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- Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
- Path: sparky!uunet!usc!sdd.hp.com!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!usenet.ucs.indiana.edu!psygate.psych.indiana.edu!nate
- From: nate@psygate.psych.indiana.edu (Nathan Engle)
- Subject: Re: DOS 5.0 bootup woes
- Message-ID: <nate.502@psygate.psych.indiana.edu>
- Keywords: DOS5
- Sender: news@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu (USENET News System)
- Nntp-Posting-Host: mushroom.psych.indiana.edu
- Organization: Psych Department, Indiana University
- References: <GSPIEGEL.7.714410233@bsa1.kent.edu>
- Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 15:52:53 GMT
- Lines: 35
-
- GSPIEGEL@bsa1.kent.edu (Greg Spiegelberg) writes:
- >We have an old AST 286 Inboard machine here that we're trying to upgrade
- >to DOS 5 and it doesn't want to boot up. The drive is fine and so's the
- >machine. It'll boot okay on the hard drive (DOS 3.3) though.
-
- >Anyone run into any problems like this??
-
- Yes, I had a similar experience with an old IMS machine (from '85 or
- so) which had been serving as a Novell 2.0a server. A couple things in
- the Novell server died, and we decided to scrap the old OS since the lab
- is moving over to PC-NFS anyway.
-
- We took the old server and gave it a new 386sx motherboard, a bigger
- power supply, a 3 1/2" floppy, and a different MFM hard disk (the old hard
- disk was one of the things that died). When we tried bringing the system
- up as a DOS 5.0 PC we had all kinds of trouble getting FDISK to recognize
- the MFM drive. At that point we backed off and tried DOS 3.3 which worked
- with no problems. Then a couple days later we tried installing DOS 5.0
- again and this time it worked for a little while, but eventually the disk
- started giving "write protect" errors.
-
- Since this is an old PC I suspect that there are some
- incompatible components which are causing the problem, and since the only
- components in the box which are still original equipment are the hard disk
- controller and the 5 1/4" floppy those are my prime suspects. I didn't have
- a spare MFM controller so I couldn't test the hypothesis, but I can't
- imagine how an old floppy drive (itself in perfect working order) would
- cause the hard disk to fry. I did try a couple of different MFM drives
- and they all did the same thing, so I doubt if it was a problem inherent
- to the hard disk.
-
- --
- Nathan Engle Software Juggler
- Psychology Department Indiana University
- nate@psygate.psych.indiana.edu nengle@copper.ucs.indiana.edu
-