Old Computer (486) problem.

[ArtemisGoldfish]

Alright, if anyone knows anything about good ol' 486 PC's and their weird fits of problems, I could use some help.

I recently got an ancient 486 from a friend (along with some printers, but that's neither here, nor there) and I used the AMIBIOS Hard disk format tool to blank the drive and reinstall DOS and Win3.1. To get an idea how old this is, think pre-PCI and pre-VESA slot. It has a few 8-bit slots, ISA and EISA. It also has one of those huge old floppy disk drives, and a 3.5" HD floppy drive. I try to use floppy disks to boot into and install DOS (I have multiple OS floppy sets, one is DOS 5.0, another is DOS 6.22, both of which are afflicted with the problem) and every time I put the first (or even the other) install disks in, it gives me a Non-System Disk error, or the like, much like it would in a modern computer.

Does anyone have any ideas? Can this old beast only boot from a floppy if it's one of the huge old ones? Would it be possible to use the Hard drive and floppy disk, plug it into another computer, and install DOS and the like?

Thanks!
~John

 

[3v0]

Would it be possible to use the Hard drive and floppy disk, plug it into another computer, and install DOS and the like?

Thanks!
~John

The above would be the most fool proof. The DOS install will not be a problem. IIRC you can put a DOS HD into most any machine of the period and it will boot. This is because DOS uses calls to the motherboards ROM BIOS to do IO. If you have video or other drivers that you need to install just copy them to the HD but wait to install them till you have the HD booted in the 486 where the hardware the drivers are for exist.

Could be several problems with the floppy.

• Check the bios for boot order. (do this in any carse)
• The floppy drive could be out of alignment or just toast.
• The floppy drive controller could be toast.
• The floppy drive could have a bad cable or cabled wrong.

The position of the floppy on the cable determines if it is A or B.
HTH
3v0

 

[Marks256]

My first guess would be that the drive is bad. Replace it (or clean it and see if that is the problem).

 

[Gaston]

i would put a 3.5 floppy on there and make surte the bios is set to boot off of the floppy and boot it with a 98 boot disk . then fdisk the hard disk. then you can install you os. the good thing about the 3.5 floppy is you can use your normal pc to make floppies. you can probably get by with windows 98. as long as you keep it lean.

 

[Andy1845c]

What exactly are you going to do with it? Wern't 486's from the early 90's?

 

[Sceadwian]

The head is likley out of alignement, it's a common thing to happen after 3.5 discs became ultra cheap. Drives like that will only read discs they've written.

 

[ArtemisGoldfish]

What exactly are you going to do with it? Wern't 486's from the early 90's?

I kinda collect old computers, and I like playing with the old stuff. Anyways, I hooked up the ol' 212MB hard drive (which turned out to be an old Caviar 2200) and installed DOS and Win3.1 on it, and found out that the old 3.5" floppy in it was dead, so I replaced it with a more modern drive and it worked. Next, I plan to put a second hard drive in the thing: An old Apple IDE drive

Well, I'm also fighting with some annoying PS/2-to-Serial mouse problems, but I'm sure I can fix these without too much fuss. Well, thanks all!

 

[audioguru]

I bought my 486-66MHz pc in 1994. It came with only 4MB of RAM. Over the years I upgraded it to a 486-100MHz, replaced its bios and 540MB hard drive with a 2.1GB one, increased its RAM to 52MB, installed Win98 and ran it on high speed cable internet for years. Then its replaced hard drive blew up two years ago.

 

[BeeBop]

The most useful thing would be the ISA bus. (PCI bus is at least as difficult as using USB.) I think there are still lots of these old work-horses doing data logging. Most of the 'bloat' in modern OSs comes from the fact that we seem to need a graphics intensive human interface. I think for most purposes, computers are little more than entertainment.

 

[Marks256]

I have seen many 486s being used as network firewalls. I heard they work great for floppy firewalls, as well. The great thing about 486s, is that most of them don't require a fan (just a nice heat-sink). This way they can be ran as a silent system (after the PSU gets hacked so no fan is needed, and the HD is replaced...)

If my crap ISP allows me to get a static IP so i can host my own website(for the record, Wild Blue sucks...), i will probably use a 486 (or 386) as my network firewall.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I have seen many 486s being used as network firewalls. I heard they work great for floppy firewalls, as well. The great thing about 486s, is that most of them don't require a fan (just a nice heat-sink). This way they can be ran as a silent system (after the PSU gets hacked so no fan is needed, and the HD is replaced...)

If my crap ISP allows me to get a static IP so i can host my own website(for the record, Wild Blue sucks...), i will probably use a 486 (or 386) as my network firewall.

Don't you use a router?, most of those have a Firewall anyway!. Most ISP's won't allow you a static IP, and if they will you have to pay extra for it. The ISP I use at works allows them, and so when I ordered ADSL I specified a static IP "just in case" - we don't currently use it for anything, but no one else at works understands it, so it might come in useful for ME!! one day

And it's not my money, so the extra doesn't matter!

 

[Hero999]

You really don't need a lots of memory and a fast processor if all you want to do is browse the Internet and wordprocessing.

What do you want to do with this computer?

If you want to experiment with different operating systems then you could have a play with Linux, FreeDOS or FreeBSD.

 

[Sceadwian]

I dunno, with newer net applications websites run slower and slower on those older machines.
Getting a static IP will cost you more than you want, if you want to host a web site use an external provider. Especially with cable which is absolutely way too slow upstream to host a website. If more than two people are on your site you can't use your machine =) Besides, even using a DHCP server I've had the same IP address for at least 6 months.

 

[picasm]

I have seen many 486s being used as network firewalls. I

I used to use an old pc as a linux router/firewall (Smoothwall or IPCop).
I fitted a very large cpu heatsink, slowed-down the PSU fan and fitted an old laptop HD which was very quiet.

It was very configurable. Many software add-ons were available to do things like add custom blocklists, traffic shaping etc.

I eventually replaced it with a standard router to get wireless networking though.

 

[Sceadwian]

Considering the speed of the machine being used as the firewall it would probably be easier to crash the firewall on it via a DNS style attack than it would on the host PC itself if it were running firewall software.

 

[Hero999]

I dunno, with newer net applications websites run slower and slower on those older machines.

Thats true I suppose but there not that many sites like that, for instance a text only browser like Lynx can be used to browse these forums and it will run fast even on a 386.

 

[picasm]

Considering the speed of the machine being used as the firewall it would probably be easier to crash the firewall on it via a DNS style attack than it would on the host PC itself if it were running firewall software.

My old linux pc firewall was very reliable.
My new "proper" router also runs linux (embedded) and I don't suppose it has a very fast cpu either.

Another reason why it may not be good idea to host a website from home is that if your site gets featured on digg or gets a denial of service attack, you may also loose your outgoing internet access or exceed your bandwidth.

There are now some very cheap web hosting deals with US companies if you search around.

 

[Andy1845c]

There are now some very cheap web hosting deals with US companies if you search around.

Yeah, I use https://www.holhost.com Pretty cheap and I've had good luck so far with uptime, ect.

 

[hack]

Non system disk means it cannot find anything bootable on the disks specified in the boot order in the bios.

Power off the machine.
Power on the machine. - older machines need a hard boot to allow access to the bios - meaning ctrl alt del will not suffice.
look for an instruction that says pres del to run setup or press F2 to run setup or something like that and you will enter the bios. Search around in there (it is menu driven) and find the boot order and make sure your A drive or B drive is the first in your boot order.

You can also make a new boot disk. Search google for DOS boot disk and you'll find several web sites that offer programs you can download on your main computer boot from.