Hello again and thanks for all the help re: Lost Parameters in Setup
Well I think the problem I now have deserves a new thread so here goes!
Basically I need to load a configuration file into the system to get the SCSI interface and HDD and tape drive recognised but the FDD is doing nothing! I have checked the power supply to the drive and that the cable is correctly plugged into EIDE 0 connector. At no time does the FDD activity light illuminate. I believe I should be able to boot the system from a floppy regardless of system configuration. Before I do anything (like changing the FDD and cable) do you have any recommendations or thoughts. I do not know if the FDD ever worked! As it is a 2.88Mb drive I am also unsure whether or not it recognises 1.44Mb disks so I have not attempted to test it in another PC as yet! Any help would as ever be appreciated, thanks.

Originally posted by fd_pro:
Hello again and thanks for all the help re: Lost Parameters in Setup
Well I think the problem I now have deserves a new thread so here goes!
Basically I need to load a configuration file into the system to get the SCSI interface and HDD and tape drive recognised but the FDD is doing nothing! I have checked the power supply to the drive and that the cable is correctly plugged into EIDE 0 connector. At no time does the FDD activity light illuminate. I believe I should be able to boot the system from a floppy regardless of system configuration. Before I do anything (like changing the FDD and cable) do you have any recommendations or thoughts. I do not know if the FDD ever worked! As it is a 2.88Mb drive I am also unsure whether or not it recognises 1.44Mb disks so I have not attempted to test it in another PC as yet! Any help would as ever be appreciated, thanks.


the first thing i would do is set boot order in bios setup to boot from floopy first then check to see the specification under the a: drive see if it set to read 1.44 or 2.88mb if it sayz 1.44mb change it to 2.88mb then save it exit and reboot using 2.88mb diskette to see if that works....

i dont think the cable is backwards because the light would stay on... which leads me to think maybe it could be the power connector but first things first......... hope this helps http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

A good troubleshooting setting in BIOS is Boot up Floppy Seek. This tells the machine to find the floppy at bootup, which makes the light flash or gives you an error message if it can't find a floppy. That would tell you to try another floppy drive. If it flashes and boots, boot it with a floppy in it. It will boot to it or tell you it isn't a system disk. Either way you'll know the floppy at least tries to work. You'll have to have the boot sequence set to boot from the floppy to actually boot to it. The setting should be A;C in BIOS, some motherboards will have A;C;SCSI and some will also have options for CD ROM to boot. Use the one that lets A: drive boot first, regardless of other options.

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Originally posted by jangolion:

the first thing i would do is set boot order in bios setup to boot from floopy first then check to see the specification under the a: drive see if it set to read 1.44 or 2.88mb if it sayz 1.44mb change it to 2.88mb then save it exit and reboot using 2.88mb diskette to see if that works....

i dont think the cable is backwards because the light would stay on... which leads me to think maybe it could be the power connector but first things first......... hope this helps http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

I have no disks for this ICL DRS3000 PC as such! I have downloaded config files and other files including BIOS from the ADAPTEC website and the installation guide for the AHA1740 SCSI card. Further I have no 2.88Mb disks and no way to create one on another PC as far as I am aware. (Have 286 PCs and Pentium PCs but as far as I know I can only format 720Kb or 1.44Mb disks)
I am certain the cable is corrctly oriented as it is so short it would not fit if turned over!
Have tried setting A: as boot floppy and tried as 720Kb, 1.44Mb, & 2.88Mb and got no reaction whatsover from the drive and no error messages of any sort other than Boot Failed.

Originally posted by Paleo Pete:
A good troubleshooting setting in BIOS is Boot up Floppy Seek. This tells the machine to find the floppy at bootup, which makes the light flash or gives you an error message if it can't find a floppy. That would tell you to try another floppy drive. If it flashes and boots, boot it with a floppy in it. It will boot to it or tell you it isn't a system disk. Either way you'll know the floppy at least tries to work. You'll have to have the boot sequence set to boot from the floppy to actually boot to it. The setting should be A;C in BIOS, some motherboards will have A;C;SCSI and some will also have options for CD ROM to boot. Use the one that lets A: drive boot first, regardless of other options.



Have tried all possible boot from floppy options to no avail! There are no error messages and no activity LED on the FDD at any time! I thought the FDD LED should briefly illuminate sometime during POST as does the activity LED on the tape drive. The HDD activity LED on the power supply card is permanently lit!
I had assumed that the FDD LED was defective in the first instance but it seems that the FDD is not seen at all although there are no error messages to the effect. Would the BIOS expect to see an FDD? i.e. would it post an error if not seeing one?

Re reading, I just noticed something. In your first post you said you had the floppy plugged into EIDE 0. The floppy should not be there, it should be either on a floppy controller card, or a floppy controller on the motherboard. Check the plugs and see if you find one marked FDD or Floppy. That's where it should be, and I think that could be the problem.

If the hard drive LED stays on, the plug is upside down, it should come on only when accessed.

What is the system? On board controllers, or an older board that requires controller cards?

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yes pete i just saw that too it has to be connected to the sa4000 port(floopy port) IF IT IS NOT LABLED one way to find out which is which is to go into bios a select the ide or eide detect a screen should pop up saying what you have connected to a typical setting would be primary eide- harddrive(master), cdrom(slave) secondery eide- cdr(master or single)........so if you have a hardrive cdrom and a cdr they would all be detected so by process of elimination the next slot will be you floppy port and also you have to have a floppy drive cable because it is not interchangeable with a ide cable if memory serves me correct ide has 40 slots and floppy has 34....this would be alot easier if you had the manual however this should work and make sure tho power connector is all the way in alot of the time it is usually the obvious that get overlook~~~~~~ http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

Originally posted by Paleo Pete:
Re reading, I just noticed something. In your first post you said you had the floppy plugged into EIDE 0. The floppy should not be there, it should be either on a floppy controller card, or a floppy controller on the motherboard. Check the plugs and see if you find one marked FDD or Floppy. That's where it should be, and I think that could be the problem.

If the hard drive LED stays on, the plug is upside down, it should come on only when accessed.

What is the system? On board controllers, or an older board that requires controller cards?



OK the system is an ICL DRS3000 486DX33! The floppy is plugged into EIDE 0 which is correct, EIDE 1 is spare, on a 40-way cable. EIDE 0 & EIDE 1 are the connectors to the FDD controller on the motherboard. The system has a Fujitsu M2623FA HDD and ADAPTEC AHA1740A EISA SCSI bus adapter.
There are two HDD LEDs, one on the PSU card which is only lit if the HDD is connected to the PSU and one on the bus adapter card which is on all the time. The cables are all connected correctly as far as i can tell from the keys, i.e. they only fit one way round!
I do not know if the PC worked as when I first saw it it had a dead CMOS battery, this is still true as I have yet to locate it! The system therefore always defaults when first powered up and on a subsequent warm boot, following detection of extended RAM , processor etc will ask for a config disk! There is no reaction to the insertion of a disk of any 3.5" variety!
I have only ever seen it go through POST, display memory size (16Mb) and ask for a config disk and report Boot Failed!
The Setup screen is very basic and I have been unable to get the PC to do anything so far.
Removing all the boards, except VGA in slot 1, Slots 2,5,6 (HBA,Bus expander, Modem)makes no difference to the display output so I suspect the FDD to be the first thing to sort so that I can attempt to load some config info which I obtained as files ASW-C174 from the Adaptec website!
Have been to the ICL Fujitsu Knowledge base too and downloaded some files which may be of use but so far have been unable to locate PC specific info as the DRS3000 seems to be an ongoing but upgraded product and the model I have is obsolete!
The monitor that came with the PC packed up after 2 days and the on/off switch on the PC PSU card has failed permanently ON so I see getting this PC running as the ultimate challenge at the moment!

Originally posted by jangolion:
yes pete i just saw that too it has to be connected to the sa4000 port(floopy port) IF IT IS NOT LABLED one way to find out which is which is to go into bios a select the ide or eide detect a screen should pop up saying what you have connected to a typical setting would be primary eide- harddrive(master), cdrom(slave) secondery eide- cdr(master or single)........so if you have a hardrive cdrom and a cdr they would all be detected so by process of elimination the next slot will be you floppy port and also you have to have a floppy drive cable because it is not interchangeable with a ide cable if memory serves me correct ide has 40 slots and floppy has 34....this would be alot easier if you had the manual however this should work and make sure tho power connector is all the way in alot of the time it is usually the obvious that get overlook~~~~~~ http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

See my reply to Paleo Pete. I have checked the cables/connections and believe them to be correct, I have no access to the BIOS apart from the basic setup screen which defaults to FDD 0 3.5" 1.44Mb Boot Enabled and HDD None!
I have checked power is present on the FDD power cable but not checked on the FDD as its hard to get at but I will check that +5 and +12 are getting to the drive elctronics and let you know!

ok you have to change that cmos battery it looks like the battery in your watch only bigger (round)or it a square box marked 24 hr burning or something to that effect before you can do anything else this is where you begin- replace the battery and see what happens- the cmos is very important it keeps the cmos charged which stores system setup/configurations, memory check, and post routine as well as date/time even when the computer is turn off . As oppose to your ram which is erased every time you turn off the pc because it loses the charge to hold the memory...........only then can you pursue any trouble shooting advice http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

Yep, get the CMOS battery replaced first, you're spinning your wheels until you do. It will be a round wafer type battery in some cases, a barrel shaped one soldered to the board in others, or a DALLAS chip.
If it's a barrel shaped one, you can get add on batteries that plug into the motherboard at computer shops. Some boards have a jumper that has to be set to accept the external battery.
The DALLAS chip is black, about an inch long, and 5/8-3/4" wide, and has DALLAS imprinted on top. Get the one with the exact same number. Radio Shack might carry them, if not, look for one at local computer shops. Get the CMOS issue fixed, then we might be able to solve the other problems.

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