, and on most computers you can only have a maximum of 4 of these on a hard drive, for a max total recognized hard drive size of 128mb.

You must use Dos 4 or greater if you have a hard drive larger than 32mb. Dos 6.2x is the most versatile of the original Dos versions.

2. Most 286's bios cannot recognize a hard drive larger than 528mb (manufacturer's size; 5O4mb in Dos). A few can handle a 1.x gig hard drive. How the bios that can't handle the size of the drive responds to that situation varies, often it just doesn't see it at all, but sometimes the computer will freeze when the hard drives are supposed to be detected.

3. "old ide with the 2 cables "

If this was a drive with two ribbon cables, one 34 pin, the other 20 pin -

That wasn't an IDE drive - it was a MFM or RLL drive, usually that requires a card in a slot, although a few mboards had the two necessary data connectors on the mboard. The board, or onboard circuitry if mboard has the two data connectors (one 34 pin, the other 20 pin), is necessary in order for those old drives to communicate with the computer. The wiring of a three connector 34 pin hard drive cable is different than that of a floppy cable - different wires exchange positions between C and D drive connectors. If you had that type of hard drive, and no other hard drives, the IDE hard drive types were set to Not Installed or None in the bios.

IDE drives have the same type of cicuitry that was on the card for the MFM or RLL drives integrated into the board on the hard drive. The IDE connector interface is simply a subset of pins that connect to the mboard bus, and on a 286 mboard that connection was direct. On some older 286 mboards, there are no onboard IDE connectors (40 pin) or floppy connectors (34 pin) - you have to install a card in a slot with IDE and floppy connectors on it. Most early cards had only one IDE connector - later ones had two. On later 286's there was an IDE connector on the mboard, but often one rather than two.

4. If you remove the MFM or RLL drive, and its controller card ((or turn off the onboard controller, if mboard has the two data connectors - 34 pin (in addition to the 34 pin floppy connector) and 20 pin)) in order to use an IDE drive, you must go into the bios, and turn on the hard drive detection for the position the hard drive is connected to. If the IDE was not previously used, you may also need to turn it on in the bios. In a lot of these 286's there was no User definable or Auto drive types - there was just a list of drives types having various parameters, of various sizes. If you were lucky, there was a user definable selection, usually type 47, which you could select and type in the parameters for the drive you want to install. There was often no capability in the bios to detect the parameters of the hard drive - if you were lucky, there was - you had to look up the drive model at the manufacturers site and find the parameters, if they were not on a label on the drive.
Early 286's bios Setup could only be accessed by using a Setup floppy disk. You can get generic Setup floppy disks on the web if you don't have and/or can't find one for your mboard. Later 286's bioses could be accessed by pressing a key while booting, like modern mboards.

5. If the bios does not have any User or Auto types to select in the bios, since the bioses of most 286's is not flashable, the only way to get the computer to recognize the full size of the hard drive for most people is to:

- Use free software that translates the hard drive size information to the motherboards bios, allowing you to use the full drive size. This available on the manufacturer of your hard drive's website, or is sometimes included with your hard drive. This is generically called "dynamic overlay" software or similar e.g EZ Drive, Disk Manager, Maxtor has MaxBlast - brand specific - it is only free if you have at least one hard drive of the manufacturer's brand.

- Get a separate hard drive controller card that will support the size of the hard drive, and either disable the onboard ide, or use it in addition to it (cards that can do the latter are usually more expensive). For an older board, a used or older/cheaper model hard drive controller that will do UDMA 33 or above is fine. UDMA is over-rated - it is the burst of data the hard drive is capable of - it isn't used most of the time. UDMA 33 was a tremendous improvement, versions since then are only a tiny bit better in the real world, and you're not going to see the difference on an older board anyway.

- Buy a modern bios on a card - this is a cheap way of bypassing your present bios. You may find such cards at places such as where you can also get modern bios upgrade flashes, or elsewhere.
Search for " bios upgrades" on the web e.g. www.unicore.com

6. Dos 6.xx, and earlier versions of Win 95 use FAT16 and are limited to a partition size of about 2.1 gig per partition, and on most computers you can only have a maximum of 4 of these on a hard drive, for a max total recognized hard drive size of 8.4 gig.
Later versions of Win 95 (after SR 2.1), which not many people bought, is, I think, limited to a hard drive size of 32 gig.
There is a newer version of Dos (7.x?) that has been developed more recently that will recognize larger partitions and larger hard drives, but I don't know much about it.

7. Win 98/98SE are limited to a hard drive size of about 32 gig, unless you obtain an update. With the update installed, they will support up to 128 gig drives, as Win ME already does.
For Win 98/98SE get the upgraded Fdisk here:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/Win98/Update/8266R/W98/EN-US/263044USA8.EXE
If you use a Win 98/98SE Startup disk, you must copy the upgraded Fdisk to it.

Oops - you said 43mb, not 43 gig.
You should still find some things useful in the info I gave.

If there is no Auto drive type in the bios, and/or you cannot detect the parameters of the hard drive in the bios, if the parameters are not listed on a label on the hard drive, look up the parameters for the 43mb hard drive on the manufacturers site on the web using the model number. If there is a User drive type in the bios, enter the parameters there. Alternately, you could try a pre-defined drive type in the bios setup that is the same size or close to the same size, that the parameters are the same or very similar to, remembering that a manufacturer lists the drive size as 1mb = 1 million bytes, Dos and the bios uses 1 megabyte = 1,048,576 bytes, so e.g. manufacturers 43.000 mb = 41.008 megabytes in the bios.

ok in resopnce 1 no the bios never correctly detected the first hdd the mrm because the bios doesent hae auto detect and i did not hae the settings for the first hdd. and also there is no battery like a barrel but it has a "Dallas real time battery" like a chip thats sottered on the board

in responce 2

A) ok
B) yes the bios sees the hard drive with no errors.
C) about the wfe 3.11 well the windows 3.11 is the oldest os that will youk on a 286 but i allso have every version of windows out there from 1.01 - windows nt 3.1 that will work on a 286 any way
D) no i havent set up more han one partition

in restonce 3

yes i have the 34 pin and the 20 pin on the old hdd but i cant use it i dont have the correct settings for the hdd.

in responce 4

1) yes your corrrect about the dos 3.3 but thats what i had put on it the first time and it dident work so i installed MS-DOS 7.10

2) yes yes thats true in some computers but this one the first hdd i used was a 6.48gb figitsu and the bios did see it with no porblem.

3) yes you right on what kind of hdd it is.

4) i did remove the old card befor i installed the ide card and P.S. the ide card was never used it was still in the shrink wrap.

5) ok i will remeber that for the future.

6) Yes i have see the same problem with my old 486 and the max size is 1.99Gb last time i checked.

7) ok i have allready got the updated fdisk with my gateway select 950 ok my system restoration c 1 and on 2 ~!FYI!~.

in responce 5

yes i dont think i would try a 43gm hdd in a 286.

in responce 6

to get the settings for this 43mb hdd i added it to a 586 system pantium with mmx 200 not oc and o used the autodetect in the bios and copyed the settings to the 286.

~!~!~!~!~!~THANKS FOR REAGING MY POST FALLOWUPS~!~!~!~!~!~

"yes i have the 34 pin and the 20 pin on the old hdd but i cant use it i dont have the correct settings for the hdd."

You don't detect that type of hard drive in the bios. If you had that type of hard drive, and no other hard drives (you may have no choice if you use one of these), the IDE hard drive types were set to Not Installed or None in the bios. If you have IDE on the mboard, you may also have to turn off the IDE controller in the bios to free up IRQ 14 (and/or 15) so the MFM/RLL card can use it.
Assuming it was already set up with that particular MFM/RLL hard drive card before correctly (the card has its own "bios" and retains the hard drive settings even if you remove the card and re-install it) it will work. It will be a lot slower than an IDE drive though.
If that MFM/RLL hard drive was not set up properly with this particular MFM/RLL drive controller card, Dos Debug must be used to access the card using specific commands (varies with the make of the drive), if the card is compatible with the drive (some cards work with only certain drives - there is a table of drives, which usually doesn't have a User type). You must also use specific interleaves, and other settings - if you don't know what they are supposed to be, you can experiment until you get the best transfer rate. Obviously this was complicated - the techs who installed the drives often didn't give the customer the directions as to how to set the drive up, because of that.

MFM uses 17 sectors per track when the drive is formatted.
RLL uses more sectors per track, it varies, often is 25.
Both types are slower (data transfer rates) than even old IDE drives.
RLL drive controller cards are faster than MFM ones. MFM hard drives can usually be re-formatted on RLL drive controller cards to hold more data and get better data transfer rates. The newer the RLL card, the more universal it is likely to be, and the faster it is - Adaptec made some of the best ones.
If you're interested in fiddling with these, I have some info for setting up some cards, with some drives.

Most computers that had these had only one drive, but the cards often have two 20 pin connectors, and three connector 34 pin cables were available so that you could connect two drives to the same card, using unique settings for each drive.

"to get the settings for this 43mb hdd i added it to a 586 system pantium with mmx 200 not oc and o used the autodetect in the bios and copyed the settings to the 286."

That's a good method too, but not everyone has another computer they have access to.

Ok but if i choose no installed in the computers bios then when trying to install dos 6.22 i get the error message telling my i dont have a hard drive install on my computer but if i have the settings in my bios i can install with no prob till i try to boot to the add

The MFM or RLL card must be properly configured for the MFM or RLL hard drive. If it isn't, your operating system won't see it.

The MFM or RLL drive must also be formatted and bootable. The formatting done by the card is a low level format. It must also have the high level (Fdisk and) Format of your operating system.
If you boot with a bootable floppy, and can then select the C: drive at the prompt (type: C: (press enter))
The drive is formatted but not bootable. Run Format with the /s switch.
If you Get "Invalid Drive Specification" the MFM or RLL drive is not formatted (to Dos in this case), or the MFM or RLL card has not been set up properly for that hard drive. Try running Fdisk, then Format with the /s switch. If C is not found, you have to set up the card for the drive first.

ok thanks but i dont know the settings for te rll or mfm drive so this dont help im taking about a 43mb ide drive

sorry.

i will post a link to the other hdd but for the first it is a rll and the like to seagates wabsite below for specs.

on the other the only info i can fined is

MINISCRIBE 8425 21MB MFM HARD DRIVE

at

http://www.computertradeexchange.com/inventory/M.html

and then

20Mb, 612cyl, 4heads (3) Miniscribe 8425

at

http://www.actapricot.org/apricot_add_pc_hdd.html

i am going to try these settings in my computer and use them and not the 43mb drive please post back soon!

If I were you I would use the 43 mb IDE drive and forget about the MFM drive.
I'm assuming the mboard does NOT have the onboard IDE connector(s), but it does have an onboard floppy connector. I'm also assuming the IDE card has both IDE and floppy connectors.
Plug in the IDE card (almost always also has a floppy connector). DO NOT plug in the RLL or MFM card (see below). Connect the data cable from the drives to each of the floppy and IDE connectors on the IDE card, connect the power connectors. Make sure the jumper on the hard drive is set right. Enter the proper parameters for the Primary, master drive in the computers bios. Set the floppy drive A to 3 1/2, 1.44mb (or whatever you have.)
Make sure the boot order is A, then C in the bios. If there is the option in the bios, you may also have to turn ON the IDE controller. You MUST turn OFF the onboard floppy controller in the bios if the IDE card has a floppy connector. Most IDE cards do not have the option of disabling the on card floppy controller. If there is no such option in the bios, there is a jumper on the mboard that will disable the mboard floppy controller.

Try booting without a floppy in the floppy drive - if the 43mb drive is already formatted and bootable, the computer should recognize the hard drive and boot to C.

By the way, both the MFM or RLL card and the IDE card use IRQ 14 (or can use 15 in some cases) - only one of the two can be installed in the mboard slots - installing both will result in one or both of them not working.
Both an onboard floppy controller and one on an IDE card also use the same IRQ - you cannot use both - you must use one or the other.
..........

There is a small possibilty the IDE card has jumpers on it that set the I/O addresses of the floppy and IDE connections (many don't), and if they are not set to Primary (as in the first one) the card will not work until the jumpers are corrected. You would need to identify the IDE card to find the correct jumper settings - and that won't be easy. Since the card was still in it's shrink wrap, the addresses should both be primary already by default.
...........................................

You can't uses parameters for a MFM or RLL drive in the computers bios - the bios cannot see those drives. The MFM or RLL card has to be set up with those parameters, and the computers IDE drive types must be set to None or Not Installed, and if there is the option in the bios, you may also have to turn off the IDE controller in the bios to free up IRQ 14 (and/or 15) so the MFM/RLL card can use it.
........

Installing a MFM or RLL drive can be a lot more complicated than installing an IDE drive.

If the card has already been set up correctly, the hard drive will be recognized, but you may still need to Fdisk and Format it with your operating system if that has not already been done.

It is easy enough to get the required parameters for the MFM or RLL hard drive. You also are better off if you can find out the best interleave, skew rate, etc. because you would have to experiment to find the best data transfer rates otherwise.

The harder part is getting info about the MFM or RLL controller card, and what Dos Debug commands you need to use with it to configure it for the hard drive. On the earlier cards you must know several Debug commands to access the card's functions; on later ones, one command provides access to a menu of functions.
Most of these cards come set to default I/O addresses, but can be set to other ones. If set to the other ones, it may be difficult to determine which they are, unless you can find the specs for the jumpers for the card

I have not fiddled with these cards for years. I have info for only some of them.
If the card you have is not the same or very similar to the following, I have no info about how to use them. Finding info for these cards can be very difficult.

Data Technology Corp.
Brand is not apparent.
8 bit card, quite short, not much longer than it takes to connect to the 8 bit part of the ISA slot.
- has a small white label on the farthest board edge from the outside of the case, starts with a black icon that looks like a split seashell, then 5160XL (or 5160X). Bios has a white label with CRD18A on it. I have full printed instructions for that - it is an RLL card, 25? sectors per track

Adaptec
8 bit card, fairly short, about same length as above.
- brand clearly marked near slot contacts - to the left of that - 408106-00 -
ACB-2072 - Rev L. Bios label: Adaptec Inc. - 408110K - BIOS 1987 - 41 1503-00B
RLL card, 25 sectors per track.
This one yields the fastest data transfer rates of all the ones I have. One Debug command provides access to a menu of functions.

Other 8 bit cards - I fiddled with several Western Digital cards - brand is sometimes clearly marked, several chip model numbers start with WDC, card model number is WDsomething on a small white label,(e.g. WD1002A-27X is a RLL one) they are mostly mid length or longer. Earlier ones required several Debug commands to perform different functions. All the ones I tried were very slow, most were MFM, some were RLL. These have slow data transfer rates.

Miniscribe cards - 8 bit - I have seen both short and longer cards - brand and model are clearly marked - faster than the Western Digital cards, not as fast as the Adaptec cards.

There are also 16 bit cards, none of which I could find info for. They use the whole 16 bit ISA slot.

There were even a few of these cards for an XT (8 bit) IDE drive, which are rare - I have a card, but have never come across an XT IDE drive.

If the above MFM or RLL cards are not what you have, I can point you to other sources of info.

I was wrong about the IRQ those cards use - usually it's IRQ 5. That is what a second parallel port uses, or sometimes the sound card or onboard sound. Most people don't have a second parallel port, but somw have sound that uses IRQ 5. It cannot be used by two things at the same time - one of or both the sound and the MFM or RLL controller card will not work.

I found this info about your Miniscribe 8425:

MS-8425
MINISCRIBE 8425 21MB MFM HARD DRIVE (26 MB unformatted)
615 cylinders, 4 heads, 17 sectors per track
Bytes/Sector 512
21,411,840 bytes, or 20.42 megabytes.
Precompensation 65535
Landing Zone 614

Data transfer rate int. 0.625 MB/s (MFM)
Data rate 5 or 7.5 Mbit/sec

AT drive type: 2 (in a standard AT bios)

Power connector location is flimsy. It is easy to break the connection to the board or its traces on the board. Check that with a magnifying glass, or with a meter.

"The 8438 was a neat, modern looking 3.5 inch 30MB stepper drive with factory-certified RLL capacity. The 8425 was the exact same drive without the certification. In other words, Miniscribe produced these drives and then tested them. The very best ones were sold as 8438s, the also-rans as 8425s. Of course, there was nothing to stop you buying a 20MB 8425 and putting it with an RLL controller to get 30MB — except that it was unlikely to work properly for very long."

In other words, the 8425 has already been tested and has failed to be good enough for an RLL controller. The controller card must be an MFM one, or an MFM/RLL one that can be set to 17 sectors per track.

Looks like this disk drive has been around and you may have munged up the partition table. Once you have HD geometry entered in the bios try booting to a 6.22 flop with fdisk on it. Type: FDISK /MBR to clean any boot garbage. This will also clear out any of those old timey translators like EZ-Drive.

If you look around a little you should be able to find a utility flop to help set it up. Seagate used to have one. An older version of Norton Disk Doctor or PC Tools would do the same. If you see a program on the utility disk with the name "park.com" you are very close. The park utility won't help you with your problem but it will indicate that you are in the right era.