Comments on: Installing Compaq or Regular MS-DOS 6.22

By: Retropaq

Retropaq — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 14:22:39 +0000

Sounds like you might have a PSU issue or a short somewhere – the gotek draws much much less power than a traditional floppy drive, I’m surprised it’s blowing fuses. Did you maybe connect it in backwards? I would try to identify the cause of the blown fuse instead of just replacing it. Maybe disassemble and check the power lines on the board with a meter, and check your PSU is outputting the correct 5V & 12 V rails. For fuse replacements you can use any fuse with the same amp rating, you don’t need any particular brand. 5A indicates 5 Amps fuse.

By: Bryant Poston

Bryant Poston — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 11:20:43 +0000

well, I found workable diagnostic disks on archive.org and was using a GoTek as a floppy. My latest issue I figured out last night. It seems the F1 and F2 fuses are not resetting and so not enough power is getting to the drive bay. I tested this successfully by temporarily bypassing F2 which immediately caused the floppy to start working. My question would be, where would I source those parts? All I see are Bel and 5A.

By: Retropaq

Retropaq — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 04:14:06 +0000

In reply to Bryant. Hi Bryant - what kind of help do you need, I'll try my best!

By: Bryant

Bryant — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 00:09:26 +0000

Great write up! Just got my Compaq Portable 3 up and running aside from needing the diagnostic/boot disks. If anyone can help me out it would be greatly appreciated

By: Gyula Masa

Gyula Masa — Wed, 04 Aug 2021 22:32:22 +0000

Hi There!

I recently bought a Compaq series 3800 dektop, without system HDD.
It has a Pentium MMX CPU.
If I want to boot up, it asks for “compaq user diagnostic diskette”.
Do you have this disk image available or can you advise me, where can I find it?
Thank you very much in advance!