Urgent need, HDD can not detected

[zunezune]

Hi all,
I am working with an old device that connected to very old PC to show results of measurement.
15+ year old PC has 52 MB HDD and 1MB memory, using DOS 4.x, 2 floppy disks: 5" (do not know 512kB or 1,2Mb) and 3" (1.44MB)
Today, when i turned on PC, message appeared saying that : "system memory mismatch, run setup". I think that the battery of CMOS run out so all data stored in CMOS lost.
I tried with different HDD options that available in setup program without success.
Finally, i found the way to enter parameters manually (cylinder, head, land-zone and so on). This time, the message appeared: "parity error but segment not found"
My questions are:
1. What happened with HDD? The last time i worked with this PC was 6 month before. Is there any problem with HDD if i chose the wrong parameters at the beginning?
2. How to setup this PC from floppy disks A or B. I can not find where to set floppy disks as boot drive.
3. Can I bring this HDD into other PC to copy program, data in this HDD? I have in hand only PC dated back 1999. I am afraid that those can not detect the old HDD.
Please help me. If i can fix it until Monday, it would be disaster.
Thank you,

 

[Tmagic650]

Is it possible to replace the CMOS battery? Some of the ancient systems used a 5 volt type battery. What the heck is this dinosaur used for?

 

[zunezune]

thanks anyway. this pc use for retrieving data from old device. it was here long before i came. So, there is no manual accompanying with it, except 3 DOS floppy disks.
CMOS battery is working now. It is just running out because we did not use it for so long.
My concern is HDD. Can it be damaged? How can I startup with A or B disks?

cheers,

 

[Tmagic650]

thanks anyway. this pc use for retrieving data from old device. it was here long before i came. So, there is no manual accompanying with it, except 3 DOS floppy disks.
CMOS battery is working now. It is just running out because we did not use it for so long.
My concern is HDD. Can it be damaged? How can I startup with A or B disks?

cheers,

Of course the hard drive can be bad. They haven't made Mega Byte hard drives for many, many years. If this system has DOS only, you can use a DOS boot floppy. What Operating System is on it? Windows 3.1, DOS, Win95?

 

[zunezune]

OS system is DOS 4.x (4.1?). I tried to put 5" floppy disk labeled DOS 4.x disk 1 on drive A, but nothing has happened.
How can i create a DOS boot floppy disk using 5" or 3" floppy disks. Something like coming back middle age.

Cheers