[Coco] Replacement for possible bad AT 286 hard drive subsystem

[Spencer]

Run fdisk to see if it sees the HDD.  If it does that's good; fdisk for partitions; format it; install DOS.  If fdisk doesn't see it can you tell if the HDD spins up? The older drives will almost sound like a toy jet taking off. Some times the older drives will freeze after years of sitting.  If it's not spinning you can resurrect them sometimes.  I've simply taken the drives out and shake them a little back and forth. Also go into the cmos and make sure you see it there - actually do this before you run fdisk.  If not add it or try an auto-detect if the system can do so then fdisk.  If no auto-detect add the specs on the face plate label of the HDD. If no label you add ad-lib specs. Resurrecting old systems are a lot of fun; you may find yourself determined to get it running.  For parts ebay; likely you'll find parts. Blow out the system real well.
 

    On Wednesday, December 20, 2017, 9:31:17 PM EST, Salvador Garcia via Coco <coco at maltedmedia.com> wrote:  
 
 Hi all,

Reading Andrew's post on using an old PC with floppies piqued my interest in resurrecting an old 286 PC with 8/16 bit ISA buss that I have which also includes 1 360KB and 1 1.2M floppy drive. I had booted it successfully into MS-DOS; however, the last time I did this I got a hard drive failure. Booted MS-DOS fine using the floppy.

Lack of time, a very heavy PC, and a cold winter have impeded me from doing further tests on it, but if the HD subsystem is bad, what options are availabIe to replace it?

Although somewhat off topic, I posted here because the motivation is CoCo related :-)

Thank you and wishing all a great Christmas and New Year. Salvador

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