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From: barnett@rex.cs.tulane.edu (Karey Barnett)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: Start up problem, Original IBM AT
Message-ID: <7727@rex.cs.tulane.edu>
Date: 2 Jun 91 22:36:46 GMT
References: <10316@idunno.Princeton.EDU>
Organization: Computer Science Dept., Tulane Univ., New Orleans, LA
Lines: 24

In article <10316@idunno.Princeton.EDU> vnend@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (D. W. James) writes:


>The HD is not hooked up at the moment, to save wear and tear on it while I
>work on the other problem...
>
  This bit of information is important.  (See below)

>At power on, the machine runs through the memory check fine (with and w/o the
>extra memory card installed).  It then returns error 161 Run system start-up,
>and beeps twice (two, medium length, equal beeps.  This pattern is not in any
>of the manuals I've checked), cycles the heads and spins the disk in the top
>drive and tells me to hit F1 to continue.  Hitting F1 produces a slightly
>longer, single beep, then a pause, and then cassette basic. (!?!)
>
  The system, knowing that you are equipped with a hard drive, will try
  to boot from your hard drive.  If there is an error in the boot,
  the next thing the system will do is run basic.

  An AT that I worked on did this when track 0 of the hard drive was
  physically bad.  In my case, I didn't have to replace the hard drive,
  but that's another issue.

  Try connecting the hard drive and see what the result is.