Agilent 54382B Infiniium Oscilloscope Dead HDD Recovery - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / repair

author: electronic_guy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2023, 07:15:34 am
content: Hi,I got an Agilent 54832B 1GHz oscilloscope without HDD detected. The equipment seems to be still not opened, warranty void sticker is still there. The CD drive and Floppy drive is present. I think this one is an old one without the VIN number. I also have a CD named as Recovery CD. But there is no floppy disk required for booting. What are the chances of recovering an equipment like this ? See the pictures.I have come across some files required for the recovery on another website(see the picture). The guide wants me to put the bootable floppy first to boot it from that and then use the recovery CD to reinstall the OS. Would this work or will I need to send it to a calibration center afterwards to get the correct calibration ? I understand that there are 4 ASICs that might be even not working on the acquisition board. I just need to know if I have all the required stuff to get started to reinstall the OS on HDD and see if I can move forward from there.Thank you.

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2023, 07:31:33 am
content: I'd think the recovery CD is useless in your situation because HDD is identified by the BIOS. I think what you need to do first thing is open the case and replace the CMOS battery, the message you are getting on the boot screen typically means the CMOS backup battery is dead. Replace the battery and go from there.Edit: after replacing the battery press DEL at boot time to enter motherboard Setup and look for HDD settings and if the BIOS has detected the HDD. On some computers of the era there was a setting to trigger HDD detection manually.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2023, 09:52:20 am
content: Quote from: Bud on December 26, 2023, 07:31:33 amIt's lost its config (loaded CMOS Defaults) but it detects the LS120 on Primary IDE Slave position and the CD drive on the secondary IDE Master so that would indicate the BIOS has defaulted to Auto Detect IDE devices.That would suggest here's a hardware problem, I.E. a knackered HDD or some cabling issue.

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2023, 04:08:24 pm
content: It lost its config because the internal battery is dead. There is no way around operating the device properly, OP must change the battery first. Then some things may magically fix themselves - been there, seen that.

author: electronic_guy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2023, 05:25:50 pm
content: Quote from: Bud on December 26, 2023, 04:08:24 pmDo you mean that dead CMOS battery could be the cause for the BIOS not to detect the HDD when booting ? If CMOS battery replaced with new one, this error will be solved ?

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2023, 07:34:48 pm
content: Well this is gonna be fun.

author: Tony_G
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 27, 2023, 05:58:11 am
content: Once you have the CMOS battery and the BIOS settings worked out, you can grab the upgrade files as discussed in this thread and this message.Unfortunately, I don't have one of these scopes so I can't help more, Sorry.TonyGQuote from: BoscoLab on December 03, 2023, 12:31:05 pm

author: humgar
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 22, 2024, 10:12:57 am
content: If you have the hard drive cable hooked up correctly, chances are your mechanical hard drive is dead if it's not detecting in the BIOS. 54830's CMOS default still autodetects hard drives, so you should see it detected in Primary Master. Consider looking for a replacement drive (say on eBay), preferably a SSD. If you find me there, I might help you narrow it down a little bit

author: Warhawk
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 22, 2024, 10:29:05 am
content: Weeks ago I had a problem with similar Agilent scope not booting. The problem was the low CMOS battery. It was somehow OK, but some settings did not store properly. The Dallas RTC chip is in the socket. It was a fix for an hour or so. You need to open the scope, of course.Warranty sticker (if this matters to you) is something that you can peel off with the heatgun (I use like 100 degC hot air settings).Good luck.

author: coromonadalix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 22, 2024, 12:36:13 pm
content: yep as the 1st pictures no hdd is detected, you have to be sure if the drive as jumpers on it if its in master / slave mode or cable selectother device on the same cable must fit too ...bios settings to check in the hdd section like hdd detection etc ...you have nothing to boot on or install an Os ...

author: Gerhard_dk4xp
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 22, 2024, 03:54:48 pm
content: The error message on the screen is absolutely clear that the CMOS RAMbattery is empty. It is common that CMOS ram and battery are togetherin one oversized DIL package.The CMOS ram stores the date, number and parameters of the disks etc.You can probably experiment with the settings, but when you switch offthe scope, everything is lost.As I wrote last week in a neighbor thread, I was able to boot a KnoppixLinux repair CD/DVD on my 54846B that has quite good diagnostics.You could also remove the disk from the scope and use an externalUSB hard drive box to copy the contents.It is not probable that your scope has died from 2 faults at the same time,so I would assume that the disk itself is still ok.regards, Gerhard

author: humgar
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 22, 2024, 09:50:14 pm
content: I think that'd be the first batches of the first gen Infiniiums (5481X, 5482X, 5484X and 54835A) that are HP branded with the long ancient AMI motherboards. Most motherboards do not disable Primary Master when the CMOS is cleared, I think it's just the Atlas-PCIs used on Infiniium who had this weird design choice.

author: humgar
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 22, 2024, 09:57:08 pm
content: That's a different generation of Infiniium you are talking about. He has a 54830 series (just look at the back of the pictures, it's an mATX motherboard instead of a BabyAT motherboard) and the CMOS battery is just a coin cell you can replace, not the battery-backed NVRAM chip.You can also see in the POST screen that the motherboard attempted to detect the primary master and found nothing, so despite the CMOS battery needs to be replaced, it's not the problem itself. He could F1 past it and still boots if the hard drive were connected properly and working.

author: bostonman
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 23, 2024, 08:13:34 pm
content: If I'm reading things correctly, have you checked whether the hard drive is set for master/slave?I have the 54831M and spent nearly a year repairing it (and thanks to the help of many on here, got it to work along with upgrading to XP).Mine had booting issues in the beginning and it resulted in a bad hard drive.You're correct, the unit has x4 Agilent chips. If any one or more are bad, you can't calibrate the unit (it aborts calibration when it gets to that channel). The chips no longer exist unless you buy used ones from China on eBay - I had to replace two and got lucky because they seem to work.The first obstacle is to get the unit booted. Get a known good hard drive, or USB, create a bootable drive, and load from it. At that point you'll know if the motherboard is good.Keep in mind, you have a PC in front of you, not an oscilloscope. This was how I approached the initial issues with my scope. Afterwards, I then accepted that I had an oscilloscope when the computer booted.