Compaq New Installs to Novell

[Nathan]

We've working on some PIII p450+/6.4/W5 Deskpro right now. Did you know before you run the setup program for the first time, that it won't boot to a startup disk even when the boot up order is set to A: drive first? We are cloning hard drives for a Novell setup and would like to bypass Compaq's setup program for time's sake. The only way we were able to format the hard drive is it put that new hard drive in another Compaq computer that had the hard drive setup in it already. Then when we put that drive back into the other computer and it boots fine to a C prompt.

You know of any way around this? We've tried different boot disks, including Compaqs. The only way to a c: prompt is F8 and press the shift F5. When we try to format from the c prompt after pressing the F8 & shift F5, we can't because there is no format command on c yet because windows isn't installed. We tired running format from a bootable floppy and it gives us a incorrect DOS version error. Fdisk the same thing. The command com is 92K on the new Compaq pre-install. The version of the boot disk is from a 95B machine. We also tired creating a boot disk from pure DOS Mode with no success.

Any ideas? We have another 60 of these to do next month.

Thanks any input.

[Steve R Jones]

Compaq has a real decent forum like this one. Most responses come from their tech dept.

[Nathan]

Thanks Steve. I found it at Compaqs site. Is that the one you are talking about? Hopefully they will answer.

I really appreciate the help!!!

[Nathan]

According to Compaq, all you have to do is unplug the cord from the case and remove the clear CMOS jumper for at least a minute. It will then boot to the floppy drive.

Just thought some of you might want to know. Thanks for your input.