PLEASE HELP!!! I have a Compaq Portable 286 that the Hard Drive died in. I have a replacement but i can't get into the bios as i have no boot floppy for it. Can someone help me get a image of this floppy or a floppy boot disk?
I'd suggest you post about this on the vintage computing forums: http://www.vcfed.org/forum/forum.php There are a lot of people there who can assist you.
Off hand I don't think we have the Compaq Portable setup programs and diagnostics here, but I am fairly sure those are out there, and someone on the VCF would know for sure.
Not positive, but you may actually be able to use a generic AT 286 setup. There were dozens of those and most are still floating around.
Do you just need the software, or do you need to obtain a physical floppy disk?
ibmpc5150 wrote:
HP seems to support to distribute disk of Compaq Diagnostics.
I tested it on Compaq Diagnostics with Compaq Deskpro 386.
viewtopic.php?f=36&t=8165&start=25
I see from the link you tested on PCem10.1. Great post.
I have been trying to get the Compaq DeskPro 386 running for some time, with no success.
Using these setup disks, I was able to get the DeskPro setup with similar settings as in your link.
My only problem was the download disks (both 360k and 720k) would not boot.
Created Disks on both PCem10.1 and on Real Digital 486 PC.
Kept getting "Load Failure" error after the F1 setup was pressed (from both created disk sets)
Solved this by copying all 720k files to a good 1.44m Dos 3.3 boot disk.
Using this disk, PC booted from the F1 key.
DeskPro 386 Setup was completed as shown in your link by running SETUP from the disk.
I tried to complete the setup using 1.44m as A: and 1.2m as B:, but setup would not complete.
Using 1.44m for both diskettes allowed SETUP to complete and reboot with no errors.
Probably an easy fix to setup for a 1.2m diskette, but this SETUP is fine for now.
Slowly, I am getting more of the PCs setup on PCem.
I didn't realize until recently that early 286 and 386 PCs required setup disks.
My earliest AT style PC was a Gateway 2000 386-25 and you could access the bios from the keyboard.
I guess it pays to check the Winboards periodically.
Comments
Off hand I don't think we have the Compaq Portable setup programs and diagnostics here, but I am fairly sure those are out there, and someone on the VCF would know for sure.
Not positive, but you may actually be able to use a generic AT 286 setup. There were dozens of those and most are still floating around.
Do you just need the software, or do you need to obtain a physical floppy disk?
360KB (SP0316.ZIP)
ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp0000-0500/sp0316.zip
720KB (SP0308.ZIP)
ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp0000-0500/sp0308.zip
It seems to work on Compaq Deskpro 286.
But if you can't make (copy) this file on floppy drive, I can attach disk image of it if you want.
Holy crap, HP still has those on their website?
They don't have my PalmOS stuff anymore, I just kind of assumed they deleted old stuff, but now I just know they're BS'ing me!
I tested it on Compaq Diagnostics with Compaq Deskpro 386.
viewtopic.php?f=36&t=8165&start=25
HP seems to support to distribute disk of Compaq Diagnostics.
I tested it on Compaq Diagnostics with Compaq Deskpro 386.
viewtopic.php?f=36&t=8165&start=25
I see from the link you tested on PCem10.1. Great post.
I have been trying to get the Compaq DeskPro 386 running for some time, with no success.
Using these setup disks, I was able to get the DeskPro setup with similar settings as in your link.
My only problem was the download disks (both 360k and 720k) would not boot.
Created Disks on both PCem10.1 and on Real Digital 486 PC.
Kept getting "Load Failure" error after the F1 setup was pressed (from both created disk sets)
Solved this by copying all 720k files to a good 1.44m Dos 3.3 boot disk.
Using this disk, PC booted from the F1 key.
DeskPro 386 Setup was completed as shown in your link by running SETUP from the disk.
I tried to complete the setup using 1.44m as A: and 1.2m as B:, but setup would not complete.
Using 1.44m for both diskettes allowed SETUP to complete and reboot with no errors.
Probably an easy fix to setup for a 1.2m diskette, but this SETUP is fine for now.
Slowly, I am getting more of the PCs setup on PCem.
I didn't realize until recently that early 286 and 386 PCs required setup disks.
My earliest AT style PC was a Gateway 2000 386-25 and you could access the bios from the keyboard.
I guess it pays to check the Winboards periodically.
Thanks.
Yes, the Compaq Diagnostics disk supports 5.25" (360KB) and 3.5" (720KB) only.