I think you probably have a Seagate ST-225 20mb hard disk. Geometry is
620cyl, 4 heads, 17 sectors per track.
It sounds like you have trouble with the drive or controller. The 'Rom
Basic not found' message is in place in most PC roms because clones don't
ship with basic in rom any more. The original PC would, if a way to boot
was not found, drop into rom basic just like many other early home
computers like the Atari and Commodore.
Even though the Basic roms are not there, I think the Bios manufacturer
had to keep the vector alive for compatability reasons.
You might try low-leveling that older hard disk. Older Seagates are
nearly bulletproof. A low-level format might help rejuvinate it.
In <5.0.0.25.2.20001017131728.0248ba00_at_binhost.com>, on 10/17/00
at 06:56 PM, Tarsi <tarsi_at_binhost.com> said:
>>The AT&T only supported certain geometries in their bios (they disabled
>>the hard disk controller's bios rom in most machines).
>>
>>Some of us who retrofitted the hard disks had to upgrade the ROM's to
>>the 1.43.
>Ok, all this talk of hard disks on the ATT, I have a question, perhaps
>someone has some insight:
>When I boot my AT&T 6300, most of the time it finds the hard disk but
>then returns a "ROM BASIC not found: Press Reset to restart." or
>something similar. About one time in 10 does it actually find the hard
>drive. When it does, it boots merrily from it.
>What's up? Bad HD? How would I find the geometry of the disk (if I
>wanted to reformat it) if it doesn't say it somewhere? It is, if I
>remember right (I'm at work, have to look when I get home) an STS-232
>drive.
>Tarsi
>210
--
-----------------------------------------------------------
Jeffrey S. Worley
President
Complete Computer Services, Inc.
30 Greenwood Rd.
Asheville, NC 28803
828-277-5959
THETechnoid_at_home.com
-----------------------------------------------------------
Received on Tue Oct 17 2000 - 17:56:32 BST