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Grex > Hardware > #85: Need help with Dell system setup and Conner drives | |
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kdietr01
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Need help with Dell system setup and Conner drives
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Feb 16 01:25 UTC 1995 |
I am trying to fiqure out how to access the setup screen (drives, etc)
on a Dell System 310 - 20MZ 386DX. It has a Pheonix ROM BIOS ver
1.10 A05. I'v tried CTRL-ALT-S, CTRL-ALT-ESC, and several others.
Do I need some startup disk? Any Ideas? I'v no doco for this PC.
Also, It has a single Connor 40MB Type 17 Hard Drive, no jumpers
on the front. I want to add as a slave drive a Connor 170MB drive,
no doco for any of this of course. How can I find out what the
correct jumper settings should be? ANY HELP would be GREATLY
APRECIATED.
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| 13 responses total. |
mdw
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response 1 of 13:
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Feb 16 09:32 UTC 1995 |
So far as I can recall, you hit <DEL> when it says to, when it's booting
up. It should probably say on the screen.
The IDE drives I've seen have jumpers on them. They're not on the
"front" but rather on the circut board, usually on the bottom. There
may be cryptic labels (c/d, or m/s), or they may be really cryptic and
say J20 or something like that. With Maxtor; there's an 800 number
(printed on the drive) where you can get jumper settings. With Connor,
I think the best deal would be to talk to a Connor dealer, if such a
creature exists. Failing that, the trick would be to call Connor
directly. Usually, the drive contains enough information on the maker
so that, if they're still in business at the same location, they can
contacted.
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gregc
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response 2 of 13:
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Feb 16 17:56 UTC 1995 |
Gennerally, only AMI bios have the "Hit <DEL> to go to Setup" messages.
I don't think I've seen that from a Phoenix bios.
I'd say to try every CTRL-ALT-??? sequence you can at boot time. You may
be unlucky enough to have a machine that is old enough to not have the
setup routine in rom. They originally came on a separate "setup" disk
that you had to boot from. Those ussually get lost after a machine
changes hands a few times.
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jep
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response 3 of 13:
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Feb 17 22:25 UTC 1995 |
I've seen computers with what I think were Phoenix BIOS chips which
entered the BIOS using CTRL-ALT-INS, CTRL-ALT-F1, CTRL-ALT-+, and which
required a floppy disk with a configuration program. (Most of the
floppy-only systems were 286's.) You usually don't have to enter the
keystroke command at boot time; you can do it any time (with Phoenix
BIOSes).
You might also try booting the computer and holding down the space
bar to force a keyboard error. That works with a Gateway computer,
anyway.
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gregc
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response 4 of 13:
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Feb 18 04:09 UTC 1995 |
Yep, CTRL-ALT-INS was the magic sequence with an old Phoenix bios I had.
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scg
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response 5 of 13:
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Feb 18 22:09 UTC 1995 |
It's Ctrl-Alt-Esc on my Phoenix bios, but it has to wait until it's
already started to load the OS. Doing that during the memory check does
nothing.
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kdietr01
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response 6 of 13:
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Feb 19 00:42 UTC 1995 |
GREAT! I got the setup screen to come up. It turns
out to be CTRL-ALT-ENTER that does it!? I also think
I have the jumpers figured out. However, in the setup
screen there were only 47 "Types" for hard drives, each
one with different cylinder, head, sectors, etc. values.
Of course none of these match the drive I'm trying to add:
Conner 170MB, 903 cyls, 8 heads, 46 sectors.
I did'nt see an option that would let you define a new Type.
Is there software that lets one define new types?
Thanks a MILLION gang for all the help!
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scg
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response 7 of 13:
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Feb 19 02:34 UTC 1995 |
It sounds like there are some differences between my Phoenix bios and
yours, so this may not work for you, but among the hard drive types on
mine is a "User Config." With that, you can input the specs for the hard
drive by hand, rather than having to find a menu choice for it. My best
bet for where to find User Config would be between 47 and 1.
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jep
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response 8 of 13:
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Feb 24 04:56 UTC 1995 |
Karl, with an IDE drive and an older BIOS, you just have to pick the
closest drive type which doesn't designate a drive larger than yours. If
you're installing DOS, don't use anything with a cylinder count higher
than 1024; DOS can't recognize cylinders above 1024.
The IDE controller, which is built into the hard drive (what you
probably think of as the "controller" is really an adapter) handles the
geometry of the hard drive internally. Most IDE drives really have 4
heads and a ton of cylinders, but your computer won't care. Just pick
something close to the right size. You might only get to use 80% of your
hard drive, but it's the best you'll be able to do.
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tsty
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response 9 of 13:
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Feb 24 22:14 UTC 1995 |
Keeping in mind what jep said about hte number of
cylinders, there is usually at LEAST one
hd config that has +blank+ spaces for the heads, cyls, lz,,, etc. And that
has typically been type 15(ish) and types 47 and 48.
With those three drive types, you +should+ be able
to enter the aprticualr critical information
by hand ... and it'll work fine.
If no, (and that would surprise me) then pick the type that
has at least the right number of HEADS and lower on everything else if your
numbers are higher - hmmm, that's an awkward way to say t ....
If your drive is different from the avaiablle types,
choose a configurations with the same number of heads,
as your drive. And inside that variable (which pre-selects
a sub-group of drive types) play blackjack with the
rest of the numbers,
up-to-but-not-greater-than the real numbers
for your machine.
The net-lag is horrid right now, so please forgive
the typos and line length ...tnx
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jep
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response 10 of 13:
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Feb 25 06:43 UTC 1995 |
BIOSes designed before IDE drives became popular do not have
programmable hard drive types. If your computer doesn't have a
programmable drive type, it's probably a 386/25 or older. I don't know of
any remedy for this deficiency, unless you can get replacement BIOS chips.
(If you can get such a replacement, they are easy to install, at least
they are if your BIOS chips are socketed -- most of them were. But I
wouldn't know where to look for a new set of BIOS chips any more.)
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n8nxf
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response 11 of 13:
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Feb 27 15:29 UTC 1995 |
(Even my 286-20 has programable drive types.) On Track Utilities, which
use to come free with Seagate drives, might alow one to bypass the stuff
in BIOS.
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tsty
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response 12 of 13:
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Mar 1 12:56 UTC 1995 |
I'll have tocheck, but I +think+ Ihave an 8088 machine around
here with a type 15 as a programmable drive (and it only went
up to type 15).
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kdietr01
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response 13 of 13:
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Mar 6 15:41 UTC 1995 |
Thanks everyone! I spoke with Dell tech support and they said
the ROM BIOS for that system did'nt have a user coigurable
"Type"I ended up using On Track Disk Manager to get the thing
installed. So far so good. Thanks again folks.
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