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Getting Hardcard 20 to work with Compaq Portable II

Rubix

Rubix

Experienced Member
Joined
May 20, 2007
Messages
163
Hi all,

Yesterday I repaired a Compaq Portable II with dual disk drives. It's not in a great condition; lots of shorted tantalum capacitors and sticky drive doors. But it works now for the most part.

However, I can't get the Hardcard 20 that was in it to work. Maybe it's broken, but maybe I'm just doing something wrong.

One thing I did was of course pull the CMOS battery of 1989 out, so I have no info on the original configuration.

Symptoms:
  • After memory and floppy tests, the BIOS then hangs with a little static + in the top right corner, for about 5 minutes. Then the computer continues to boot.
  • I changed the jumper on the card from PC to XT, but then it immediately (without the long pause) shows error 1701.
  • When I try to install the Hardcard with the disk image I found on this forum, it shows a message saying that it can't communicate with the Hardcard. So apparently the installer doesn't find it at all.
  • The drive does spin up. It doesn't seek but that could be because the controller card hasn't initialized.

I have configured the BIOS as follows:

  • Drive A and B 360K floppy drives
  • No HDD's (so no C and D drive)

I have tried setting drive C to Type 2 but that didn't make a difference.

The jumper on the Hardcard was set to 'PC' (not 'XT') and I think that that is correct, since the Portable II doesn't have a factory HDD card installed.

Any suggestions? This card looks really cool and I would love to get it to operate correctly.

Thanks!
 
The Plus HardCard 20 Utility Disk image there is the one I used to try and install the card. I don't know about the BIOS images. I read something about a program called 'Debug' and that it could read the ROM, apparently it's part of MS-DOS. I am hoping to avoid that though.
 
These are 8-bit controllers with their own BIOS, so the CMOS drive type setting in an AT style machine should normally be set to "none".

The "+" at startup at least indicates that the computer is talking to the card, and running the card's BIOS.

These cards can only be low-level formatted with a special utility. It's not clear if that is one of the tools on the "install" disk.
 
Thanks, that's what I thought. It's interesting how apparently the computer does communicate with the card but later on, can't seem to recognize it. I think it also shouldn't take over 5 minutes to continue through BIOS but I have no idea what causes that either.

I don't know what the files on the disk do other than the installer. To me they seem utilities that are only useful after the card has been successfully installed.

EDIT: I just booted the Compaq again (with the CMOS obviously erased) and now after the long wait, it shows the 1701 error for controller #0.
 
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That's a 286, right. I've got a 16-bit 170MB hardcard that would work in it.

attachment.php
 
Rubix said:
Thanks, that's what I thought. It's interesting how apparently the computer does communicate with the card but later on, can't seem to recognize it. I think it also shouldn't take over 5 minutes to continue through BIOS but I have no idea what causes that either.
Click to expand...
That just means that the card logic is OK, but the drive is likely dead. Chances are the card is programed to wait for the drive to spin up and fully enter the "ready" state, but that is not happening.
 
There is nothing special about hard cards.

If I remember correctly, the first company to market a hard card was Mountain Computer. I won one of their earliest Hard cards (20mb) when I attended Comdex in Las Vegas one year.

The earliest Hard Cards are/were simply 8-bit MFM hard disk controller cards with an early 3.5" MFM hard drive mounted to the card with a metal frame. After the Hard Cards from Mountain Computer, the Hard Drive Companies themselves got into the hard card business. Western Digital, Tandon, and CMS among others...

Treat a hard card no different than you would a MFM hard disk controller card, and a separate MFM hard drive. Meaning, that you must low level format the drive, and then partition the drive before the computer can see it.
 
In my experience, Plus 20s rarely ever work without a lot of help anyway. They are very prone to stiction.

If you get it spinning, don't ever turn it off.
 
Thank you all for your answers!

Stone said:
That's a 286, right. I've got a 16-bit 170MB hardcard that would work in it.

attachment.php
Click to expand...
That might be nice to get the Compaq working again if the Hardcard 20 is dead.


SomeGuy said:
That just means that the card logic is OK, but the drive is likely dead. Chances are the card is programed to wait for the drive to spin up and fully enter the "ready" state, but that is not happening.
Click to expand...
I hear it spinning up though, any ideas on what could be wrong with the drive itself? Is there a way to test the controller card?

KC9UDX said:
In my experience, Plus 20s rarely ever work without a lot of help anyway. They are very prone to stiction.

If you get it spinning, don't ever turn it off.
Click to expand...
It does spin up, so I don't think it's stiction.

Apart from the drive itself, it would be nice to be able to read the data that's on it.
 
Rubix said:
I hear it spinning up though, any ideas on what could be wrong with the drive itself? Is there a way to test the controller card?
Click to expand...
It could be that the mechanism that moves the heads heads is stuck. Perhaps tap the end of the drive with a wrench, but not too hard. Perhaps leave it somewhere warm for a while (if it doesn't already get warm in side the computer). I'd also check the cable the connects the drive to the card.

Running the non-destructive tests in SpeedStor might let you hear if the heads are moving, but with the current behavior, I would expect SpeedStor will behave as if no drive is attached to the card.

Crashed heads are actually a little unlikely as most MFM/RLL drives have no smarts in that area and will enter "ready" and attempt formatting even if the heads are destroyed.

Googling around a tad, SpeedStor can attempt to low-level format this drive, but it will get it wrong and result in a drive that appears unusable. But re-formatting it with the hardcard formatter supposedly corrects this.

It would be good if someone could confirm the "install" linked here does the low-level format or not, that would be helpful.

I don't know if this has a standard "MFM" interface connector, ideally you would try attaching a different drive or connecting the drive to another controller.
 
Rubix said:
Apart from the drive itself, it would be nice to be able to read the data that's on it.
Click to expand...

I wish I had helpful advice, but in my personal experience with Plus hardcards, they started to self-destruct after 10 years. Out of all of the ones I've worked with, the Plus 20/40s drives died, and the 80/100/etc. higher models, the EEPROM that holds the BIOS lost its contents. The only one I have that still works has the odd problem of being able to read the existing contents, but not write (all attempts at writing immediately return with a failure from the BIOS).

I second the stiction comment; I was able to retrieve the data off of a 20 by taking the cover off and carefully un-sticking the head with a piece of paper. This let it spin up and I got the contents off before it died for good.
 
From a previous thread on this site:

compu_85
June 29th, 2006, 08:27 PM​
Tidbit: There is a driver that gets installed in config.sys for the hardcard. Without the driver, you can't write to the drive.

-Jason
 
Chuckster_in_Jax said:
From a previous thread on this site:

compu_85
June 29th, 2006, 08:27 PM​
Tidbit: There is a driver that gets installed in config.sys for the hardcard. Without the driver, you can't write to the drive.

-Jason
Click to expand...
Don't believe everything you read online.

I write to mine on various machines without loading the supplied driver.
 
Stone said:
Don't believe everything you read online.

I write to mine on various machines without loading the supplied driver.
Click to expand...

Indeed. Because in my personal experience with the HCII, I definitely needed the driver loaded.
 
It's been several years ago, but I remember getting a couple of those 105MB hard cards and I could not write to them until I installed some driver. The smaller capacity hard cards didn't need the drivers.
 
Again, thank you for all your replies.

I ran SpeedStor and it came up with a controller error:

speedstor.jpg

I configured the drive as a generic Type 2, since I couln't find the Hardcard in the standard list of manufacturers. I didn't try initialization since that would remove its contents (if it would work, that is).

Concerning the driver: the install diskette doesn't contain one and this thread and this one seem to indicate that the HC20 doesn't need a driver.

Trixter said:
I wish I had helpful advice, but in my personal experience with Plus hardcards, they started to self-destruct after 10 years. Out of all of the ones I've worked with, the Plus 20/40s drives died, and the 80/100/etc. higher models, the EEPROM that holds the BIOS lost its contents. The only one I have that still works has the odd problem of being able to read the existing contents, but not write (all attempts at writing immediately return with a failure from the BIOS).

I second the stiction comment; I was able to retrieve the data off of a 20 by taking the cover off and carefully un-sticking the head with a piece of paper. This let it spin up and I got the contents off before it died for good.
Click to expand...
That doesn't sound too good then... Could it be that the ROM in this one got bad as well? If I can't get it to work, I won't open it up. It's nice to have it in my collection as-is.
I love my old Seagate drives, they don't seem to be bothered by any abuse or aging.

SomeGuy said:
It could be that the mechanism that moves the heads heads is stuck. Perhaps tap the end of the drive with a wrench, but not too hard. Perhaps leave it somewhere warm for a while (if it doesn't already get warm in side the computer). I'd also check the cable the connects the drive to the card.

Running the non-destructive tests in SpeedStor might let you hear if the heads are moving, but with the current behavior, I would expect SpeedStor will behave as if no drive is attached to the card.

Crashed heads are actually a little unlikely as most MFM/RLL drives have no smarts in that area and will enter "ready" and attempt formatting even if the heads are destroyed.

Googling around a tad, SpeedStor can attempt to low-level format this drive, but it will get it wrong and result in a drive that appears unusable. But re-formatting it with the hardcard formatter supposedly corrects this.

It would be good if someone could confirm the "install" linked here does the low-level format or not, that would be helpful.

I don't know if this has a standard "MFM" interface connector, ideally you would try attaching a different drive or connecting the drive to another controller.
Click to expand...
It doesn't have a standard interface connector, everything's really nicely integrated. There's no cable between the drive and the controller part either. Should I try to tap it while it's running, or with the power off?
 
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With my fetish for old hard drives, I have collected quite a few hardcards. I have six Plus hardcards now. Two 10 meg, three 20 meg, and a 40 meg. Of these, one of the 10s works, and two of the 20s. All of these drives suffered from the heads not being able to move out from the parked position. All but two of the drives would spin up OK, but then would emit a high pitched buzzing and would not come ready. There is a vertical post inside the drive that acts as a stop for the head mechanism when parked. This post has a rubber surface, and that rubber is the kind that turns to goo after many years. The sticky goo holds the heads in the parked position, and the drive can't come ready.

I was able to open the drives and remove the goo, and replace it with a short piece of insulation jacket from a scrap cable. I was very apprehensive about opening the drive of course, but it was of no use to me if I had to whack it to get it to operate. Just getting the plastic cover off of the drive to access the cover screws was quite an operation. Once opened, the repair was tedious, but the drives proved very tolerant of being opened. I have repaired one of the 10 meg drives, and two of the 20 meg models this way.

Those three drives work perfectly now, no surface defects at all. The 40 meg drive and one of the 20 meg drives suffer from stiction. No amount of whacking will start them. I pull the cover on the 40, and nudge the spindle to start it spinning. It will then boot up and I was able to recover the contents. I also found that some versions of the firmware allows Super Stor to low level format the drive, and some version inhibit it. In my small sample I have not encountered the corrupt ROM issue. None of them require a driver to be written to.
 
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