BIOS Problem on my 386 mother board

Mikefromlondon

Mikefromlondon

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In this 21st Century, I am still using a Windows 3.11 with 6.2 MSDOS, because have I got any choice, no, I run an engraving machine that works on a DOS based software, and found that modern computers cannot run it even if set for backward compatibility mode,so i am stuck with this solid engraver with 3 axis my main workhorse, my main bread winner, I use it more like a routing or CNC small parts making machine.

So now the actual problem, last night I switched on the computer, heard a long beep, and a message came up on the screen saying that problem loading bios, and hard disc not detected, please insert start up disk and press enter

something to that effect, (it did not say hard disc failure) it said bios not loaded.

So determined to overcome the obstacle, I had a spare tower computer which I picked up from the pavement someone just dumped a few years ago, but i knew its value, they are now worth lots of money.

So I plugged that in connected to keyboard, mouse, and monitor, and its booting up perfect, and windows 98 log and icons all appeared, ready to go, even read the name of the person whom it belonged, read his letters he wrote to appeal against a PCN!

So I opened it up, to add the HD from my computer which won't boot up, and it had two HDs in it one being Master and the other being Slave, so I took Slave (D drive) out and plugged it in Windows 98 computer having switched it off)

Then after connecting the 40 pin ribbon cable and power leads, I switched it on (the HD I added was already jumpered into slave mode) and so I hoped on boot up it will get recognised, by the Win 98 system booting up.

This time as it was booting up, I heard a long beeep and followed by 3 rapid short beeps, and totally dead screen, nothing not a zilch, same as my other computer that wouldn't boot up, no messages nothing, I checked all monitor cables and so on but totally dark screen.

Switched off and tried again, and same thing, long beep and 3 short beeps like _______ _ _ _
So I suspected that the slave drive from my other win 3.11 computer has something to do with this c omputer also not booting up, so I switched off and removed it and hoped that Windows 98 computer would reboot OK now, but same long beep followed by 3 short beeps and dead screen,

I inserted Windows 98 restore disc, but absolutely nothing, I have now two buggered up computers and loads of work in que and people screaming when i can deliver.

If no help reaches me in time, I am about to head for White cliffs of Dover and dump these two computers there along with myself. End of Golden era!
 
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I suspect the Bios chip may have gone corrupted it is made by Dallas , DS12885, a 16K non-volatile memory, if I can get some sort of binary file or hex file I can load it up into it from another bios chip, I have a chip reader and programmer that i made myself, uses just hardware to do this no software required, plug one chip in and the little circuit reads all locations and copies it into another chip. But I need the binary file for a typical boot up on windows 98, with mouse, keyboard, I HD 500Mb, floppy drive and so on. Can I down load this binary file from the internet? Or would this file be found on a restore disk?, if I can extract binary file from another computer and enter it manually, but if anyone knows an easier route please speak up, thanks in advance.

When I remove this chip, the booting up fails altogether as not even beep is then heard.
 
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Sorry Mike, but I suspect you're hard disk is the problem, and it's then corrupting the Bios, or the cpu. When you took your hard disk out of the tower pc, did you put the old slave drive back in, or reset the HDD1 to be the master, or only disc in the system - bear with me, haven't touch a 386 system in 20 years. Do you have copies of windows 3.11, MSDOS 6.22, and you're engraving software. Although you can't get the engraving software to run on a current version of windows, you should be able to get msdos to run on a modern computer after reformatting the hard drive to a FAT 16 format
 
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Sorry guys for not coming back earlier, no I hadn't started to head for W.C. of Dover yet, popped out to a mate's place who said he has an old PC, but turned out to be one of later models on windows XP, and probably too advanced for the liking of my dated software, my engraving machine and its programe is also copyright protected with a hardware keys (2 dongles ) piggy backed, and needs to be plugged into a parallel port as well as the mother board has its own hardware card in one of the slots.

The BIOS chip that has become corrupted in both computers, but the one in Windows 98 that was running perfectly one minute until I installed the slave HD from the other computer, which is what corrupted it as well, I have no clue how it managed to do that, must be something on the HD that modifies BIOS settings.

Tomorrow I am going to purchase USB to IDE interface/converter and see if I can read any of the contents of the HD, loads of work related files, some quite important and current, I hope to save the files if I could, otherwise it means I will be lumped up with having to programme all my jobs again, a pain taking task,

The make of Windows 98 computer running on a pentium chip (not sure what version as it means i got to take heat sink out) and mother board is G586 IPV Rev CA.

I am not sure a hard disc failure caused the problem or the other way around, if it was the HD, it wouldn't be both would it? not sure though, very confused, its never happened to me like that, but once I did destroy a mother board by accidentally injecting static charge into MB through the front panel buttons near the key lock (metal) which was mounted on a plastic sub-chassis and the static charge entered from my body into the key switch and jumped on to switch contacts and wires and went straight into MB destroying it, that is when I took it to a computer repair shop and the guy said instead of a new MB, he sold me an old PC 386 on Win3.11, and that is the one that has now succumbed to death almost 8 years ago that was.
 
Doggit said:
Sorry Mike, but I suspect you're hard disk is the problem, and it's then corrupting the Bios, or the cpu. When you took your hard disk out of the tower pc, did you put the old slave drive back in, or reset the HDD1 to be the master, or only disc in the system - bear with me, haven't touch a 386 system in 20 years. Do you have copies of windows 3.11, MSDOS 6.22, and you're engraving software. Although you can't get the engraving software to run on a current version of windows, you should be able to get msdos to run on a modern computer after reformatting the hard drive to a FAT 16 format
Click to expand...
Yes I have copies of all the OS, and software discs for engraving machine called Cipher, made by an Australian company. I purchased this second hand machine in 1998 for 5 grand! All modern machines are inferior, made of cast aluminium, this one is cast iron and solid and heavy duty.
 
Just ran that dallas bios chip in my jig, I made sure that my write command was disabled so I don't accidently erase or over write anything into the chip, enabled the chip and no output data at all, which means all the data in the bios chip has been erased somehow by that HD, tried to write random data and it failed, so the chip has had it.
 
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terrible news, bought the usb to SATA/IDE interface, but both HD failed to show up anything, one did not even spin, the other spins but no data comes emerged, now and again you hear the heads moving, but still no data, tried a spare SATA HD, it worked, so my worst fears I have lost 15 years worth of work on those HDs.

Now I am really appalled that my idea of having a SLAVE drive was to back up data in it, so i had backed up many files into this slave drive almost 80% of my work was backed up in this slave drive, and I can't understand how on earth can both drives fail in just one go without any warnings.

I am well pi$$ed off, whet it mean now I will have to dig out original floppies which contained the software package for the running of this engraving machine, and as well as another package that ran on Windows 3.11, called Casmate, this allowed me to design jobs and then export them to Cipher package using .PLT extensions to run the 3 axis engraving machine through a dedicated controller that slots into ISA style slots, (Long black slots) which are now obsolete on most later mother boards, as most now use PCI slots (Short white ones) and parallel port also required these security or license key dongles.

If I were to start with a brand new package that runs on modern computers, that package is likely to not interface with engraving machine controller card.

Those who want to know about ISA and PCI slots have a look at this article
http://www.karbosguide.com/books/pcarchitecture/chapter25.htm

So a lesson learned, back up your work in a separate storage, and check it regularly that back up hasn't crashed, and for more important work, make two backups.

My last try will be to post my HD to a company that can retrieve data from HDs, they may charge me quite a bit, but I have toms of important files, not that I am likely to need all files but some for sure, they only charge if data is recovered, but no charges if they fail.
 
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Modern computers don't have parallel ports, but you used to be able to get Parallel ports to plug into the motherboards, but I'm not sure if you'd get one for a new current generation motherboard, so you'd need a 486 with a Parallel port, or possible a 586 board with an IDE slot, and an separate PP board.

Not sure how desperate you are to recover the lost data on the slave disk, but there are data recovery companies out there. I had a corrupted disk, and they logged in over the phone, diagnosed the disk, and said that it'd cost £350 to do the recovery, except their initial tests reset the disk, and it worked again; so I just told them I'd think about it, and get back to them.

And I'm quietly praying that you're OS and program disks haven't become corrupted as well.
 
I have gone through 100s of floppy discs, I found all the ones I need to load up the software, including Windows 3.11, and dos 6.2, I will just need to buy a new IDE HD and then load windows, after that I will need to load this engraving machine software from about 7 floppies, and various true fonts and symbols from another 11 discs, and then about 8 floppies to load up Controller software for the machine itself. The PC which had windows 98 that crashed when connected the slave HD from my other computer, and caused its Bios chip to fail, would have been no good any way due to no ISA slots.

I have also got a CD that contains a graphics package called Scanvec CASmate for windows which is where one does all the designing of jobs and save files in its own folder as .scv files, as well as export these to the other package that runs on Dos and controls the engraving axis, and ends up as .plt files, (plate files used mostly on engraving machines)

I also rang a company who supply engraving machines and cutters and materials, software, who originally took over servicing and spares for my machine, but no longer supply any new mechanical machines, or do any software for controlling mechanical engravers as all trends are now towards laser engraving, the world is moving too fast, I wonder what will be next .....nuclear engraving machines!

Might consider looking at cheap Chinese 3 axis engraver/routing machine and use its software to control my machine somehow. I would like to continue to use this machine and continue to work earning a living, but sometimes you are forced to stop when parts, materials, support stops, and you are left stranded, forced to quit.
since December last year I have been nothing but struggling at every corner to continue to manufacture a product that i designed back in 1986, that i am still selling and not only that no one would believe if I said currently trying to meet an order for them from USA. But at every corner I had to overcome major hurdles like the 16K memory chips are no longer being manufactured, I had to order some from China. Some Molex connectors also became obsolete causing me so much aggro, I had to order alternative available from only one place in USA, other equivalent connectors were completely useless. Stress is what causes me to give up and come on here to relieve pressure. Life sucks!
 
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Life sucks no more! I managed to force data out of my crashed computers Master HD, earlier attempts were unsuccessful as my laptop would not recognise faulty HD through IDE to USB interface, but if I plugged in a SATA HD that is known to work, it gets recognised and opens up, but for some reason the crashed HD would not open or get recognised, though it spins, so I tried to cheat the system and in doing so I successfully retrieved important files, basically my attempt at this succeeded as expected, but happened by pure luck, and it has now saved me £400.00 as I had spoken to a firm who arranged for me to send the HDs to them on Monday.

So when my laptop would not recognise or open the G drive as when I connected it to my USB port, I went to my Picture folder and clicked on a picture I chose randomly, and right clicked and asked it to be send to....(expecting it to say to USB port)...and moments later a new box opened showing me various drives i.e.Drive C, drive B, Drive E, drive F but still did not show drive G that I was expecting, so that I would then pick the drive G, where I would have asked it to be send to, but drive G was still missing, and little did I know whilst G drive did not show up, but my laptop was working on it somehow, and all of a sudden the G drive opened displkaying all the contents, as a seperate window and I immediately recognised all the files it listed, and bingo! I was overjoyed!

So then i did not even bother with that picture I asked to be send to, I went straight away making a new folder to start transferring files from my crashed HD to a folder on my desk top, so as this file transfer was progressing suddenly my lap top came up with a message your computer is Logging Off, and I though WTF!

And I tried in vain to stop that action, but my cursor control was gone, and the laptop logged off and started to boot up again, and the next message came on there was Windows 10 update is in progress! (Barsteward! I have been putting off windows 10 free upgrade as I didn't need this poxy upgrade, I was content with windows 7) so the next two hours this damn upgrade took place and my crashed HD kept spinning all the while, having only transferred half the number of files when this happened, and now the update has completed, I can't damn find how to get to my computer from where I can check if it is showing that my G drive is still recoganised and and I can continue to transfer the rest of that drive! Sometimes life sucks and then you suck life, and then something else happens unexpectedly, seems like I am surrounded by jinks, I will have to visit a voodoo man and ask him to lift out these evil spells someone has set on me!

Still happy that the most important files have been rescued.

But my ordeal is not over yet, I now have the task of reformatting and reloading software and reinstall the faulty HD back in my PC, and then get going, and learn the new frigging windows 10, I hate all these new upgrades, loads of *******s!
 
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Sorry Mike, I'm glad that you're moving forward (well sort of) but you're a victim of the relentless march of W10, and they're not taking prisoners. You're supposed to be able to backtrack to your previous version, but at the end of the day, you'll lose support on you're current system - not that I think you need much.

I was a computer consultant, and things things suddenly changed so fast, that I was struggling to keep up. For me, the change of direction (to landlord and builder) was an easy one, and sort of just happened, but I suspect you're struggling to hang on to what you're used to. You're either going to adapt the equipment and software you use, make a niche market for yourself, or change direction. Double check you're backups, and make numerous copies. Keep them safe from heat light and magnetism, and always remember, that if something can go wrong, then at some stage, it will.

Best of luck
 
Thank you Doggit, indeed a big lesson learned, back up all my computers, particularly the ones you use for work, including book and record keeping , invoicing etc.
yes indeed I have been very fortunate, when that HD kicked in, but if I were to get back in it to scan it with antivirus software, I can no longer get in, so I had been very very lucky that even if by fluke, I got in and saved all the files even after the win 10 upgrade, and got to my computer as it is now called This PC, what is wrong with Microsoft? why do they have to change names of objects or tasks, it used to be called My computer, then name changed to just "Computer" and now This PC, next they will be naming it The drives, and so on. Thanks for your moral support, it helps.
 
Thank you Doggit, I think I am going to need some help for sure, that Hard disk I manged to unload data has finally given up the ghost, so I have been very fortunate that it did manage to run a few times and allowed me to do that. Today I went to a so called computer fair in Stratford, hoping to pick up an old IDE hard drive, but no one had one there, everyone claimed to break up old computers and scrap HDs at 60p/kilo! crazy, and everyone laughed or raised eyebrows when I said I am after an old computer pre windows 95, and people said pre 95, there weren't any pre95 computers, and I said yes there were, first mass produced computers were PC286, which only ran on Dos, and followed by 386 and 486 which ran on dos as well as windows 3.1 and 3.11. people look at you as if I have come from another planet!

so i am after a working mother board for win 3.11 or ones with a couple of ISA slots and the rest can be a few PCI slots, and doesn't have to be running on windows 3.11, I am sure windows 95 or 98 could also run my software, let me know what you have. Thanks
 
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