I've been messing around with my old 386 recently. I want to change the crappy old 80MB hdd for a 350MB one, mainly because the old one sounds like a vaccuum cleaner. So I formatted the replacement one and copied everything onto it, keeping DOS and all the system files in its primary partition. But the damn thing won't boot from the new disk! The BIOS moans about there being no OS or something like that. I tried SYS with the new drive, and then I tried FDISK /MBR, and it still won't boot from it! It's definately not a problem that the BIOS doesn't recognise that size of HDD - it appears to be able to take things upwards of 4GB!! Quite amazing for a 15-year-old BIOS...
Zilog you could always get dos reinstalled (it is easy with 3 or 4 diskettes) other than that i dont´t know because sometimes old lovely computers are funny. and if you reinstall dos your files will still be there (pm me if you have diskettes but no dos installation then i can IM them to you.)
I was thinking of doing that, but I'm not sure if it'll fix it. I tried installing DOS onto a hard disk that previously had some old Linux distro on it, and I had to do FDISK /MBR to get rid of LILO (the Linux boot loader that was on it) for DOS to actually boot properly. Can't find my DOS disks either Actually, I think I put in a network card at the same time I changed the hard disk - could that be anything to do with it? I remember that really low-level looking error saying something like "boot ROM" not found or something screwy, and the NIC has an empty slot for a boot ROM. But it worked fine before in a 486. Could just be the awful English on the BIOS though (most the "XCMOS" settings make no sense!)...
You just copied the files across in DOS or Windows? That won't work. You'd need to clone the drive with a utility. The socket on the NIC is for network booting WITHOUT a hard drive, usually. Using the machine as a terminal, and running stuff off a master server. Why are you bothering with this, though? If you want a nice DOS machine, you could do a lot better than a 386!!
I thought it may be something to with that. I copied everything in Windows, but it *appeared* like it copied everything. Why wouldn't FDISK /MBR fix it though? I guess I do have to re-install DOS, then? Thought it was something like that - I knew I didn't need it anyway. Was it trying to boot from the NIC because the HDD wasn't bootable or something? I don't know. It's the first computer I ever had, so it's not really something I want to get rid of. It's probably more stupid nostalgia than anything else. Besides old games I don't really know what to do with it - it's too big and noisy for a firewall, and my mother's pissed off enough about me having one PC on nearly all day, never mind two! She's so gonna make me pay the electricity bill... if I had a job...
Electricity costs (in the UK) I think it is 4p per kwH, or 8p. A Kilowatt Hour is the power needed to draw 1kw for 1 hour. Hence, if you have a PC with a 400W PSU, which doesn't even draw 400W, then it is easily drawing under 500W.. let's say with monitor, 500W cuz I have no idea of the rating of a monitor. That's half a kilowatt per hour. Let's go extreme and say a kwH is 10p. Your PC therefore costs £1.20 a day to run. The thing is, though - it isn't even that! If you want to know the ACTUAL cost, then turn everything off in the house (very hard with central heating!!). Turn on your PC and make a note of the meter readings at hourly intervals. Still, under £10 a week to keep your mum off your back can't be bad OK let's see..... If your computer can't boot from any of the devices listed in the BIOS, then it will try to boot from network, yes. Copying in Windows won't work. There are protected files that won't copy - the files that actually boot DOS, and files that are running that make up Windows! The best method would really be to reinstall from the floppies, or to copy the drive with a tool like Norton Ghost.
Think it's like 10 or 12 cent per kWh here. Try telling that to my mother, though - when it comes to such modern technology like electricity, logic does not apply to her. And my 386 probably does about 40W max. Monitors can vary depending on size, age and crappiness - an average 17" CRT can be around 70-120W - LCDs are a lot less. Though I usually turn mine off if I'm going away from it for a while.
No, I'm certain it's FDISK /MBR. Though, of course with Win2k/XP they don't have FDISK, so it's just FIXMBR (I think). @Codeman1: I formatted it on that PC, in FAT, and it can read that disk no probs. It must be that DOS 6.22 is copy protected.
I'm getting a P75 this evening though, so I'll probably just put the 386 away again... despite having only got it out on the weekend. Though something will probably go wrong with that too - it currently has a copy of Windows NT4 that I can't log in to, so I think I'll just format the whole thing or put in a bigger drive.
Is the disk labeled "A" when u use fdisk? did u copy all system files ??? because when u copy in Win explorer is just shows the standard files.. the system files are disabled in normal view. Had the same problem with a P233 mmx once.. after trying and trying I noticed the primary IDE port was dead
I'm not sure, but I think NT4 works with .sam files to log in.. there was another file too.. if u boot up with a system disk and delete those files on your HD it is possible to gain access
It was definately C Explorer?! Don't you mean File Manager? This is a 386 after all ^_^ I copied the directories in general, so I assumed that would copy system files. But that still doesn't explain why SYS and FDISK /MBR didn't make the hard disk bootable. IO.SYS was there, COMMAND.COM was there... what else needs to be there for the damn thing to just boot? The way they do things in uni here is that you log into a roaming profile that's stored on some server somewhere on the network - AFAIK there's no profiles stored on the PCs. There's serveral domains - undergraduate, staff, etc. - if there's no network it says it can't connect to whatever domain. Would this make things different?
i don't meen the drive letter u silly, I mean is it activated as boot device... Well with fdisk u need to make the HD where u copied those files to the "A"ctive HD. If u allreay did this.. I don't know either.. a bit.
