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I am trying to restore an old computer but I cannot get it to recognized the hard drive. The old computer is a 66Mhz with 16 MB Ram. When I try to install an operating system on it like Windows 3.11, it return the error message: "No local C: dirve available on your computer". I bought a new Maxtor hard drive(1.24Gig), in case my old IBM one(520MB) was broken or something, but the new one is also not being recognized. In the Bios settings, rhe Drive 1 (Local Bus) automaticly sets itself to Not Installed, which causes an error in booting an I believe is respnsable for the recognition of hard drives. When doing and Maxtor hard drive setup, I get the error message "PCI read error". If you need more information, please email me or post in the forum. Any help would be grately helpfull.
Matthew
I have tryied to install DOS 6.22 but the hard drive is not recognized and therefore I cannot install anything really on the conputer. The only storageon the computer that works is the RAM-Drive, but I cannot install DOS or Windows 3.1 on it.
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Have you tried to boot your system from the *standard* MS-DOS 7.10 boot disk, and see if it will recognize your drive?
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You can also check the connector of your hard drive, or enter the HD settings in BIOS/CMOS manually, to see whether the problem is caused by them.
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When I enter the BIOS, the hard drive bay, Drive 1 (Local Bus) and Drive 2 (Local Bus) are both reporting "Not Installed". I can only change the second one, Drive 2, to manually put it to "Installed" but when I restart my computer, the BIOS says there is an error, an the error is the Drive 1 and/or Drive 2.
How could I change it to accept the hard drives, and do i need to install drivers or something else first?
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How can I detect with version and with BIOS I have? If I was to update my BIOS, could that maybe help? I dont know which BIOS I have (Award? AMI? ...) Also, I it possible that a virus could be preventing my hard drive from being recognized, if so, how do I scan the computer for a virus from DOS?
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I don't think it can be caused by a virus. You can try Disk Manager (since which doesn't use BIOS calls) or so to see if it can recognize your HD?
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Is your hard drive partitioned? If not it would need doing and making the partition active.(Using Fdisk on a bootable floppy) If unable to do it yourself ask someone you know to fit it to they're computer and do it for you. Once partitioned it would need to be formated.
I hope this will have been of some use.
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Some BIOS'es won't recognize over 1/2 gig
drives. Have you tried IBM drive on another
computer (preferrably w/ "auto detect" BIOS)?Your IBM drive should be set for MASTER and
be connected to the end of ribbon cable on
primary IDE-1 motherboard connection. The
red identifing stripe goes to #1 pin. Don't
forget to plug power into drive, too. These
settings should allow a good drive to be
installed into BIOS.After that, it still may need to be FDISKed
and formatted to be useable.
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The hard drive was not properly connected, it was connected to the secondary cable. The hard drive cable was connected to the CR-ROM dirve and vis-versa.
The hard drive is now been recognized and i have successfully installed Windows NT workstation on it but durin the boot, it just stops !?! I then tryied to install Windows 3.1 but it was unable to finish setting up. Only succeded to install disks 3 of 6. It seems that OS are not fully starting up on the computer.
Anyone got any tips?
Thanks a lot for all the help so far!! Really appreciate it.
Matthew
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It's me Matthew,
what do you mean by "file system"? I tried to install DOS 6.22 but that did not work, i believe it's my copy of DOS that is not good. So I didnt install any DOS before attempting to install Windows 3.1, could that cause a problem?
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Yes I did, but that did not work either!?! The problem is not the hard drive, so I wonder if the computer is simple "strewed up". I may be damaged or something because everything I tryied is not working, well the hard drive now work but thats it!
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What do you mean by "that did not work either"? How did you install DOS and what error message you have seen?
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