no post on (old) compaq pc

[Quantos]

You need the battery to tell the CMOS what hardware you have that's special.  It probably won't run without it unless the default is to autodetect everything.

[BC_Programmer]

it'll work, but it'll always use the defaults. And you'll be thrown back to the pre-CMOS time of the PC and XT and need to tell it what time it is every time you power on.

[Quantos]

it'll work, but it'll always use the defaults. And you'll be thrown back to the pre-CMOS time of the PC and XT and need to tell it what time it is every time you power on.

With a system this old it may not autodetect any drives, if they have to be placed manually then it probably won't boot.

[BC_Programmer]

my 386 autodetected IDE drives...

[smeezekitty]

95 is working fine (for now)
i dont remember such good graphics (800x600 65536 colors)
----edit---
i am pretty sure it autodetects
because after removing battery i dont have to reset bios settings
the hdd and flopy acess fine

[Quantos]

This one might or might not.  I've seen the odd 486 that wouldn't do auto detect.

[BC_Programmer]

This one might or might not.  I've seen the odd 486 that wouldn't do auto detect.

true. Mostly crap BIOS's too. And my 386 was some high-end server thing.

[smeezekitty]

i dont understand this
it sayss the filesystem is FAT32
but 95 does not support FAT32 i thought 98+ was fat32 and 95 was fat16
how can win 95 acess fat32 ?
is it safe to run without battery? no damage?

[Quantos]

I'd have to look up the fat's, but it is safe to run without the battery, I just won't guarantee that it will boot without it.

[smeezekitty]

it booted without battery
you are really helpful Quantos

[Quantos]

Thank you, I appreciate the confidence.

Did it boot fast or slow?

[smeezekitty]

a nice long 25 second post

[Quantos]

I don't understand if your being sarcastic or not, is that long or short for you?

[smeezekitty]

very long:
normal post is 12 sec or less

[Quantos]

Did you have the HDD connected for that post?