Help with old compaq

**New2vtgpc** · November 18th, 2019, 07:19 AM

Originally Posted by Robbbert

I was going to mention the IDE issue with those computers, but you've already found it for yourself. There's a hardware design defect where if you put the HD as Primary Master, and the CD as Secondary Master, it won't boot. You have to put the CD as Secondary Slave. I can't remember if CD on Primary Slave works.... too long ago.

The later Compaqs (450, 500MHz as referenced above) always used Cable Select for all the drives, and obviously the special Cable Select cables. It could be the solution with your older model too. Cable Select cables can be identified because they show which plug is used for Drive 0, Drive 1, and System (meaning the motherboard). Normal Master/Slave cables have no markings.

Ok so im not crazy...there is something hardware wise. Ok so if I take a generic ribbon cable and plug cdrom into ide channel 2, set cdrom jumper to slave, hard drive on ide channel 1 and set to master? I thought i tried that but...now that I think about it there is no jumper on the hard drive. Just the six pins. So should I put a jumper on the master pins and try it? I never thought about it till now but yea i never moved hdd jumper casue there was none. I'll try that tonight and see if that works. If not I'll go with my original idea of usong the dual drive ide cable and make it work that way.

**Robbbert** · November 19th, 2019, 03:16 AM

Did you get it to work?

**New2vtgpc** · November 19th, 2019, 08:02 AM

Originally Posted by Robbbert

Did you get it to work?

Not the way i was hoping. I had to remove drive and set them up out of bays with the master/slave (cable select style or whatever its called) and cd rom detects and functions, with cdrom jumper set to select. I have no spare jumpers so got some ordered to put on hard drive as master so I can try seperate ide cables. So the pc no able to be fully assembled but can at least use cdrom. When i put cd rom on a sperate ide channel it wont detect it regardless of jumper setting on drive, so I think your right that i need to have a jumper on hdd set to master on one channel and cdrom set to slave on secondary channel. I'll have to wait until my order of jumpers connectors come in to verify but till then the cable select method does work....even if ugly

**New2vtgpc** · November 20th, 2019, 06:04 AM

Ok so got impatient and pulled my win98 pc apart for jumpers to test. And NO combination of jumpers or cable let it work except for cable select. And to top itnoff the cd drive gave out mid way so had to pull generic ide dvd drive to keep testing. But it works with cable select method so got a new longer cable and an extension coming to be able to hook both up in case. Will go check out my local scrap yard and see if I can find a beige cdrom to pop back in.

**Robbbert** · November 20th, 2019, 04:07 PM

Interesting. At least you got it to work in the end.

**New2vtgpc** · November 20th, 2019, 06:59 PM

Originally Posted by Robbbert

Interesting. At least you got it to work in the end.

Surprisingly. Once I get the cable and cd rom (or just might recolor dvdrom front panel lol) and get the cf to ide adapter I'll button it up and install win95. Ihave a sb pro compatible spund card and 4mb diamond stealth for upgrades and see what it can do.

**Robbbert** · November 20th, 2019, 10:00 PM

Win95 should work, although personally I wouldn't touch it as I find it to be incredibly unstable and crash-prone. I'd go for Win98SE if you can get hold of it.

**New2vtgpc** · November 21st, 2019, 05:25 AM

Originally Posted by Robbbert

Win95 should work, although personally I wouldn't touch it as I find it to be incredibly unstable and crash-prone. I'd go for Win98SE if you can get hold of it.

I thought about that, but pc would be bare minimum for 98 (has a 100mz p1, 16mb ram, 1gb hdd) and honestly already have a win98se (with the unoffical service pack) and a dos/win3.1 pc (ibm 2133) so mainly just wanting a win95 as the mid way point for the nostalgia aspect. But yea win95 bit buggy and a pain since games are either dos based or 98 based with 95 support existing but have to use workarounds for certain games (daggerfall and arena) I have heard of an unoffical service pack for win95 I want to try out once I get a cf card of the right size. Its stable for now, but not throwing a lot of 95 era games at it all at once just in case.