Cannot get into BIOS on Compaq Amada 7400

[TH2002]

Got my Compaq Armada 7400 (Pentium II) in the mail today and am eager to get it fully up and running with a fresh Windows 95 installation, but have already run in to a roadblock. The hard drive is wiped but fully working, but the machine will not boot from the CD-ROM drive even with a known working boot disk. I'm thinking that I need to change the boot order in the computer's BIOS, but even when pressing the F10 key I cannot get to the BIOS screen.

Any advice?

[evildragon]

BIOS keys: F1, F2, DEL, Ctrl+Alt+Enter (or other combinations).

[TH2002]

BIOS keys: F1, F2, DEL, Ctrl+Alt+Enter (or other combinations).

No luck. Tried all of those keys, still can't get to the BIOS screen.

[jafir]

Some old compaqs, specifically deskpros of the pentium era, required a special partition on the hard drive to do setup. If it’s missing you need to install some softpaq to get it back. I don’t know if your system is the same way or not.

Edit: It looks like that’s the case. Search for SP9962 to get the files you need.

[TH2002]

Some old compaqs, specifically deskpros of the pentium era, required a special partition on the hard drive to do setup. If it’s missing you need to install some softpaq to get it back. I don’t know if your system is the same way or not.

Edit: It looks like that’s the case. Search for SP9962 to get the files you need.

I have a recovery disk with the required files, but getting them onto the laptop's hard drive has been a pain. When connecting the drive to my main XP desktop using an IDE-USB adapter, it tells me that the hard drive needs to be formatted, but when I try to format it (using FAT32) I always get an error.

Should I connect the drive directly to an IDE interface in another computer (as my desktop only has 3.5'' IDE), boot it using a DOS bootdisk, and use FDISK to create a primary DOS partition?

[jafir]

Does the laptop have no floppy drive? Normally you download the setup softpaq and make a disk to boot the laptop from. It looks like you might need diags too. Here are some more detailed instructions: https://h30434.www3.hp.com/psg/attac...etup_Diags.pdf

[TH2002]

The laptop came with the CD-ROM drive in the bay. I did not get the floppy drive with the computer.

[jafir]

Then you can try it in another computer. I don't know how USB will work, it will certainly make things more complicated if it works. Perhaps someone can make a ghost image of a working partition, then you could use ghost for windows to image the drive with your USB adapter.

Or an adapter like this if you've got a system with IDE and also a floppy drive: https://www.amazon.com/SinLoon-Adapt.../dp/B07ZGHZJMM

[TH2002]

Then you can try it in another computer. I don't know how USB will work, it will certainly make things more complicated if it works. Perhaps someone can make a ghost image of a working partition, then you could use ghost for windows to image the drive with your USB adapter.

Or an adapter like this if you've got a system with IDE and also a floppy drive: https://www.amazon.com/SinLoon-Adapt.../dp/B07ZGHZJMM

My desktop does in fact have both IDE and a floppy drive, so an adapter like that is definitely a consideration.

The contents of the recovery disk I have are three folders named DATA, MAP and TOOLS, and three files BOOTCAT.BIN, BOOTSECT.BIN and IMAGES.TAB. Not sure if these are the contents of a working BIOS, but if so then could I presumably use a tool like Partition Magic to image the recovery disk onto the first partition of the hard drive?

[jafir]

I’d imagine the tool has to write a boot sector or something like that, so I don’t know if just getting the files there would work or not. They might even be compressed or something and the tool needs to extract them. I think you need to boot from a floppy to make this work. Or use something aftermarket like ghost to copy a known working partition.