Commodore.ca: The PET, VIC, 128, 64 & More Forum

I own a Commodore PC 40-III computer and a few months ago when you would
start it up, it would display this:

-- Battery failure

Onboard Com at 03F8
Onboard Lpt at 03BC

Press <Ctl-Alt-Esc> to run SETUP or press F1 key to continue

If you press F1, it says: "Boot failure, check disk and hit any key to try
again". If you press another key, it repeats the same message.

If you press <Ctl-Alt-Esc>, the heading says "COMMODORE SETUP UTILITY" and
there is options that you can change for: Diskette 0, Diskette 1, Hard Disk
0, Hard Disk 1, Video, Coprocessor.
Then it says that the Base Memory is 513 KB and the Extended Memory is 64
KB.

This is as far as I can go. I haven't changed anything that would have
caused this to happen. Any help or info would be appreciated! Thanks in
advance!

I can tell you what is wrong but I do not know the settings to correct the situation.

There is a small battery in your computer which has failed and as such the computer has lost its hard drive settings. In modern computers the battery is just a large watch battery but in older PC's it was usually slightly larger than a double "A". The older style were not as reliable or as easy to change as the watch style but Radio Shack (among other places) used to sell a battery conversion kit for just a few dollars.

If you don’t want to set the hard drive settings every time you power up, you will need to resolve the battery problem.

The bigger issue is that I do not know your hard drive settings. They were sometimes written on a sticker on top of the hard drive but the older the machine the less likely that is the case.

If you are not comfortable entering the settings yourself, just take the PC to your local mom & pop computer store and they can do it for you in a few minutes.

This problem happens to everyone with an older PC and so someone out there should know the settings for your PC.

DOES ANYONE KNOW THE SETTINGS FOR THIS HARD DRIVE?

I have the same type of computer with the same type of problem.
When I enter SETUP, I get a list of 46xodd Hard Drive types. My hard drive happens to be #30 - a 41 MB hard drive with 782 -Cyl's etc.. YOURS MAY WELL BE DIFFERENT! You will have to read the appropriate figures off the case....or maybe "Google" the Hard drive type & model. (NB: if you do have to remove the HDrive to read the figures on the case, BE SURE YOU WEAR AN ANTISTATIC STRAP!
Other SETUP figures for MY machine: Default System Speed : 12MHz/6MHZ I/O Disabled/onboard COM 2F8H/onboard LPT 278H/Hard Disk #1: #30/Video: MONO/Co-Processor: NONE/Base Memory: 640KB/Extended Memory: 364KB
"If you don’t want to set the hard drive settings every time you power up, you will need to resolve the battery problem." - Aministrator's Reply...
...Unfortunately When I updated the SETUP, the machine beeped & re-reported the flat battery, without storing the newly entered figures.
Whilst hunting around for more info. I happened across a site that said that "Radio-Shack" (USA) used to supply modern replacement batteries...unknown if they still do?
I hope that this post has been of some help? - God Bless You in your endeavours - B.

administrator wrote:... DOES ANYONE KNOW THE SETTINGS FOR THIS HARD DRIVE?

By default, in this Commodore, this is a "TYPE 17", and often an Western Digital (40 Mb)

I have the same pb... the PC don't want to boot, and dont memorize the HD...

Hi Alan, Hi forum members

First I want to thank you for taking the time and replying to my quest. Thank you

Your going to love this one,

I have not used this Commodore PC 40-III for 9/10 years, had this unit stored in my garage and could not dispose of it because of old files and Dos programs that are important to me and remained on it's hard drive.

So about two weeks ago I decided to fire it up and look into whatever was contianed on it's hard drive, well I was not so lucky as the speaker emmited those dreadful unwanted beeps. Yup the cmos lost it's settings, and I quikly realised the memory I had of these settings in my brain was gone as well..

I was lucky in finding your e-mail address on the internet while atempting to find the information that I needed in order to boot this system back to life. However the information on the page image you sent me did not do the trick, but it was dam close to what I needed to know. and YOU really gave me the push and determination not to give up, so after many, and I mean many atempts of setting and re- booting, I went back on the internet and found 3 old posts on this forum board viewtopic.php?t=26&highlight=40iiion that gave me a few other choices.

Tried all the mentioned settings from with in these three posts and ONE DID RING MY BELL, the one that mentions the default setting of ( #17 in the hard disk type information setup menu ) which has 1 to 46 types of settings and believe me I tried all those that were for a 40 meg hard drive numerous times, anyway so off I went to do that setting once again.
Bummer, still a no go, with the same error messages, somtimes 1780 Disk 0 Failure, somtimes error 1782 Disk Controller Failure. So I just left my last settings #17 in cmos and shut the computer off.

A few mininuts later as I sat stiring into the open case I gave the hard drive two non violent taps with my screw driver handle, snapped the ON switch and BINGO thier was the spin up sound I had'nt realized was missing all along, bang right into the C:\ prompt with no problem. Now ain't that a kick in the head. I now have my old system back running like a charm just as the day I put it to rest.

So there you go Alan, a happy ending for sure thanks to you for your information which really gave me the determination not to give up. And thanks to viewtopic.php?t=26&highlight=40iii and the contents of the posts with the same and similar problems that was left their many months ago.

I always wondered why someone kicked the automblies tires ?

Regards to all

Mario - AKA Cheech