Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!van-bc!oneb!kmcvay
From: kmcvay@oneb.UUCP (Ken McVay)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Boot Failure (A Tale of Puzzlement)
Keywords: format,fdisk
Message-ID: <139@oneb.UUCP>
Date: 7 Jul 90 00:43:56 GMT
Distribution: na
Lines: 48

The machine: An early 10MHz 286 "baby  at" stuffed into an XT case.
DOS: MS-DOS 3.3
   
History: 18 months' operation without flaw, running 40-meg hd, 360k fd, internal
2400 modem, ega and 1024k from 135w power supply. This was used as a mail 
system, running FrontDoor, and ran 24-hours a day for about 18 months.

Portents: the owner decided to upgrade the box, and added an Everex RAM3000
board with a meg on it, a 1.44 meg 3.5" fd, and a second 40-meg hd. Poof.
Power supply apparently fails, and is replaced with 200w. Still won't work.
Replace HD controller (NCL 2:1 16-Bit) with another one, still won't work.
Replaced power supply with another 200w......

In other words, your average nightmare. ...in the course of playing with the
system, I first removed the RAM card, modem and IO card, leaving nothing but
the hd, fd, video, and controller. The drive booted and tested for 90 
minutes without error....the test involved looping through a batch file that
worked the hell out of the disk, ran Vopt, NDD, chkdsk/f, Vmarkbad, etc. and
then looped and did it again. No errors whatsoever.

So, convinced the drive and controller were ok, I powered-down and put the RAM
card in. Tried to boot, but got "INVALID OR MISSING COMMAND.COM"

Removed RAM card, rebooted from floppy, copied new command.com from dos dir
to \ and rebooted....no sweat.

Inserted RAM card.....same error, except this time I couldn't reboot, even 
after replacing command.com. It was as if track zero itself had been zapped.

Removed RAM card, rebooted, low-levelled the disk with Disk Manager and
MS-DOS 4.01 - but the systems BIOS now says "HIT A KEY TO REBOOT" and
will not boot.

It appears as if the motherboard may be flawed, and perhaps zaps the power 
supply or drains it to the point where the disk can't turn fast enough to
be properly read....I have no idea, although I will soon test the drive and
controller in another box to see what happens.....if anyone has any
suggestions (other than "scrap motherboard and power supply and begin again")
I'd love to hear them - always did enjoy a good mystery....

btw - the owner ordered a new 386, but I want to know WHY this sucker fails
like it does before I bury it.

cheers/knm

-- 
1B Systems Management Limited, Nanaimo, British Columbia | kmcvay@oneb.uucp
           Canadian Distributor: FrontDoor Automated Mail Systems