Compaq Portable II Quantum LP105A with Ontrack Overlay

[geekdad]

I'm in the process of retiring the Quantum LP105A hard drive in my Portable II and need to transfer all the files to another drive. I use the PII for programming radios. The drive works just fine., No errors and scandisk reports it healthy. I just need a better way to get files onto the machine and get more storage.

The Quantum drive has the Ontrack Overlay on it to work with the PII's Multipurpose controller. I was able to move that drive to another PC (A 486 with appropriate jumper changes). The 486's AMI BIOS sees the Quantum and autrodetected it just fine.

The 486 boots to DOS normally and during boot the BIOS reported the extra Quantum dive as expected. Unfortunately DOS can't see it. When I went into FDISK and selected Drive 2 (Quantum) it reported it as a NON-DOS drive.

I have a feeling it's because of the Ontrack Overlay.

I'm looking for a little guidance. My intent is to switch the PII to an XT-CF with the Hard Disk disabled on the Compaq Multipurpose controller. I still need the floppy drive and serial ports.

Any advice?

 

[geekdad]

Well, I was able to solve my problem. I changed the Quantum back to Master and the 486 original master drive as slave and the 486 booted just fine. I was able to copy the contents of the Quantum over to a backup directory on the original 486 drive.

It's interesting the Ontrack overlay prevents the drive from being accessed as a slave.