Evie's Conquests

[Charadis]

Weird looking computer! Oddly, that Compaq reminds me of my family's first computer, an Acer Aspire (we got one in 1995 or 96). All black though, but the monitor seemed to blend with the desktop base. Sam's Club salesperson told us on the specs, it would be the last computer we'd ever have to buy. 

Here is one...not my picture, but from another posting at davidicke.com: 

Nice score on the LaserActive. I honestly never heard of such a thing until you posted here. And, of course, I'd have to search it on the Bay to realize rarity.   Looks like you've got a sweet setup! 

 

[EvieSigma]

Yeah, and I was stunned when it actually worked too! 

 

[Unknown_K]

Problem with that is the battery is soldered, as the picture further up shows...and I haven't gotten around to buying a soldering iron.

Hard drive and CD are on separate IDE buses and the hard drive is Master so that shouldn't be an issue.

I have a couple Compaqs with batteries like that (have yet to need to replace them).

 

[EvieSigma]

Asking around on the VCF forums reveals the original (dead) hard drive had a special partition for storing BIOS settings and the like, so now I just need to find the proper diskette to create that image on the replacement hard drive.

 

[Unknown_K]

Test that "dead" HD on another machine to see if it works.

Yes, there are configuration floppy disks images for Compaq machines of that era. I had to dig around and find some for my 486 and P1 towers. The machines will function without that files in a default mode I think as long as the CMOS battery is good.

 

[EvieSigma]

I mean, I kinda just assumed it was dead because A: Maxtor and B: the machine can't boot from it (you just get a non-system disk error), but I can throw it in something else and test it out.

 

[Unknown_K]

Never hurts to be sure. If the configuration is screwed up (it is if the battery is dead) then the HD is not being recognized correctly.

Old small HDs that are period correct are getting hard to find.

 

[EvieSigma]

Yeah, that's why I had a 2.1GB Seagate and a 3.2GB Western Digital stashed to begin with...

I suppose it won't hurt to test the drive, I can do that while I'm putting a new 5.25 floppy in my AT box.

 

[EvieSigma]

Well this makes absolutely no sense, I took the Maxtor drive out, re-jumpered it as Master, and it worked in my AT box. 

However, despite me running a setup disk I made, I just can't boot off the hard drive. It just won't work.

 

[Unknown_K]

Boot from a DOS bootable disk and run fdisk to see if there are more then 1 partition on the hard drive. the MBR (master boot record) might be screwed up or when you formatted the drive you didin't do a format c: /s for system.

Linux installs can do funky things with the MBR that you need to do special things in DOS to fix.

 

[EvieSigma]

Well, when I booted it in the AT box it had a standard Compaq OEM install of Windows 95 on it. Yet if I boot off a Windows 98 boot disk and run fdisk there's no fixed disk present.

The disk is recognized properly in the setup program (type 65, 1628MB, etc) but the settings don't get saved even if the machine's receiving power and so it's basically useless to run the setup.

I also noticed the setup program shows the CPU running at 137MHz, which is...impossible, so it must actually be 133MHz.

 

[Unknown_K]

What OS are you planning on running on that thing? You have shown me the original HD is probably fine, and that you need the CMOS battery replaced before you move on.

 

[EvieSigma]

95 or 98, those are the only two I run on Pentium Is of this era (an early Pentium 1 like a Socket 5 75MHz might get either DOS or 95). I'm really curious what the built-in sound hardware is like because this would be a pretty okay mid-90s gaming machine as long as you don't play any intensive 3D stuff (it's a S3 Trio64 graphics chipset, as seemingly everything was circa 1996).

 

[Unknown_K]

I have a Compaq Pressario 4770 tower that has all those multimedia buttons on top plus matching (I think) keyboard and W98 is what I think I installed on it.

https://us.driverscollection.com/?H=Compaq Presario 4402&By=HP

the place linked above seems to have the drivers you need.

 

[EvieSigma]

Yeah, that's where I found that setup diskette, though instead of a diskette image it was a .exe that creates a disk. I'd imagine the BIOS update that's also available does the same thing.

I'd try updating the BIOS but I don't think it would fix the problem...

 

[EvieSigma]

Well, I fixed the Presario! Here's Windows 95 in all its bloated (look at that free space!) glory! And of course you can't mess around with a Windows 95 computer without listening to Canyon.mid.

 

[CC_333]

Well, part of the problem with the bloat is that you've got IE 5.5 installed

Anyway, glad to see it's been fixed. What was wrong with it?

c

 

[EvieSigma]

A dead CMOS battery was just messing with the whole thing, causing the machine to not even recognize its hard drive...one pair of pliers and a jumper adjustment later and now it's fine. I suppose next I'll have to figure out what I can safely delete off the hard drive to free up space, I want to put games on here...

 

[CC_333]

Hmm, sometimes, OEM Windows installs have the setup files under C:\Windows\Options\Cabs. If there's something there, maybe you can copy it off and use it to reinstall Windows from scratch while keeping the OEM branding?

Otherwise, the Add/Remove Programs control panel is your friend....

c

 

[EvieSigma]

I honestly kind of want to upgrade to 98 but I don't want to lose all the cheesy Compaq OEM software (like that MIDI player) in the process.