What "TYPE" of harddrive is in my old 286

10

I have a very old(1989?) 80286 computer. I can tell it was a very good machine in it's day. It has a harddrive installed.

I finally got a PS/2 to AT keyboard plug today and got it to boot. Now I have a problem though. It's CMOS battery must've died at some point. The BIOS is completely cleared out and I have to reconfigure it. It has a harddrive and the harddrive appears to spin up. However, there are 45 different "TYPE"s of harddrives for the BIOS(labeled TYPE1 to TYPE45)

How do I tell what I should configure the BIOS to?

Also, for TYPEs 15 and 25, instead of "harddrive controller error" I get "harddrive configuration error", if that helps

Earlz

Posted 2012-09-22T18:51:01.420

Reputation: 3 966

2Can you read the cylinders and sector values on the outside of the harddrive? – Fergus – 2012-09-22T18:52:10.783

@Fergus I can, but it'd require me taking it out.. and this case design is very cryptic, so I'd rather not – Earlz – 2012-09-22T18:53:10.887

4No dice, unless the BIOS spits out a model number as it boots you're going to have to open it up. – Mokubai – 2012-09-22T18:54:33.557

Yep, I'll do that now – Earlz – 2012-09-22T18:55:33.147

Ya, i agree with @Mokubai, or just try each configuration. – Fergus – 2012-09-22T18:55:33.897

With some googling, I found it should have a 40M harddrive in it, and the part number "300013"... but that doesn't help much – Earlz – 2012-09-22T18:58:19.477

If I was to put another harddrive, into it, how would I determine the type of that harddrive? – Earlz – 2012-09-22T19:01:39.647

2Those old drives always have cylinders/heads/columns and capacity mentioned on the outside, so you can reconfigure. Apart from the predefined types, BIOSes in those days usually had way to specify c/h/c instead of choosing a type. Googling for "HD 40 MB cyl head col" may also turn up some info. – Jan Doggen – 2012-09-22T19:04:12.387

What is the BIOS? AMI? Pheonix? Award? Does it have an auto-detect function? I recall that some old BIOSes had drive information split between two different parts: (1) the main page where the time is stored, and another one later in the BIOS towards the boot/exit section. – Synetech – 2012-09-22T19:04:38.193

I'm not sure what kinds of drives you could put into those AT machines. Was that IDE already? Because if you buy a new drive now it is IDE or SATA. Maybe someone else can clarify. – Jan Doggen – 2012-09-22T19:05:17.797

One of the last types should be 'user'. But then it will ask for CHS, which means reading those numbers off the drive. – Hennes – 2012-09-22T19:09:54.047

1@JanDoggen It could be IDE, but possible also MFM/RLL drives (up to 4 per controller, with a data cable and a cable carrying the analog head signal). I am not sure when they stopped with those, but my old 386SX-16 still had one of those (approx same time era as a late 286) – Hennes – 2012-09-22T19:11:28.427

@Hennes USER isn't an option. I don't see anyway for manual input. It looks like IDE to me, at least it's the same cable. And this harddrive doesn't list it's CHS! I'll have to try to find the part number I guess – Earlz – 2012-09-22T19:21:26.447

You could remove the drive and try it in a more modern motherboard set on 'auto detect'. That will work with some IDE drives (possible only modern ones though). As to looks IDe to me: Is it a 40 pin flatcable? – Hennes – 2012-09-22T19:23:55.520

1

@Hennes yes. Also, I found the specs for the harddrive: http://www.4drives.com/DRIVESPECS/QUANTUM/3425.txt the weird part is that in the list of options for the motherboard(there is a menu that tells what each TYPE means I've found) this motherboard isn't listed. There has to be a custom option hidden away somewhere

– Earlz – 2012-09-22T20:23:47.250

Some pictures of your system and the drive might be helpful. People might see details that jog their memories. – Isaac Rabinovitch – 2012-09-22T21:44:00.507

1Try 29. If that doesn't work, try 44. You didn't say which BIOS, but those settings for the AMI '286 BIOS will give you 830 sectors and 10 heads (fewer sectors than the 965, but that may be the best you can do without a custom setting). – Pete – 2012-12-17T22:23:39.773

Answers

1

There are two ways to solve this.

The "correct" way is to use the TYPE which directs your BIOS to a pointer on the ROM to an entry in the MBR that defines the correct numbers of cylinders/heads/sectors. The TYPE will be either 15 or any one of TYPEs over 33. Unless you can get your hands on a copy of the BIOS setup manual you will have to attempt by trial and error. The good news is your BIOS only accepts TYPEs 0-45. Some BIOS went up to 254.

The "easy" way is to find the freeware DOS utility Anydrive. I'd give you a link, but I'm at work right now and my corporate firewall blocks sites that distribute shareware/freeware. You'll set the TYPE to any anything with fewer cylinders/heads/sectors then boot to DOS prompt and run ANYDRIVE.EXE and follow the prompts. I've only ever discovered one HDD it didn't work on so your probability of success has to be 90%.

OCDtech

Posted 2012-09-22T18:51:01.420

Reputation: 481

Asked: 2012-09-22T18:51:01.420

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