help (re) booting xenix after cmos battery failure

[Tony Mori]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brad Parker" <brad at heeltoe.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" 
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2008 9:24 PM
Subject: help (re) booting xenix after cmos battery failure


>
> A friend of a friend has an old xenix machine; Compaq DeskPro 386
> running Xenix.  He shut if off after running for years and it won't
> boot because the cmos battery is dead.
>
> The disk is an ESDI drive attached to a Compaq ESDI/FLPY controller
> (copyright 1989) ISA bus card.
>
> He says can't see any way to enter a "setup" mode in the BIOS.
>
> Anyone know how to fix this?
>

Those old-school machines usually required a setup disk, unlike regular 
clones.
I remember using a program naemd something like 'GSETUP.EXE" or .COM on a 
Compaq Portable III,
and it worked fine.
I think all you need is a bootable DOS disk, with a generic setup program, 
and set up the HD drive type
in the BIOS.

Changing the CMOS battery would be a good idea, so you don;t have to do the 
same process at every power-off.


Tony