Booting
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Thread: Booting

  1. October 27th, 2003, 11:36 PM #1
    forwindri
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    Booting

    I have an old Packard Bell 486 DX2 computer that will not go to the OS on the harddrive or the floppy. It goes through the booting process with no error message goes to the screen showing stats of the computer and just stops.
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  2. October 28th, 2003, 04:56 AM #2
    Platypus
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    Does the equipment listing on the POST screen (the "stats" you referred to) correctly show the drives (Floppy Drive and Hard Disk)? Many 486s need to have the drive settings re-entered in the CMOS Setup if the CMOS backup battery goes flat. (e.g. FDD set to 3.5" 1.44M and HDD either Detected or CHS parameters entered). Some will simply stop at the end of the POST if they don't know what drives to look for, or I've had some that will wait up to 10 minutes for a "time-out" before complaining of a controller failure.
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  3. October 28th, 2003, 09:26 PM #3
    forwindri
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    Quote Originally Posted by Platypus
    Does the equipment listing on the POST screen (the "stats" you referred to) correctly show the drives (Floppy Drive and Hard Disk)? Many 486s need to have the drive settings re-entered in the CMOS Setup if the CMOS backup battery goes flat. (e.g. FDD set to 3.5" 1.44M and HDD either Detected or CHS parameters entered). Some will simply stop at the end of the POST if they don't know what drives to look for, or I've had some that will wait up to 10 minutes for a "time-out" before complaining of a controller failure.
    The Floppy Drive and harddrive are listed correctly. This has Phoenix Bios 4.03. It does wait about 5 minutes and says "no OS".
    Last edited by forwindri; October 28th, 2003 at 09:30 PM.
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  4. October 28th, 2003, 09:29 PM #4
    DocPC
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    Get a 98 boot disk and try fdisk /mbr.
    Follow this link to chat for a quicker answer!

    NooNoo, grover, Matridom, cc_penguin, Octavian, crazyman, Major Kong, and Mayet onboard.....And now starring Ya_know!
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  5. October 28th, 2003, 09:38 PM #5
    forwindri
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    Quote Originally Posted by DocPC
    Get a 98 boot disk and try fdisk /mbr.
    I tried the boot disk but it is not reading the disk in the floppy or the harddrive.
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  6. October 30th, 2003, 08:18 PM #6
    Ruslan
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    Quote Originally Posted by Platypus
    Does the equipment listing on the POST screen (the "stats" you referred to) correctly show the drives (Floppy Drive and Hard Disk)? Many 486s need to have the drive settings re-entered in the CMOS Setup if the CMOS backup battery goes flat. (e.g. FDD set to 3.5" 1.44M and HDD either Detected or CHS parameters entered). Some will simply stop at the end of the POST if they don't know what drives to look for, or I've had some that will wait up to 10 minutes for a "time-out" before complaining of a controller failure.

    Sometimes, if CMOS battery is bad, it even can cause system won't boot at all!
    I have seen it personally quite a few times...
    Bad memory can also cause stops like this...
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