Resurrecting a Legacy X86 PC..

[Vipersan]

Some piccys

 

[Captain Jack]

Blast from the past!

 

[Vipersan]

The grey matter failed me for a while ..
LOL
Never try and format a 40gb ide hard drive with fat32
without dividing it first into 2 partitions..
;)

 

[Vipersan]

Definately the hardest part of this project is going to be 'drivers' ..both for plug in cards ..and the mobo itself ..
If anyone can locate anything suitable ..please post links ..
The Network card is a 3com 3c905c-tx-m
And the motherboard is a Jetway 695AS ..
So chipset drivers compatible with 98SE needed.
rgds
VS

 

[Channel Hopper]

I have tens of hard drives here (IDE - 2 and 4GB units) I don't remember what they were from but I was using the magnets on similar ones for a project a few years back.

Your's if you want.

 

[Channel Hopper]

Definately the hardest part of this project is going to be 'drivers' ..both for plug in cards ..and the mobo itself ..
If anyone can locate anything suitable ..please post links ..
The Network card is a 3com 3c905c-tx-m
And the motherboard is a Jetway 695AS ..
So chipset drivers compatible with 98SE needed.
rgds
VS

Do you have the 98SE o/s floppies ?

 

[Vipersan]

Do you have the 98SE o/s floppies ?

No Stephen ..
I'm using an ISO I grabbed from t'interweb ..

The only floppy I'm using is a 98 boot floppy with Fdisk / Format etc ...and of course a generic CD/DVD dos driver ..

 

[Vipersan]

No Stephen ..
I'm using an ISO I grabbed from t'interweb ..

The only floppy I'm using is a 98 boot bloopy with Fdisk / Format etc ...and of course a generic CD/DVD dos driver ..

As for the IDE drives ...
Had they been larger ...40 or 80 gb ...
I certainly could find them a home ..
Another Project I run is to keep Philips WAC/S 700 and 7000 units running by creating from scratch suitable replacement hard drives ..
The most recent one was an 80 for a good friend and group member on TMF (Television Magazine Forum.)
He sent me the blank IDE 2 weeks ago ...and I created for him a bootable drive ..which he then had collected by courier from Somerset.
Those WAC units were well ahead of their time in both functionality and appearance.
They still sound superb ..but Philips no longer support or provide spares.
..and suffered from Hard drive failure ...
The only way to fix the lcd displaying 'Boot' ..endlessly is to fit a replacement hard drive ..with a good OS (linux based)

 

[Vipersan]

So I guess this counts as above and beyond ...or plain stupid ..
but managed to find the original jetway chipset driver disc for sale ..
Only £3.50 ...but sadly in Italy ..so add another £5+ for postage..
Grrr ..
Why does it cost so much to ship from Italy ?
I have bought TV spares from Italy before ..and the postage is always grossly higher than say Germany or France.
Crazy I calls it..

 

[Channel Hopper]

View attachment 106238
As for the IDE drives ...
Had they been larger ...40 or 80 gb ...
I certainly could find them a home ..

Got a couple of those as well, but you have to be authentic in this sort of thing.

Conner doorstop and a 5 1/4" drive should do it.

 

[Vipersan]

Got a couple of those as well, but you have to be authentic in this sort of thing.

Conner doorstop and a 5 1/4" drive should do it.

I think I'll pass on the doorstops..lol

 

[Vipersan]

Since I'm going to the trouble of obtaining the mobo chipset drivers ..
I'll be kitting this mini tower out with IDE drive caddies ..
Thus I'll also be doing XP ..
and maybe win95 ...on seperate drives of course ..and again , just for fun .
This unit BECAUSE the hard drives will be removeable will also be used as the 'bare bones' needed to construct those WAC hard drives...where a compressed OS is needed ..
A vacant IDE slot for the drive under construction..
A DVD/CD ....and a floppy to boot DOS.
In other words ..not only a bit of Retro Tech ...but a useful 'tool' as well.
;)

 

[Channel Hopper]

Since I'm going to the trouble of obtaining the mobo chipset drivers ..
I'll be kitting this mini tower out with IDE drive caddies ..
Thus I'll also be doing XP ..
and maybe win95 ...on seperate drives of course ..and again , just for fun .
This unit BECAUSE the hard drives will be removeable will also be used as the 'bare bones' needed to construct those WAC hard drives...where a compressed OS is needed ..
A vacant IDE slot for the drive under construction..
A DVD/CD ....and a floppy to boot DOS.
In other words ..not only a bit of Retro Tech ...but a useful 'tool' as well.
;)

As long as you have all the original start up noises to go with them. I altered the workstation at my last job (and the one before then) to play the Win 95 themes, only one person twigged.

 

[Vipersan]

Dammit ..
Thought I had 3 Pluscom IDE drive caddies ..
but the third is SATA...
Dont suppose you have one of these in your aladdins cave CH ?
Sadly no one selling em on ebay these days..
unsurprisingly.

 

[Channel Hopper]

Highly unlikely. Take a picture of the rear connections though, just in case. They may be under a different name.

 

[Vipersan]

Highly unlikely. Take a picture of the rear connections though, just in case. They may be under a different name.

Standard ide and molex 12/5v to the rear ...and the centre tray containing the drive is usually a centronics push fit..

 

[Channel Hopper]

I'll have a look over the weekend but as before, doubtful.

 

[Vipersan]

...and for all you doubting Thomas's out there who said it couldn't be done ..
I now have the OS producing 32 Bit Truecolour ..with an aspect ratio of 1024 x 768 ..

Seriously though ...
remember when this was impressive ?

Making a point ..
I found suitable 98 SE drivers for the Gainward GeForce FX5600

lol

 

[Vipersan]

Problem solved on the caddy front ..
or at least I hope so ..
Went looking on ebay again ..with a wider search criteria ..
Mobile rack instead of caddy ...and not specifying pluscom ..
expecting to buy just one ..
found a bargain pack of 3 for £6 delivered..
Set of 3 Awesome mobile rack 3.5 HDD IDE -ME101P SATURN | eBay

 

[Vipersan]

Just surface checking a Seagate 160gb IDE HD before preparing it to receive XP ..
This too will be on a pull out caddy tray..
If gonna christen this retro PC 'The Chameleon' ..as it will hopefully be able to emulate many Legacy OS ..
as well as DOS functionality..