Okie lemme just open by saying I'm a total newbee at stuff like this. While I am very familliar with software, hardware and such, BIOS is an uncharted territory for me. I am eager to learn...
Anyways, for education purposes, I decided to take an old 1993 IBM i486SX desktop I found at the dump and turn in into my own server. It has a 1.6GB HD and floppy drive only... yet the CMOS battery was long gone. So, I got a new one put in.
When I start it up, the screen remains blank and the A drive searches for a disk.
Can anyone tell me what this means and perhaps point me in the proper direction of how to solve it? Does it need to have a BIOS loaded, and if so, how do I go about getting it and doing it?
Thanks in advance.
Resurrecting an i486 - BIOS needed?
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- BIOS Newbie
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Try putting a boot disk there to see if it can boot. Some older IBM machines didn't have BIOS SETUP built-in but needed a special floppy to configure the settings.
Patched and tested BIOSes are at http://wims.rainbow-software.org
UniFlash - Flash anything anywhere
UniFlash - Flash anything anywhere
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- BIOS Newbie
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But what kind of a boot disk would I need? If I'm not seeing any sort of setup at startup, doesn't that mean it's lacking a BIOS?
If you're not seeing anything it could be it doesn't know where to send the display info - some big manufacturers do things their own way.
Have you got the IBM model number for the machine ?
Have you got the IBM model number for the machine ?
Tested patched BIOSes. Untested patched BIOSes.
Emails *will* be ignored unless the subject line starts "Wim's BIOS forum"
Emails *will* be ignored unless the subject line starts "Wim's BIOS forum"
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- BIOS Newbie
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2155-E32NickS wrote:Have you got the IBM model number for the machine ?
It is a 1993 IBM i486SX 33Mhz.
I trying over the possibilaties of other problems, such as incorrect jumper settings on the mboard, damaged/incorrect IDE device/floppy cable. I'm going over everything with a fine-toothed comb.