Baslinux mailing list

[sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

On Fri, 28 Jul 2006, sindi keesan wrote:

> On Sat, 29 Jul 2006 3aoo-cvfd AT dea.spamcon.org wrote:
>
> > sindi keesan wrote:
> > > > BTW, you should consider downloading the Compaq CMOS setup
> > > > floppy (F10 Setup).  It has some settings you may wish to
> > > > experiment with.
> > >
> > > Do I need it in order to add an IDE drive to the SCSI computer?
> >
> > It does have an IDE/SCSI setting.  BTW, if you have a newer
> > DeskPro, the CMOS setup is probably built in (press F10 at boot).
> > It is the early DeskPros that need the floppy (or a special HD
> > partition).
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Steven
>
> Our Deskpro gave a message about a Compaq diagnostic disk when we added
> the IDE drive.  400MHz, circa 1999.  Press F10 at boot also gets you to
> setup.

The Compaq Presario has a dead controller on the motherboard that cannot 
be replaced with a card (known good new) and is now giving us 'bad 
controller' error messages after boot times out.  Therefore LILO does not 
work.  It was sort of a miner's canary.

The Compaq Deskpro diagnostic disk error says to use the disk if we are 
installing UNIX to the computer, but only if we plug the IDE drive into 
where the CD-ROM drive was (secondary master), after which it won't boot 
from SCSI, IDE or floppy disk.

If we plug it into primary master it boots from floppy disk (did not try 
IDE) and I can run loop BL3 from the IDE drive.  So I will copy over a 
scsi kernel to the IDE drive, and boot loop BL3 and use it to copy the 
entire BL3 and Bl2 file system to the SCSI from the IDE drive that was in 
the failed Presario.  And hope I can boot directly to the scsi drive linux 
with loadlin and then install lilo so Xvesa will work, because this 
computer won't boot without himem.sys and emm386.exe and Xvesa won't work 
with them.  Lilo will also fix the computer that won't boot 2.4.31 unless 
you bypass system files (Gateway Celeron 330MHz).

Sindi