# DTK 386 1989 American Megatrends MS-DOS not loading <Help Please>



## jodyscott (Aug 26, 2011)

I have recently taken my DTK manufactured 386 computer out of storage. Upon boot-up, the system had asked me to enter my CMOS settings, some of which I was unsure (Hard Disk Type).
Anyhow, upon exiting CMOS setup, the system begins the loading process of MS-DOS, but then hangs. At this point, there is nothing else I can do to get MS-DOS running on my pc.

I was hoping you could help me get this machine up and running again, as I'm stuck.

My ROM-BIOS is American Megatrends, but perhaps the motherboard is another manufacturer (as I may have identified on the following website for AMI: http://www.ami.com/support/bios.cfm#two

My motherboard key at the bottom of my boot up screen reads:
ESIS-1169-040990-K#

Please help


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## Frank4d (Sep 10, 2006)

Try hard drive type 47 first. If that doesn't work then you need to manually enter the number of cylinders, heads and tracks. If you get MSDOS working you will need to replace the battery so you don't have to keep entering the CMOS information. There was no standard for CMOS hold up batteries in 1989, so I can't help with that part.


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## jodyscott (Aug 26, 2011)

Hi Frank,

Thank you kindly for replying so quickly. When hard disk type 47 is chosen, all values for Cyln / Head / WPcom / Lzone / Sect/ Size are all zeros. How might I find this information to input manually?
Just an observation, the reason I chose Type 33 the first time is because my drive runs at 33Mhz.
It attempted to load MS-DOS on type 33, but when I try other types it gives me "Hard Disk Error".


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## Frank4d (Sep 10, 2006)

The values may be on a label attached to the hard drive, or on the drive manufacturers website if you know the model number.


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## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

Not sure where you got the 33 MHz, but no drive "runs at 33 MHz" and that statement is really one with no meaning. Where did you get the 33 and what does it refer to?

Once you replace the battery, the defaults may be all that you need to set.


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## jodyscott (Aug 26, 2011)

My drive is a Maxtor model 712OAT, 1/2 height 120 megs IDE hard drive from 1991.
I've discovered that Seagate bought Maxtor awhile back, but no specs for my drive
on their website. I have taken the drive out of the pc, and it reads the following specs: HDA 22P1, PCBA 38P1, Unique 30P1 and Uplevel 3592.

It also says Z, Z, B and A207SPPS on the bar code.

Does this offer up any information? I'm curious if PCBA being 38P1, also means my hard drive is type 38?

Forgive my ignorance, but when I power up my pc, there are green lit numbers reading 33, beside the Turbo button, when I press the turbo button it goes to 16, and it does say Mhz beside the green letters.

May I ask, where exactly do I find the battery and how would I go about replacing it.

I'm learning here, thank you guys for your time


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## Frank4d (Sep 10, 2006)

From what I can tell the 7120AT (number "0", not letter "O") has 936 heads, 16 cylinders, 17 tracks, and you can leave write compensation and landing zone both 0. Try this with drive type 47.

I also found sonething suggesting if the PCB version is "A" then try1024 heads, 14 cylinders, 17 tracks.


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## jodyscott (Aug 26, 2011)

I think I'm in business, Frank! You're a gentleman for getting back to me on this. I'm going to get working on the pc this afternoon and will give a shout if I run into any glitches. Fantastic help


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## monckywrench (Nov 29, 2007)

> How might I find this information to input manually?


A boot floppy with *ideinfo.exe* should work if it's an IDE drive. Works for CF cards in IDE adapters too.

http://chinese-watercolor.com/LRP/hd/


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