Ibm Pc At 5170

[Dave Moll]

Many thanks to Paul Stenning for the machine and LOTS of extras described in this thread. I connected it up and had a play with it this afternoon.

It boots up OK from floppy disc, but I can't get it to boot from any of the half dozen or so hard discs Paul supplied. It won't even boot from an ISA hard disc "card" that I have - although it is recognised as drive "C" when I boot from floppy. The message I get is "1780-Disk 0 Failure". I assume that I am doing something wrong.

Although I am familiar with XTs, and 486s onwards (with their "press Del for setup"), this is my first time setting up a 286, so I'm on quite a steep learning curve here.

edit: the title was posted as IBM PC AT 5170 (but has been decapitalised by the forum software)

[Skywave]

Originally Posted by Dave Moll

It boots up OK from floppy disc, but I can't get it to boot from any of the half dozen or so hard discs Paul supplied. It won't even boot from an ISA hard disc "card" that I have - although it is recognised as drive "C" when I boot from floppy. The message I get is "1780-Disk 0 Failure". I assume that I am doing something wrong.

My! A "1780" HDD failure! That takes me back - so far back in fact that I'm having a bit of a job to recall it's significance

No - you're not "doing something wrong" - there is a 'problem' with the HDD sub-system, and it's trying to tell you what that problem is in its coded style from the BIOS ("1780").

So, let's see . . having booted from a floppy, the system does recognise drive C: (which is a good sign) - so, presumably, it will produce the "C:" prompt? What happens if you then type "dir" at the "C:" prompt ?
(This is the start of a Q & A routine in an attempt to fix the problem).

Al / Skywave.

[radioman]

Try another hard drive cable. Code 1780 indicates a drive seek failure.

Hope this helps.

Andy

[paulsherwin]

Hard drives of this era didn't have self parking heads - each manufacturer included a head parking program which had to be run if the disks were to be removed. Because this wasn't normally done when old computers went out of use, it's not unusual for disks of this type to become damaged.

Hope this isn't the explanation of course

Paul

[Dave Moll]

Originally Posted by Skywave

What happens if you then type "dir" at the "C:" prompt ?

Al / Skywave.

I get the expected directory listing of the root directory. Also I am able to use and copy these files.

I should say that I have only got this far when using the ISA card hard disc. With any of the drives connected to the hard disc interface cables, the presence of a hard disc is not recognised at all - not even by FDISK.

Incidentally, I trust that I am connecting the disc correctly. There are two data cables - the larger one can only be inserted one way round, and I assume that the smaller one (although reversible) has the red stripe the same way round as the other.

[Dave Moll]

Originally Posted by radioman

Try another hard drive cable.

Andy

I would if I had one. Unfortunately the connectors are different from those on any of my other leads.

[Kat Manton]

Hi Dave,

Machines of this era have the battery-backed CMOS RAM for storing the system's configuration, just like modern ones.

However, they do not have a 'setup' utility built-in to the BIOS. The machine would originally be supplied with the setup utility on a bootable floppy disk.

To get the machine to recognise a hard disk you'll need the setup/diagnostics floppy. That gives you access to system configuration tools (included in the BIOS on later machines once larger memory became available/economical.) I've managed to locate disk images of two versions on this site.

One last thing, make sure the battery for the CMOS RAM is healthy.

Good luck.

Cheers, Kat

Edit: I just read Paul's thread, to see what you've got. With a bit of luck you've got a setup/diagnostics disk.

Edit 2: I've been using/programming/fixing/designing hardware for the PC from 8088/8086 onwards. But, I've not had to access the information specific to the early machines in ages, so I might be a bit rusty. If I can find time I might dig mine out and have a play - yup, another IBM 5170. I have the IBM AT Tech. Ref. somewhere, too; I'll try to find it before it's needed.

[Duke_Nukem]

I get the expected directory listing of the root directory.Also I am able to use and copy these files.

I'd interpret this as the drive is ok but presumably hasn't been formatted as a system disk?

TTFN,
Jon

[Kat Manton]

Hi Dave,

Now the coffee's working, a bit of clarification.

Originally Posted by Dave Moll

I get the expected directory listing of the root directory. Also I am able to use and copy these files.

That's the ISA "hard card", these had their own BIOS extension in ROM - that's why it's working without any system configuration.

My guess as to why it's not booting is that it's not a system disk. Hard cards were often added to machines which already had a drive or two. So it's possible that this one was last used in a machine which already had a system disk, so it's just an extra data drive.

Originally Posted by Dave Moll

With any of the drives connected to the hard disc interface cables, the presence of a hard disc is not recognised at all - not even by FDISK.

This is what I was addressing in my previous post. What I'd expect in an AT is a 16-bit ISA hard disk interface, providing support for a pair of ST506-interface drives. To get drives working on this interface, you need to set the drive type in CMOS RAM using the setup/diagnostics utility.

The fun part here is that drives are specified using a type number. Off the top of my head, I remember that Seagate ST225R drives are "Type 2". I'll look for my Tech. Ref. later today as it contains a table which lists heads/sectors/tracks for the various types. If you determine this information for the drives you've got, you should be able to find the corresponding drive type number.

Cheers, Kat.

[paulsherwin]

Originally Posted by Kat Manton

The fun part here is that drives are specified using a type number. Off the top of my head, I remember that Seagate ST225R drives are "Type 2". I'll look for my Tech. Ref. later today as it contains a table which lists heads/sectors/tracks for the various types. If you determine this information for the drives you've got, you should be able to find the corresponding drive type number.

That takes me back. It's often a matter of stepping through all the HD type numbers until you find one that works. As each test involves a floppy disk boot, this can be a long and frustrating job.

Good luck, Paul

[Kat Manton]

Hi,

Found the Tech. Ref. Attached is the list of drive types.

Cheers, Kat

[Dave Moll]

Originally Posted by Kat Manton

With a bit of luck you've got a setup/diagnostics disk.

Thanks Kat. Yes, I think I've just found it - so with your that and your parameter table I have the wherewithal for some more fun this evening.

I'll report back later.

[Dave Moll]

The diagnostics disc contains (in addition to a lot of files ending .DGS) the following:
COMMAND.COM
DCOPY.COM
DFORMAT.COM
DIAGS.COM
DSETTUP.COM
SHIPDISK.COM
SHUTDOWN.EXE
VERSION.203

I have tried running DIAGS.COM and DSETTUP.COM (sic), both of which simply cause the computer to freeze.

I have downloaded the disc images from the site referenced by Kat, but I'm not sure how to turn them into real discs - though I have emailed that question to the site's owner.

[Paul Stenning]

It is very likely that the backup battery is completely flat by now. I think this is a 3V lithium type stuck on the side of the power supply with velcro. You could replace it with a holder containing a couple of AA cells for now. This could be why the programs are hanging the machine.

Try the other floppy drive - one of them may be faulty. The one with the raised lip around the disk slot is the original which I'm sure worked. Also try another disk (I think there was more than one diags disk) in case one is faulty or damaged.

When I last played with it (in 2000) the hard disk fitted in the machine sort-of worked and was recognised but it couldn't be formatted, low level formatted or anything else due to vast amounts of bad sectors. It would happily boot from one of the diag floppies.

There should be specs for the other hard drives in the box, so armed with that info you should be able to choose a drive type from the diags/whatever that matches. You can choose a drive type with less heads, tracks and/or sectors than the drive actually has, but you won't get the full capacity of the drive.

See if there is a "Walters" setup/diags disk in one of the boxes (it'll have a hand-written label). The drive setup program on this is more intuitive than the IBM one. That was from an old and early 286 clone machine.

I think some of the hard drives have self-parking heads (even though they are old MFM/RLL ones). Check the specs. These are more likely to be working. Also one is unused and in the original box, so that should be a good one.

I haven't looked on the site Kat mentioned, but if the disk image files are .IMG or .IMZ files you will need a program called WINIMAGE which is available here http://www.winimage.com/ (shareware). Obviously you'll need to connect one of the 5.25" drives to a Windows machine to use this.

[Dave Moll]

Originally Posted by Paul Stenning

It is very likely that the backup battery is completely flat by now. I think this is a 3V lithium type stuck on the side of the power supply with velcro. You could replace it with a holder containing a couple of AA cells for now. This could be why the programs are hanging the machine.

I think you're right about it being flat. If I set the date, it reverts to 1992 next time I switch on. I will follow your suggestion of wiring up something else for the time being. I will then retry the DIAGS programs.

I haven't looked on the site Kat mentioned, but if the disk image files are .IMG or .IMZ files you will need a program called WINIMAGE which is available here http://www.winimage.com/ (shareware). Obviously you'll need to connect one of the 5.25" drives to a Windows machine to use this.

Actually, they have the extension ".BIN" - and yes, I do have a 5.25" disc drive attached to my main computer.

[paul.brett]

Regarding the disk images. Rename them to .IMG and they load into WINIMAGE fine.

[paulsherwin]

There are lots of programs around which will write a disk image to a floppy under DOS and Windows, the best known of which is rawrite.exe. Have a look at this page: http://www.fdos.org/ripcord/rawrite/

Paul

[Paul Stenning]

Originally Posted by Dave Moll

I think you're right about it being flat. If I set the date, it reverts to 1992 next time I switch on. I will follow your suggestion of wiring up something else for the time being. I will then retry the DIAGS programs.

It may be worth sticking to a date in the last century, as there could be year-2000 bugs in the BIOS or diags/setup software, or in some of the other old software you want to run such as DOS.

The machine stopped being used in early 2000 (when I rescued it on route to the skip) because the CAD software copy protection wouldn't work due to this.

[Skywave]

Originally Posted by Skywave

. . . so, presumably, it will produce the "C:" prompt? What happens if you then type "dir" at the "C:" prompt ?
(This is the start of a Q & A routine in an attempt to fix the problem).

Al / Skywave.

Ok: I can see that my approach here has now been "overtaken" by other members .
There's very little more that I can add now - having read what has been subsequently posted.
Good luck with it.

Al / Skywave.

[liamoliver]

Originally Posted by paulsherwin

Hard drives of this era didn't have self parking heads - each manufacturer included a head parking program which had to be run if the disks were to be removed. Because this wasn't normally done when old computers went out of use, it's not unusual for disks of this type to become damaged.

I thought that even moving the computer (as opposed to removing the disc) could cause damage, though I'm told it was unlikely.