holly@python.cis.ohio-state.edu (Joe Hollingsworth) (02/04/91)
HELP! I can't get my new clone to boot off of my hard drive. I just bought a Hyundai 286N (w/ 1Meg, one 3.5" drive, and one 5.25" drive), but no hard drive. I didn't buy a hard drive because I already had a HardCard Plus 20 MByte hard drive available. So now I'm trying to get the HardCard working on the 286. I've installed the HardCard, I've formatted it with a DOS partition containing the DOS boot software, I know it's there because I've used Norton to look at it. My problem is, I can't get the 286 to boot off of the HardCard. (I'm currently booting off a floppy, after I do that, I then change to the C: drive, the HardCard.) The 286 has Award BIOS. During POST, I can run a program that lets me configure the hardware. I've used this configuration software to tell the 286 that there's a hard drive. The configuration software provides a large number of default choices for describing the kind of hard drive. I think I'm choosing the correct choice, the one that matches the HardCard. But after doing the configuration, I get the following error message at boot time: "Error initializing disk controller." After the message, it just sits there....nothing happens. - Any ideas out there in netland? - Am I choosing the wrong hard drive description? - This HardCard came off a PCXT type machine, is there some kind of incompatability problem? - Are there jumpers that need to be changed? - Are there dip switches that need to be changed? any and all help will be greatly appreciated thanks, Joe holly@cis.ohio-state.edu
jcmorris@mwunix.mitre.org (Joe Morris) (02/04/91)
holly@python.cis.ohio-state.edu (Joe Hollingsworth) writes: >HELP! >I can't get my new clone to boot off of my hard drive. >I've installed the HardCard, I've formatted it with a DOS partition containing >the DOS boot software, I know it's there because I've used Norton to look >at it. My problem is, I can't get the 286 to boot off of the HardCard. >(I'm currently booting off a floppy, after I do that, I then change to >the C: drive, the HardCard.) Just a shot in the dark, but check the jumpers on the HardCard to see if they are set up to play the part of a *second* fixed disk. Since you don't have a fixed disk other than the HardCard this might cause problems. Also...FYI the older 20MB HardCards had a nasty and undocumented habit of using 0:1F8-1FF for a scratchpad. If you have something using interrupts 7E or 7F this can cause interesting results. I squawked this several years ago and Plus redesigned its BIOS code to remove this memory poaching, but there are probably many cards which never were updated because there wasn't any conflict with the software in use. I dunno if this could cause your problem but it might be something to check. Joe Morris
jdb@reef.cis.ufl.edu (Brian K. W. Hook) (02/05/91)
In article <87966@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> Joe Hollingsworth <holly@python.cis.ohio-state.edu> writes: >HELP! > >I can't get my new clone to boot off of my hard drive. > >I just bought a Hyundai 286N (w/ 1Meg, one 3.5" drive, and one 5.25" drive), >but no hard drive. I didn't buy a hard drive because I already had a >HardCard Plus 20 MByte hard drive available. So now I'm trying to get >the HardCard working on the 286. Don't take this is as gospel, but I believe that ATs have much of the HD stuff in ROM, so you need to disable the Hardcard's on board controller. Try that, and if that doesn't work, I think the other method is to tell the AT that you have no hard drive installed (since the Hardcard has its own ROM BIOS)..... Or something like that. Brian