Switched on the R&S UPL this morning at shop opening time as usual, but this time was greeted with a CMOS battery failure message. I've been around this block many times with old PCs, and the workaround was to reenter the HDD cylinder/track data and leave the unit powered on until a new battery could be obtained.
That trick didn't work this time around.
I entered the disc params exactly according to the screen shot I took a year ago of the working system. But only the battery fail message stopped. Now it's Conflict I/0 port 2f8 3f8, primary master hard disc failure.
Did I miss some other setup parameter? I doubt that both my battery AND HDD failed at the same time.
That trick didn't work this time around.
I entered the disc params exactly according to the screen shot I took a year ago of the working system. But only the battery fail message stopped. Now it's Conflict I/0 port 2f8 3f8, primary master hard disc failure.
Did I miss some other setup parameter? I doubt that both my battery AND HDD failed at the same time.
I've pulled the Fujitsu HDD and connected it to an adapter on a laptop and I can read the HDD just fine on the laptop.
So I reinstalled it in the UPL and went over the CMOS configuration, carefully comparing the numbers against screen shots I took last February. The cylinders, heads and other params match precisely. But when I save and reboot, the drive does not show up in the POST screen as it's starting up.
I even disabled the PRI SLAVE and SEC MASTER/SLAVE ports to focus on the primary master controller which is connected to this drive. It does not see the drive at all.
I also looked for a CMOS battery. I found a .47 farad capacitor on the motherboard, so apparently there is no battery.
So now I'm thinking the motherboard has failed on power up. Bad hard drive controller, or some such thing. There seems to be only one physical HDD connector, so it's not as simple as moving the ribbon cable to another port and rebooting.
So I reinstalled it in the UPL and went over the CMOS configuration, carefully comparing the numbers against screen shots I took last February. The cylinders, heads and other params match precisely. But when I save and reboot, the drive does not show up in the POST screen as it's starting up.
I even disabled the PRI SLAVE and SEC MASTER/SLAVE ports to focus on the primary master controller which is connected to this drive. It does not see the drive at all.
I also looked for a CMOS battery. I found a .47 farad capacitor on the motherboard, so apparently there is no battery.
So now I'm thinking the motherboard has failed on power up. Bad hard drive controller, or some such thing. There seems to be only one physical HDD connector, so it's not as simple as moving the ribbon cable to another port and rebooting.
This is not looking good.
I have tried the backup spare HDD that I cloned and verified as bootable in the UPL last February. I get the same hard disk failure error.
Then I tried disconnecting the HDD completely and setting the BIOS to boot A, C, SCSI order, and with two different bootable DOS diskettes, it reports a disk boot failure and the green light on the 3.5" drive stays on. Cannot reboot with CTRL-ALT-DEL---must power cycle to get out of it.
I've tried removing the top board with the RAM in it and reseating chips and reinstalling it. No change in behavior.
It looks seriously like the computer HDD and Floppy I/O subsystem failed on power up. The "CMOS battery failure" message was probably just a fluke. It no longer appears.
Can this be retrofitted with another PC motherboard?
I have tried the backup spare HDD that I cloned and verified as bootable in the UPL last February. I get the same hard disk failure error.
Then I tried disconnecting the HDD completely and setting the BIOS to boot A, C, SCSI order, and with two different bootable DOS diskettes, it reports a disk boot failure and the green light on the 3.5" drive stays on. Cannot reboot with CTRL-ALT-DEL---must power cycle to get out of it.
I've tried removing the top board with the RAM in it and reseating chips and reinstalling it. No change in behavior.
It looks seriously like the computer HDD and Floppy I/O subsystem failed on power up. The "CMOS battery failure" message was probably just a fluke. It no longer appears.
Can this be retrofitted with another PC motherboard?
Removed the motherboard again and disconnected it enough to flip it over. Found a CR2032 battery on that side of the board. So there's two backups. Took it out, tested it. 1.5V. So replaced with a new battery. Reassembled. Rebooted, refreshed all the CMOS settings. Alas, no change. Still hard disc failure and I/O conflict errors. Just how the hard drive could have an I/O conflict with a serial port is bizarre. I think this thing's toast.
One last thing to try would be the four ports that are on the motherboard itself. But they use old style IDE connections.
One last thing to try would be the four ports that are on the motherboard itself. But they use old style IDE connections.
PROBLEM SOLVED!
When the CMOS lost its memory, it reverted to the on board disc controllers. The HDD and floppy are connected to the digital board, not the computer. The computer on board peripherals must ALL be disabled for this to work. Once I disabled the on board, the HDD was detected properly. The system boots.
When the CMOS lost its memory, it reverted to the on board disc controllers. The HDD and floppy are connected to the digital board, not the computer. The computer on board peripherals must ALL be disabled for this to work. Once I disabled the on board, the HDD was detected properly. The system boots.
Wonderful news! Am glad for you. I live in fear of my R+S failing. Maybe it's about time I cloned the HD... Battery is about 3 yrs old methinks....
I suspect the battery in mine had never been changed. There's no date code on the battery so I have no idea of its age. It was probably a decade old given the 1.5V reading.
It's well hidden. You have to remove the speaker option to get to all of the screws holding down the PC motherboard.
Yes, a clone of the boot drive is a good idea.
While at it, I lubricated the bearing on the CPU cooling fan, as it was getting noisy. Nice and quiet now.
The UPL is a core tool of my trade. I felt very inefficient working without it this morning on a walk in customer repair.
It's well hidden. You have to remove the speaker option to get to all of the screws holding down the PC motherboard.
Yes, a clone of the boot drive is a good idea.
While at it, I lubricated the bearing on the CPU cooling fan, as it was getting noisy. Nice and quiet now.
The UPL is a core tool of my trade. I felt very inefficient working without it this morning on a walk in customer repair.
Thanks for the reminder. "Modern" (post-286) mobos have way too many CMOS screens. I assume you either didn't snap the controller options, or forgot them when trying to restore.
I had a wi-fi router going stupid. It would work for about a minute after cold-start. I tried to snap all the options, to ease setting up a new same-brand box. I remember there was some screen I missed, and I had to guess.
I had a wi-fi router going stupid. It would work for about a minute after cold-start. I tried to snap all the options, to ease setting up a new same-brand box. I remember there was some screen I missed, and I had to guess.
The only screen shot I took in February, at the time I cloned the drive, was the first setup screen, the one listing the drives, heads and cylinders, etc. The peripheral screen is the option to the right of that, on the main BIOS menu. That screen I did not have a snapshot of.
If you don't deal with this stuff regularly, it can be forgotten and overlooked the next time you have a problem.
Plus it seems illogical to disable all controllers. The common sense reaction would be that it's a wrong configuration--but it's the only correct configuration.
If you don't deal with this stuff regularly, it can be forgotten and overlooked the next time you have a problem.
Plus it seems illogical to disable all controllers. The common sense reaction would be that it's a wrong configuration--but it's the only correct configuration.
Thanks.. The R&S folks were no help--they were ready to send me an RMA# and, I'm sure, charge me a hefty sum to 'fix' my problem. Considering I'd just dumped $955 into a calibration for my GenRad 1693 Digibridge, I didn't feel like spending another hefty sum to solve a BIOS configuration problem.
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