2 Jan
2010
2 Jan
'10
1:37 a.m.
On 1/1/10, Tom Gardner <thomas.gardner at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
I have 2 Portable IIs in fairly good shape, except
that both of them, one an
HDD model and one with two FDs. Both run Memory Check and POST but fail to
boot.
I got one working the middle of last year.
During POST they both give a
"162 System Options Not Set - Run Setup" message
but when I continue I get a
"Non-system disk or disk error" message
with several known good original disks (Compaq Setup Disk, PCDOS 3.3 StartUp
disk, MSDOS 2.0 disk)
You will probably need to boot a genuine Compaq setup floppy to set
the drive type bits and such. Until then, it's probably confusing
what sort of drive you have and unable to read disks as a consequence.
You say "Compaq Setup Disk", but do you know that the setup disk you
have matches and is some basic (360K) format? That's the problem I
had trying to get mine booting.
I tried replacing the 1987 battery in the HDD Portable
II with a fresh
battery purchased recently at Frys and had no change in the failure mode.
That will help retain the values, but you still have to set them to
non-random contents.
-ethan