Old Sofpaqs

[Cobrag0318]

I have a very old Compaq that is still useful as a local file and mail server, due to its limited power usage. I recently changed one of the drives in it causing the bios to re-detect, incorrectly I might add, and now I can't access any of my drives. It is one of those Compaqs that require a setup partition or boot disk to set the bios. It appears my disk set have died, but I have downloaded the softpaq exe file. It writes an image directly to disk, but it keeps erroring out saying "file write error". I need to know why it's doing this, or at least how to extract the contents of the softpaq another way.

 

[king smp]

are you able to accesst the BIOS?

if so what are options under hard drive operation

sometimes on older computers for a newer hard drive to be recognized you might have to set the capacity or type of drive under the hard drive options

 

[Cobrag0318]

The problem is, I need the setup utility from the softpaq to set my bios options.

 

[king smp]

is that softpaq file an ISO file?
or an exe?

 

[Cobrag0318]

Exe. I tried opening it with an ISO editor. Also with a Zip/Ace/Rar program hoping it'd be able to read it's contents. Nothing. Maybe someone else can try running the softpaq, letting it write to a floppy, and then sending me it as an ISO?

 

[Cobrag0318]

I gotta be missing something silly. :-\

 

[Cobrag0318]

Ideas anyone?

 

[king smp]

maybe this can help
use a usb as a floppy
http://www.rm.com/Support/TechnicalArticle.asp?cref=TEC134761

 

[Cobrag0318]

This computer predates USB, and only has ISA slots, so Usb can't be added, unless some mad scientist makes a ISA USB card. LoL

 

[Cobrag0318]

I'd hate to have to scrap it simply because I can't get the softpaq exe to write a viable disk.

 

[king smp]

sorry I am out of answers
hopefully somebody can come up with an answer

 

[Saga Lout]

Softpaq is only a download manager so it won't be bootable. If you're seeing an exe file, it's already been upzipped if it ever was zipped in the first place.

My best shot would be to remove the CMOS battery, leave it out for a day and pop it back. BIOS may have forgotten everything it ever knew by then. If that doesn't do it, try looking for CMOS jumpers or short points on the motherboard.

 

[C12Friedman]

Since you have an older computer, it may have an IDE HDD - on the back of an IDE HDD is a jumper with three positions, Master, Slave, Auto. Set your operating system HDD as Master, all others as Slave.
If your HDD is SATA, ignore this...

 

[Cobrag0318]

Ok. This is an older softpaq. It is an EXE. When you run the EXE in DOS, it opens up a program to write the setup disk files to a floppy. Basically, it's writing from an image, that is internal to the EXE file. It is a Presario 850. It's old as hell. Only has ISA slots, so that lets out anything USB.

My problem is it requires the setup floppy to access the bios settings. I need to access that because I need to manually set my drive geometry. It doesn't have a built in bios utility. Thus there is no pressing f2,f10, or del to get into bios. Well, it does have an option to write the service partition to a hard drive, but that requires you to have been able to run the setup disk first, AND have access to the hard drive to install it. Neither do I have because I can't get the softpaq to write a viable boot floppy, and the hard drive is what I'm trying to get working to begin with.

Ultimately, since the softpaq exe basically writes an image to the floppy, I need to know how I can view the image contents to manually retrieve the files. Since it's built into the exe, tools like winImg can't read it.

 

[king smp]

so you are using another computer to open this softpaq exe?
are you using a internal or external floppy disk burner with this computer?

 

[Cobrag0318]

I've tried both options. My laptop uses an external floppy drive. Also tried booting from a dos boot disk, and running the softpaq on the computer istelf.

 

[king smp]

just thinking out loud but could you install the HD to another system or external HD dock/adapter and do something that way?

 

[Cobrag0318]

Well, yeah. But defeats the purpose of running on the old computer, to save power.

 

[king smp]

No I mean take the old HD put it in an external HD and install software then put back on the old tower

by the way newer computers are more energy efficient than the older towers
more efficient power supplies and lower wattage components

 

[Cobrag0318]

Less than 200W? It's the lowest wattage system I have short of hooking my laptop up as file server. LoL

 

[king smp]

there are newer systems that wiil draw under a 100 watts

 

[Cobrag0318]

True, but for free? Though if they're cheap enough, could save that money back in electricity.

 

[king smp]

something like this Intel Atom system would be low powered
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883108728

dont know what your budget is
and trust me I know what operating on a low budget is all about
so I dont know if $250 is doable or if newegg USA is available to you
but that would be a great low powered file server for the money



I am a big fan of keeping older systems going
the best way to practice being "Green"
but sometimes you have to give up on a system when it gets too obsolete
you could check Craigslist or newspaper classifieds or flea markets
in US about $150 will get you a OEM Core2Duo system used
just stay away from Pentium D and Pentium 4s
power hungry
the OEM Core2Duo models usually only have 200 watt PSUs and draw about 125watts during normal usage

 

[Cobrag0318]

Good point. I'll have to check it out. Sad to have to retire it on account that I can't make good a setup disk.

 

[king smp]

at this point any computer without USB and PCI slots running anything older than XP is really obsolete
some members will consider Athlon XP and Pentium 4 computers unusable but they are fine as web browsers,office and music machines.
I commend you on keeping a system that old going for so long.
the E-dumps are full of towers that could still be usable which is a shame