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Compaq Deskpro XT restoration - help needed

B

Bmurching

Member
Joined
Jul 18, 2019
Messages
31
Location
Bay Area, CA
I am slowly trying to restore a Compaq Deskpro XT. It was in rough shape but I am slowly making progress. It’s a 640k 20MB dual 360k floppy model running a 2/27/87 BIOS. Current status: I can boot off one of the 360k floppy drives to DOS without issue. The other is not working, nor is the HDD.

The current issue: when I start up Spinrite 5.0 in hopes of studying the HDD issue, it goes through a startup memory test and consistently freezes during the test, at test 321, buffer FF09h (on data pattern 1000 0000 0000 0001, FWIW). Not sure if this relates to a specific RAM chip.

I’ve run CheckIt’s thorough RAM test multiple times as well as the Compaq diagnostics and it passes every time. I am starting to think this might be a spinrite issue. Any ideas?

Oh— I’m booting into DOS 3.30 before starting spinrite. I’ll try 5.0 as well.
 
If that is the original Seagate ST-225, it's probably dead or will be. They just weren't built to last 30+ years. Get yourself an XT-IDE. With a newer IDE drive, or better yet a DOM, the Deskpro will really come alive. Although two 360K floppies are nice, they aren't really necessary as long as you have one good one. Add a 3.5 drive (will only work as 720K on the disk controller it came with) if you want to fill in the drive bay. Along with a NEC V-30 you will have a very capable super-XT for a modest investment.
 
If the HDD is not working you can't use SpinRite on it. SpinRite needs a valid, functional partition in order to work.
 
Is the hard drive spinning up and sounding ok?
If yes, you probably need to do a low level / factory format. Generally this is something you need to do every quarter century or if you move a drive between different controllers (sometimes).

If it isn't spinning up, or sounds very sick, I'd consider it toast.
 
resman said:
If that is the original Seagate ST-225, it's probably dead or will be. They just weren't built to last 30+ years. Get yourself an XT-IDE. With a newer IDE drive, or better yet a DOM, the Deskpro will really come alive. Although two 360K floppies are nice, they aren't really necessary as long as you have one good one. Add a 3.5 drive (will only work as 720K on the disk controller it came with) if you want to fill in the drive bay. Along with a NEC V-30 you will have a very capable super-XT for a modest investment.
Click to expand...

both of my ST-225s still work perfectly, one of them has the same 1 bad sector it's had for the past 25 years and the other has none
 
maxtherabbit said:
both of my ST-225s still work perfectly, one of them has the same 1 bad sector it's had for the past 25 years and the other has none
Click to expand...

Amazingly, my experience mirrors yours. I tried again, putting into MS-DOS 5.0 and running Spinrite again. This time it blew past the RAM freeze and I started rejuvenating the disk surface. Stepping back a moment, I also discovered one of the two cables to the drive (the one with fewer pins) was upside down and when fixing this plus letting Spinrite do it’s thing, the computer was able to boot to DOS and run A directory listing! It was running DOS 3.30 (Compaq) and also has Windows 1.01. Super excited.

Spinrite seemed to be freezing or otherwise getting stuck about 85% through the drive so not out of the woods yet. But, it’s late and it’s time to rest.

Lesson for now: Spinrite 5.0 works better with MSDOS 5.0 than 3.3.
 
resman said:
If that is the original Seagate ST-225, it's probably dead or will be. They just weren't built to last 30+ years. Get yourself an XT-IDE. With a newer IDE drive, or better yet a DOM, the Deskpro will really come alive. Although two 360K floppies are nice, they aren't really necessary as long as you have one good one. Add a 3.5 drive (will only work as 720K on the disk controller it came with) if you want to fill in the drive bay. Along with a NEC V-30 you will have a very capable super-XT for a modest investment.
Click to expand...

I appreciate the advice. While I understand the value of having different drives, my first computer was a Tandy 1000SX and I have many fond memories of swapping and handling 5 1/4 inch diskettes between the two drives which were it’s only storage. I do have a Compaq Pentium 90 with both disk formats in order to experience that diversity.
 
maxtherabbit said:
both of my ST-225s still work perfectly, one of them has the same 1 bad sector it's had for the past 25 years and the other has none
Click to expand...

I have two working ST-225s as well. I don't expect them to work every time I power up. They are not high quality pieces of HW. They are slow. They will fail someday; maybe not tomorrow, but eventually. So use them as a nice reminder of yesteryear, but get an XT-IDE and get a little piece of mind as well as a nice performance boost.

My $.02
 
Well I guess I'm just unlucky. I wouldn't use them except I have Xenix 8086 installed on them and it's hardcoded for that controller and drives. I have a stack I went through getting two to work semi-reliably.

They're still slow, though.
 
Bmurching said:
Amazingly, my experience mirrors yours. I tried again, putting into MS-DOS 5.0 and running Spinrite again. This time it blew past the RAM freeze and I started rejuvenating the disk surface. Stepping back a moment, I also discovered one of the two cables to the drive (the one with fewer pins) was upside down and when fixing this plus letting Spinrite do it’s thing, the computer was able to boot to DOS and run A directory listing! It was running DOS 3.30 (Compaq) and also has Windows 1.01. Super excited.

Spinrite seemed to be freezing or otherwise getting stuck about 85% through the drive so not out of the woods yet. But, it’s late and it’s time to rest.

Lesson for now: Spinrite 5.0 works better with MSDOS 5.0 than 3.3.
Click to expand...

When I installed Xenix, it was quite particular about the bad track list. I ran a low level format to ensure the drive was working and the list was accurate. That's how I ended up going through a few before finding good candidates. It does wipe the disk, that's the downside. If you are unable to make progress with spinrite, this thread has info:

http://www.vcfed.org/forum/archive/index.php/t-49745.html

Stone said:
As were nearly all the drives from that era... DUH
Click to expand...
Seriously?
 
krebizfan said:
The Seagate drives of the era were slower than most of the competition, probably the reason so many still work nearly 40 years later.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I've got an ST-251 that's been running in a 286 since we got it in '88. It's definitely not quick, but has been a reliable workhorse all these years. Just add a bit of software caching and much of that speed deficit is mitigated nicely.
 
Mine's going strong! That drive and Spinrite together really impressed me.

It took a while but Spinrite 5.0 was able to resuscitate every track and sector on this drive! It now boots and runs flawlessly--though not terribly quickly. The existing 5:1 interleave was optimal. As far as it getting stuck, I think it just needed time on one particular cluster... once past that, it worked at a good clip but found a number of other problematic spots. The computer boots and runs installed software w/o issue... it has Compaq DOS 3.30 and Windows 1.01 along with MS Word, Works and Lotus 123. There's a smattering of games and some old financial / trading apps. The computer is Everex-heavy.... the ST-225 has an Everex branding, the MFM controller is Everex and the computer also has an Everex EGA card. There is a smattering of other cards (a clock card, modem, and what looks like a 2 game port ISA) that I've currently removed.

I've ordered an XT-IDE if only to back up the HD before doing anything further. Regarding the debate about storage, I prefer the best of all worlds... a boot HDD because I love those seek sounds, and a SSD as a D: for bulk storage, data transport and to serve as primary storage if the hard drive dies. I've followed this model on my 486 and P90 PCs w/success but it's been a long time since I worked with XT class hardware.

Known issues:
- Second floppy drive doesn't seem to work properly... doing a DIR B: spins the drive but either fails or shows a cached listing of what is in A:
- Neither floppy have been cleaned in ~20 years... 5 1/4 cleaning discs seem scarce
- Clock card is in unknown state; it does have a coin cell battery that appears removable.
 
When you ran spinrite and checked the interleave was the system in fast mode or slow mode? 5 seems like a lot. What controller are you using? I’ve got an IBM 5160 that I was playing around with and the stock mfm controller it suggests an interleave of like 5 but if I use a Seagate ST-11 it suggests 3. And the drive seems a lot faster. I’ve tried multiple drives with similar results. I’m tempted to do a benchmark of the drives and controllers to see what’s the best combination.
 
Bmurching said:
Known issues:
- Second floppy drive doesn't seem to work properly... doing a DIR B: spins the drive but either fails or shows a cached listing of what is in A:
- Neither floppy have been cleaned in ~20 years... 5 1/4 cleaning discs seem scarce.
Click to expand...
1) The B: issue is a familiar sounding problem that I am unable to currently recall the solution to but some people here certainly will and I seem to remember Chuck(G) having a remedy for this.

2) Cleaning discs are available. I am always able to locate them on eBay. Try searching there.
 
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