8MB RAM cards

well it's Intel & the FCC number was granted in 1995 - but that doesn't really get us far enough, particularly as Intel's motherboards turn up in OEM equipment

try going here and see if you can get the actual board number from the BIOS string

that will also tell us if it's OEM - the page tells you how

good luck

best wishes, HJ

 

Hello,

Thanks for the link. When booting, the computer does not display the Intel logo, as apparently it should from the info on the Intel page.

I restored default settings in Setup (I'd messed around with a few settings yesterday), and now I'm getting the following messages on reboot. Perhaps this will help:

1. AMIBIOS 1992 American Megatrends
2. BIOS VER 1.00.04.BH0
3. Adaptec AIC-7870
BIOS V1.2S5 (that's point two ess five)
1995 Adaptec, Inc.
4. Press <Ctrl><A> for SCSISelect Utility
5. Intel 13h device not found
6. SCSI BIOS not installed!
7. Invalid system disk yada yada

Also, I wonder about a few of the default Setup options:

1. Under the Advanced tab, Peripheral configuration setting -
Onboard SCSI A BIOS is set to "scan "
Console Redirection is set to "disable "
2. Under the Advanced tab, Advanced chipset configuration setting -
System Management Mode is set to "disabled "
PCI System Error Detection is set to "disabled "
3. Under the Advanced tab, Plug and Play configuration setting -
Latency timer is set to 66 ????
3. Under the Security tab -
Video Blanking is set to "disable "
Floppy Writes is set to "disable "
Reset and Power Switch Locking is set to "enable "

 

Hi

unfortunately it looks like Intel manufactured the board for a specific OEM, which is why it's not displaying the Intel logo

they do say if...

I couldn't find BH0 in the list at Intel, so it must be OEM...

...and unfortunately it's not in Wim's list (which is the best resource I know - other folks may know better):
1.00.xx.AZ0: Classic/PCI LP (Entrada)
1.00.xx.BB0: Premiere/PCI LX Low Profile (Socrates)
1.00.xx.BC0: Premiere/PCI LC Low Profile (Robin LC)
1.00.xx.BF0: Premiere/PCI GX Low Profile
1.00.xx.BG0: XXpress Server (Extended Xpress:Medusa)
1.00.xx.BH0: (???)
1.00.xx.BI0: ALTServer/CS (Altair)
1.00.xx.BK0: (???)
1.00.xx.BL0: Premiere /ATLX (Hendrixx)
1.00.xx.BP0: Mercury (seems to have the same features as Hendrixx)
1.00.xx.BR0: Advanced/ZE (Zappa E or Tahiti)
1.00.xx.BS0: Advanced/ZP (Zappa)
1.00.xx.BT0: Advanced/MN (Morrison)
1.00.xx.BU0: Advanced/MA (Monaco)
...

regarding the settings,
Onboard SCSI A BIOS is set to "scan "
could try disabling this & see what happens - long shot

unless we can a way of identifying the motherboard there's little else I can do - particularly considering that it's 10 years old, many smaller concerns will have long since vanished in that timespan

let's hope someone else can come up with something

best wishes, HJ

 

Thanks HJ, I appreciate your efforts.

 

Harpo, you and me both. HJ has done some great investigation work.
I can't find any extra information.

The motherboard seems to be a "one off ", at least compared to others. This was not strange for motherboards of that period, there were MANY "Pentium" spinoffs at that time.
You have done well, at the very least, it appears to be a leaning experience for you.
Check through what has been posted in this thread. Check your cables and the jumper settings. See what you can find in the BIOS settings.
It may be set to run with a SCSI drive present(?).

If all else fails...you may be able to utilise the parts elsewhere

Matt

 

Adaptec AIC-7870 Is a PCI scsi controller card. These normally had a bring your own bios feature where they had a supplemental bios to control scsi drives connected to them which had to be loaded by the motherboard bios.

I am going to go with this is like an old IBM PS2
The CDROM should connect to the adapter on the sound card, not to the IDE.

Make sure the hard drives are IDE, not SCSI. If SCSI they have to be attatched to that adaptec scsi controller and you need to enable the scsi bios upload in the motherboard bios. Remember a scsi chain needs to be terminated.

 

I've been messing with the jumper settings - the HD doesn't have a map, so I've tried all options except using two jumpers. Still get the same messages no matter which jumper setting I'm using.

I've Googled "13h device not found" which SEEMS to be associated with HP/Compaq machines, but the results (forum postings) have been confusing and I really don't understand what they're talking about, with one exception - one person with a virtually identical problem to mine was instructed to Ctrl/A which would supposedly turn on BIOS. When I did Ctrl/A and entered the SCSI util, it was set to #7. I tried re-setting to #0 and to #1, but no change. There was no option to turn on the Adaptec BIOS.

How do I know if it's set to run w/SCSI drive present? And if it's set thusly, how do I change it?

So why would it have a SCSI controller card if the HD is IDE?

Remember, whatever I've done to this machine, it WAS working just fine until I started swapping around pieces of hardware. The only piece of hardware in this machine right now that wasn't there origiinally is the sound card, which I swapped out with the "games" computer.

There is a small wire that runs from the CD-ROM to the sound card. I'm assuming this is what you're referring to. Currently, the floppy plugs into the mobo and it's power daisy chains to the CD-ROM. The CD-ROM plugs into the only IDE slot on the mobo and the power that's daisy chained from the floppy continues on to the HD, where it terminates. The IDE cable daisy chains from the CD-ROM to the HD, where it terminates. I've removed the 2nd HD, since there is no way to simultaneously have both HDs connected.

I really don't think the HD is SCSI, since it doesn't plug into the SCSI slot in the mobo and I have no SCSI cables.

 

On the working "games" computer (currently running Win98), Device Manager shows under >Disk Drives >Properties >Settings has a box called Int 13 unit (not checked). Is this related to the "Intel 13h device not found "?

 

Hi Harpo

int 13h aka "interrupt 13h" is the interrupt which provides the bulk of Hard Disk functionality in a PC. Along with this there's a bewildering plethora of terms like "INT 13 extensions" which will assure you of a huge number of hits at Google, the vast majority of these will be complete red herrings.

it is by unfortunate coincidence the the first three letters of Intel and Interrupt are the same!

==

I don't think you wil be able to. You can only have two IDE devices on one IDE interface, and you only seem to have one IDE interface (J30).

Your options would be:
- to attempt to interface the CD-ROM drive via a sound card (not advisable!);
- or to fit an expansion card to provide an extra IDE (or EIDE) interface;
- or to use a SCSI HDD or a SCSI CDROM.

If you fit both and IDE HDD and a SCSI HDD you have to boot from the IDE device.

But first we must get the machine working somehow!

==

pls could you let us know make and model number for the hard disk drives so we can sort out the correct jumper settings for these

we need to have both HDDs jumpered as master, to start with. We will only be connecting one HDD at a time until we can get some life out of the computer.

if you have the CDROM drive on the same ribbon cable, pls. make sure it is set as slave

==

from your posts #11, #14

this indicates that it was the change in the contents of the HDD which stopped the computer working.

==

Something I would like you to try: pls go to bootdisk.com and follow the procedures for making a bootable DOS6.22 floppy. Label this floppy clearly!

Also, you will need a functional W98SE startup floppy.

Pls let us know what message you get when
1) start machine with nothing in floppy;
2) start machine with DOS622 disk in floppy;
3) start machine with W98SE disk in floppy.

What I really want to do is compare the results of 2 & 3.

good luck

best wishes, HJ

 

Both HDs are Western Digital Model #WDAC2700-00F. According to info at westerndigital.com:

I've got the HD set as Master and CD-ROM as slave, and with the last boot the system DOES recognize the HD and the CD-ROM, but the interrupt error is still there.

I've made the 6.22 boot disk and I have a functional Win98SE boot.

1. Messages booting with nothing in the floppy:
AMIBIOS 1992 American Megatrends
BIOS VER 1.00.04.BH0
(RAM boots)
Press F1 key if you want to enter Setup
Keyboard detected
Mouse detected
Hard disk 0 installed WDC AC2700F
CD-ROM drive installed CD-ROM CDU311
Floppy A installed
Adaptec AIC-7870
BIOS V1.2S5
Copyright 1995 Adaptec Inc. All Rights Reserved
Press <Ctrl><A> for SCSISelect Utility
Int 13h device not found
SCSI BIOS not installed!
Insert bootable media in appropriate drive

2. Messages booting with DOS622 disk in floppy drive:
AMIBIOS 1992 American Megatrends
BIOS VER 1.00.04.BH0
(RAM boots)
Press F1 key if you want to enter Setup
Keyboard detected
Mouse detected
Hard disk 0 installed WDC AC2700F
CD-ROM drive installed CD-ROM CDU311
Floppy A installed
Adaptec AIC-7870
BIOS V1.2S5
Copyright 1995 Adaptec Inc. All Rights Reserved
Press <Ctrl><A> for SCSISelect Utility
Int 13h device not found
SCSI BIOS not installed!
Non-system disk or disk error
Replace and strike any key when ready

3. Messages when booting with Win98SE disk in floppy drive
AMIBIOS 1992 American Megatrends
BIOS VER 1.00.04.BH0
(RAM boots)
Press F1 key if you want to enter Setup
Keyboard detected
Mouse detected
Hard disk 0 installed WDC AC2700F
CD-ROM drive installed CD-ROM CDU311
Floppy A installed
Adaptec AIC-7870
BIOS V1.2S5
Copyright 1995 Adaptec Inc. All Rights Reserved
Press <Ctrl><A> for SCSISelect Utility
Int 13h device not found
SCSI BIOS not installed!
blank screen for awhile, and then the Win98SE disk BOOTED!

Note: I changed a couple of settings in Setup - don't remember what they were. You know how it is. You try this and try that and hope that something works...

Anyway, got a message that prompted me to run fdisk. I guess there was no active partition, so we're creating an active partition now. Seems to be stuck on verifying drive integrity. It's just sitting there at 0%.

But we're definitely making progress!

 

Never progressed past verifying.

Rebooted. Error message is that there is no valid FAT partition on drive C, with recommendation to run fdisk.

Ran fdisk & it says drive is larger than 512, do you want to enable large disk support? I said yes. Error message: Error reading drive C:

So.... ???

 

It worked before you did anything. Hardware is all the same EXCEPT that you swapped sound cards. I would put the origional sound card back in and I'll bet that it has a CDROM port on it.

 

Are you sure that you don't have both the hard drive and the CD jumpered to master. If, as I suspect, the CDROM was origionally plugged into the sound card you took out it most likely set to master.

 

The original sound card has been reinstalled. How do I know if it's got a CD-ROM port on it? The adapter wire is plugged in.

I put the 2nd HD back in. Both HDs now are giving the same messages - it doesn't matter which one I've got actually daisy chained off the CD-ROM, which WAS set to slave but I've now switched it to computer select.

So now ALL the original hardware is back in the computer. At one point I had formatted each HD (one w/Win95 & I think the other was w/Win98) and I know that each one was working. Now both HDs give the FAT partition error message and neither one will respond to fdisk command to set partition.

 

Hi again

from post #7

important to be clear about this! Harpo - check me pls - in the original configuration which worked, the CDROM and the HDD which was connected were on the same ribbon cable?

It's normal (and better practice) to have the master device at the end of the ribbon and the slave device in the middle, whether 40way or 80way...

for the moment it would perhaps be better to jumper the HDD as single and disconnect the CDROM altogether - trying to keep it simple!

(if you do have the CDROM connected then pls jumper it as slave, not cable select... "funny" things happen with cable select)

==

Something that's worth checking / trying

in the BIOS, if you look at the settings for the HDD, do the numbers correspond with what's written on the HDD itself

also (important) does the BIOS give you the option to address the HDD in various ways - these would be
- CHS (Cylinder/Head/Sector)
- LBA (Logical Block Addressing)
- (perhaps) another, some variant of the above

it's worth trying out these options, (particularly if the BIOS has tried to autodetect another HDD since the computer was last working)

what you are trying to achieve is to get FDISK "seeing" the HDD correctly. Until that happens everything else is on hold...

==

look on the sound card for a 40 way IDE connector! good place to start... lots of the old ISA sound cards had them.

best wishes, HJ

 

Yes.

This is how I've got it set up.

Done! But, what do you mean "jumper the HD as single "??? I've got it set as Master.

No connector.

It's really odd - at first, the only OS I could install was Win95. NOW, the Win95 boot disk always gives me the non-system disk error, and the Win98 boot disk proceeds up to the point where it tells me there's no valid FAT partition but won't actually perform a partition... I think that's really odd.

 

Adding on to what Hugh Jarss suggested you might want to go ahead and pull the sound card, CD-ROM, and any other cards other than video. Just try to boot with nothing but the main processor, video and memory. Get everything else out of there. Once we can get it to boot with minimum hardware we can then add one device at a time.

Set your hard drive to master and try. If that doesn't work try using no jumper at all and see what happens.

If you can get the hard drive formatted then try adding the CD-ROM by setting it to slave and the hard drive to master if it isn't already. (if it worked without the jumper)

Also when trying with just the hard drive I would not go to fdisk right now. Just type in format c: and enter. See if the drive will format at all. On previous format you may have ended up with a bad boot sector or FAT. Try this with both drives. If one works and the other doesn't, fine. Use the one that does to get a boot going. We'll worry about the other drive and sound later. Right now all you're interested in is either hard drive and the CD-ROM.

If you can get either hard drive to format then type sys c: and enter. Now try to boot without the floppy. If you get a c: prompt you have a successful boot to DOS. If you can boot to DOS you SHOULD be able to install Windows.

Make sure you are doing all your floppy boots with a win 98 startup. Just to make sure the 98 floppy is good make a new one. Click here to download a program that will make you a fresh 98SE startup floppy. I'm kinda wondering if your 98 startup might be a 1st edition of 98. Don't really know if it would make a difference but it might.

If you end up with a successful boot with the hard drive to the c: prompt then boot with the 98SE startup floppy with CD support. (after you reconnect your CD-ROM as slave and the hard drive as master)

Now type e: and enter
type CD win98 and enter
type in setup and enter

Hopefully the win98 installer will launch. It's been a while but I believe from DOS that you must use the setup program that is in the win98 folder as the one in the root directory will only work from windows.

The reason you do the e: enter is that the win98SE boot floppy loads a ram drive with utilities. It leaves your hard drive as C but moves your CD back one letter from d to e as d becomes the ram drive.

Let's just see what happens with this and cross fingers.

Sorry I haven't been more involved in this and other threads but I've been helping to get another help forum going and working to collect funds for Katrina victims. Add to that the fact that I have also been setting up an interoffice on line memoing system for a customer I've been kinda out of it.

 

HDD as single device on cable is jumper 4 to 6 (or remove altogether) see WD bumf extract, your post #30

I feel the key to this is in the way that the W98 startup floppy works but the DOS6.22 floppy doesn't. Am working on this... not easy.

It might be a help if you can get hold of a smaller HDD (smaller means less than 528MB) - any chance of this? It might help rule out some possibilities.

Did you manage to find any choices for the HDD (LBA/CHS) in the BIOS pls?

best wishes, HJ

 

correction

I'd like to correct an error in my earlier post #9 in this thread. Unfortunately I've lost the edit button for that post

The correction is important to the matter in hand - why Harpo can't get the DOS6.22 floppy to boot the machine

Concerning the message "Non system disk or disk error" (or similar) which generally indicates that you're trying to boot from a disk which has been formatted but not SYS'd into being bootable:

that part's indeed true. But

isn't correct. The message stays on the disk even after it's been SYS'd into a bootable disk. Just that we never normally see it.

I feel that Harpo just has, though. It looks as though the message would get produced for
- an error in LBA - CHS conversion;
- an INT13 error

which fits, sort of.

best wishes, HJ.

 

Hi, Hugh Jarss,

Looking at your two posts above this one and looking at the link you gave tells me that you are way beyond me on this.... Mayhaps I should stay out of it. Just kidding on this but I will let it be known that if Hugh Jarss disagrees with something I offer I would go with what he says!